Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich echoed Vatican officials and U.S. Catholic leaders Sunday in questioning why the University of Notre Dame plans to give an honorary degree to Barack Obama, who supports abortion in nearly every instance.
Gingrich, a recent convert to Catholicism, said on "Fox News Sunday" that the university is compromising its Catholic values for its students and facultiies.
"To the degree that Notre Dame still thinks of itself as a Catholic institution, it raises real questions," Gingrich said. "I think the president's position has been the most radical, pro-abortion of any American president, so I think there is a legitimate question there."
But Gingrich quickly added: "I'm a new convert. I'll let the Vatican speak for the church. I'm just speaking for Newt Gingrich."
Gingrich is only the latest Catholic who has criticized the appearance of Obama at Notre Dame. Protests have been growing at the school, and last week Archbishop Raymond Burke, the prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, the Vatican's highest court, said honoring a man who "who is so aggressively advancing an anti-life and anti-family agenda, is rightly the source of the greatest scandal."
Yet Notre Dame University President the Rev. John I. Jenkins has called Obama an "inspiring leader" who follows in a long tradition of presidential guest speakers. He says that the invitation does not mean universal support for Obama administration policies. A recent poll found that 70 percent of the university's student body supported the president's appearance at the school.
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