Houston, Texas, Mar 28, 2009 / 14:46 pm
Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, the Archbishop of Galveston-Houston, on Friday became the first American cardinal to publicly criticize the University of Notre Dame for inviting President Barack Obama to be this year's commencement speaker and to award him with an honorary law degree.
In his weekly "A Shepherd's Message" in the Texas Catholic Herald, Cardinal DiNardo expresses his disappointment with Notre Dame's decision.
Cardinal DiNardo begins his column by commenting on Pope Benedict's recent letter explaining his decision to lift the excommunications of the four bishops ordained by the schismatic Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. Praising the Pope's call for internal peace in the Church, the Cardinal says that "vigorous and heartfelt discussion, even debate, needs to be placed in the arms of charity for effectiveness."
"In light of what I wrote above," the cardinal says in the final part of his column, "I want to venture a comment on the recently released statement of the University of Notre Dame; that statement noted that the President has accepted an invitation to give the Commencement Address this year as well as receive an Honorary Law Degree."