It seems like there is a bit of misinformation floating around this thread that I’d like to try to clear up…
Without Alan Keyes and Randall Terry nobody would have paid any attention to this event. With their efforts to raise visibility, thousands of people from across America came to protest. Without the “non-official” protest, the event would have passed in media-obscurity.
This is patently false. Have you heard of
ND Response? Did you see students from this group being interviewed on FoxNews, among other stations, multiple times in the weeks leading up to graduation? ND Response organized a MUCH LARGER, official, on-campus protest than Keyes and Terry did, and additionally helped to coordinate travel efforts for many groups who came to South Bend to participate.
There is no reason to arrest and press charges against peaceful Catholics assembling on a so-called Catholic university.
If they were part of the official, permitted protest that falls within University guidelines for what is acceptable on its
private property, then of course there’s not. But really, as someone who participated in the ND Response activities and Prayer Vigil during Commencement at the Grotto, it really was clear to me that the University bent over backwards to accomodate ND Response’s peaceful protest. No one gave us any trouble!
Why a “peaceful pro-life protester” would feel the need to venture off and trespass in other areas of campus when this great outlet was there is beyond me…
. What could be more important and more urgent than celebrating the Mass and praying the Rosary for the conversion of the President?
That said, I do think that the University should consider dropping the charges as a sort of olive branch gesture so that we can all move on from this whole unfortunate incident.
The “official protest” itself was an attempt to thumb noses as the university. Bishop D’Arcy refused to attend on that very basis.
Again, this is false. Bishop D’Arcy fully supported ND Response’s official protest and said so on multiple occasions. He also participated in many of ND Response’s events, from Eucharistic Adoration on Saturday evening to the Rally for Life on Sunday, where he made an unexpected appearance and speech. Check out the ND Response website and multiple news accounts for more information about Bishop D’Arcy’s actions with ND Response. The students acted with full support of their local bishop.
Two wrongs do not make a right, but in this case – there was no other way to get attention to this serious problem and rally support as much as it did, other than by civil disobedience. The sad part is, our religious leaders should be fully aware of that – and here, I am talking about the 90 or so bishops who publicly opposed Obama’s award at ND.
Not true at all! The sad fact of the matter is that all of these ‘illegal’ protests that resulted in arrests
distracted from the great good that was happening at the official, peaceful, on-campus demonstration–to the point that not many of those outside of Notre Dame are even aware that this prayerful witness took place! Our bishops should be aware of all of the students and faculty and thousands who gathered on May 17th to bear prayerful witness against the honoring of President Obama; they should know that at least 25 graduates skipped their own Commencement to instead pray the Rosary at the Grotto out of gratitude for the great education they have received at Notre Dame; they should hear the fantastic speeches offered by several people intimately familiar with Notre Dame at the Sunday Rally–and they should see all of these as
signs of great hope for Our Lady’s University!
They are being charged with trespassing, since they protested at times and in areas that were not among the demonstrations which had obtained permits.
The university has legal cause to press charges, but I hope that the St. Thomas More Society is able to convince them against it. The damage is done, it’s time to heal.
Exactly, Havard. Notre Dame, as a private university, is on private property, and it has a well-known prohibition against on-campus protests not organized by students and which have not received the proper permits. Keyes and Terry
knew about this prohibition and used it to their advantage. They set out to get arrested, multiple times, because they felt that this was the most effective form of protest. In the end, I don’t believe that it was, and that prayerful witness
always wins out, whether it is more noticed by the media or not.
No, Notre Dame wants to rub it in the noses of those Catholics who opposed their feting of the Lord Obama.
If they did, then they wouldn’t have allowed thousands of these Catholics to gather on campus while Commencement was going on.
I didn’t see anything in the article that made reference to destruction of property, only disobedience of their rules.
