Additionally, Mr Carrington is a bit obtuse, to say the least, and probably one of the last people, right up there with Chris Hitchens, whom I’d consult about what is Catholic and what is anti-Catholic.

The solution is for the relevant bishop to revoke the Catholic identity of a school that persists in non-Catholic behavior.

Speaking of ironies, some commenters here fault the Church with failing to in effect defer to Obama as a secular leader. Yet how many of you also fault Pius XII specifically for participating in diplomatic relations with that other secular leader, Adolph Hitler? It seems the Church can’t win with some people.

Inform yourself better about the nuances of Catholic theology and papal infallibility, and you’ll realize the irony is not so great as you think.

And this hints at the crux of this as I see it: yes Notre Dame is a serious university and yes it’s Catholic. But if it’s to take seriously its mission as a serious university, it can’t take its institutional cues about ideas, speakers, and even honorary degrees from the Catholic hierarchy. If it did it would become something more like Oral Roberts or somesuch–which would never invite a political figure who didn’t tow its institutional party line and which is not a serious university. So, yes Catholic and, yes, hetrodox, as any serious research institution must be.

This makes the school more dependent on lax Catholics and non-Catholics’ support.

This makes the school perform more dubious actions, which then prompt more Catholics to stop supporting it.

Anybody wishing to steal another Catholic university from the faithful who built it would simply have to instigate one or two large scandals to begin the negative feedback loop.

Granting its existence, how could this cycle be reversed? Among pro-life Catholics, “decline and fall” is the preferred narrative rather than “recovery after collapse.”

St Aquinas based his *opinion* on the very limited science of the time. His flawed understanding of human biology led him to judge early abortions as less evil than late-term abortions — but still gravely evil. St Aquinas was not a pope, and thus never taught infallibly on this or any other issue.

Here in the 21st century we know that the fetus is alive, human, distinct from the mother (though still dependent on her), and a complete organism (rather than part of a larger organism, as an arm or liver would be). This is basic biology, and would never be debated for the fetuses of non-human species.

Still, science can’t tell us if the fetus has a soul (if souls even exist), or is a Person (whatever that is), or is deserving of legal protection against attempts by its mother to kill it.

First, wasn’t it the opinion of the St Thomas Aquinas about the fetus that the human soul enters it after 3 months of pregnancy? If so, why the opposition of the church to the abortion even in the first 3 months? Do the priests of today know more or are more pious than the teacher of the church?

Second, would have you made the same vigorous objection if, say, president Bush had been invited and honored? Sure, he was anti abortion, but he was ok with killing hundreds of thousands of innocents at the whim of the Israel lobby and neocons. Sometimes impartiality is a virtue, you know!

“Rape is a personal, private, choice. It should be worked out between the two parties. Bringing the government into it really won’t do any good. Are we really ready to send young men and women to jail for sex?”

“As a Christian, slavery isn’t something that I would choose to engage in, but we ought to be governed by pragmatism on this issue. Freed slaves living among us would cause problems, and the issue would have horrible political repercussions. God calls us to be wise, and it’s wisest to do nothing, at least until the political climate changes.”