Give a Shout Out If You're an Embarrassment to the Church!

The controversy surrounding the appearance of President Obama at the University of Notre Dame's commencement ceremonies reverberated through at least one local Catholic graduation yesterday, with the president of Trinity Washington University denouncing the "religious vigilantism" of those who opposed Obama's visit and calling their protests "an embarrassment to all Catholics."

Speaking on Trinity's campus in Northeast Washington, [Patricia] McGuire said that "a half-century of progress for Catholic higher education is at risk of slipping back into those insular, parochial pre-Vatican II days" when academic freedom was not valued within the Catholic Church.

The real scandal at Notre Dame today is not that the president of the United States is speaking at commencement," McGuire said. "The real scandal is the misappropriation of sacred teachings for political ends. The real scandal is the spectacle of ostensibly Catholic mobs camping out at Notre Dame for the specific purpose of disrupting the commencement address of the nation's first African American president. This ugly spectacle is an embarrassment to all Catholics. The face that Catholicism shows to our new president should be one marked with the sign of peace, not distorted in the snarl of hatred."

I have to clean the keyboard at my desk now, as I just passed my Subway sandwhich through my nose at her comment, "The real scandal is the misappropriation of sacred teachings for politcal ends." Now, that's funneh!! What the hell did she think Jenkins and Obama were doing?

I am such an embarrassment. And proud to be such. Raise your hand if you are a fellow embarrassment.

"Religious vigilantism?" I think it's time to start living up to the title of "Church Militant" . . .