Date: 2009-05-18
Speaker: DANIEL E. LUNGREN (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Cali

fornia. Madam Speaker. I rise today to make a comment on the appearance yesterday at my alma mater. the University of Notre Dame. by President Barack Obama. As I said. I am a graduate of the university. My dad is a graduate of the university. My two brothers are graduates of the university. My son is a graduate of the university. I have three nieces who have graduated from the university. It is always an honor when the President of the United States addresses your university. particularly when he gives its commencement address. I have known the former president of the University of Notre Dame. Father Hesburgh. for almost my entire life. having met him when I was about 6 years old. and consider him a friend to this day. His record ona civil rights is unparalleled -in this country. and he is one of the great leaders of the civil rights movement. Now in his nineties. I am sure it was with genuine joy that we saw tears in his eyes as the President of the United States addressed the University of N6tre Dame yesterday. However. Madam Speaker. I must register my concern about the Presidents address yesterday. and it is because the President has. through his actions and his statements. made very clear his position on a fundamental issue to this Nation. to the question of ethics and morality and public policy. And it is an issue that has generated much controversy. but goes to the essence of the Catholic Churchs teaching on the value of life. The church teaches that there are a number of moral principles upon which there can be serious discussion and disagreement: areas such as a just war. areas about social welfare policy. areas in which -the Commandments of our Lord must guide us. but the manner in which those are applied can differ. Those moral judgments are called prudential judgments where we are called upon to use our prudence to come to the conclusions as to our proper actions. both individually and as a society. But there are a few. and very few. principles upon which there is not prudential judgment.but upon which there is specific moral guidance. and protection of innocent life is among them. The question of whether one is ever able to take the innocent life of another intentionally lies at the root of not only Catholic doctrine. but lies at the root of the JudeoChristian tradition which has given voice to the Constitution where it says we have theright to life. liberty and the pursuit of happiness. with life being the first of those three. So the question was when the President appeared at the University of Notre Dame. was he engaging in a dialogue in which there was an exchange of ideas of substance. or was it an episode in which there would be moral confusion afterwards in which the question of the taking of innocent life was just a prudential judgment type of issue which was the same as many other issues that we can debate and disagree on about whether we should go to war. how we should conduct war. how much money we should pay for welfare programs. what the level of education is. and so forth. And thats the question that bothers me. I guess the question I could -ask would be whether this a~ministration at the University of Notre -Dame would have asked Stephen Douglas orAbraham Lincoln to deliver the commencement address following the great debate that took place between those two some 150 years ago. Because one was successful. that is Stephen Douglas. he was elected. he was considered a great man in many different ways. a great statesman. and the other was Abraham Lincoln who had failed in several attempts at election. And the one said that slavery was one of those things upon which you could not essentially disagree when you really looked at the question of whether one man could own another man. And while he was unsuccessful in that. he carried the moral argument of the day. and the suggestion here is: Was there any dialogue and would the suggestion be that all We have to do is reason together and use better words rather than essentially go to the substance of the issue. 0 Printed on recycled paper.