If the death penalty were to kill 50,000,000 innocent people in the span of 35 years, then I am sure it would be protested with the same vigor abortion is being protested today. Furthermore, we must remember that WE ARE the church. If you feel called to protest the death penalty then maybe you can help bring about a greater awareness, hold prayer vigils, etc.

We, the lay faithful, have just as much responsibility to promote the Gospel as any priest, bishop or clergy. Clergy is not the same as our elected representatives who are supposed to be in the public arena, fighting battles for us. The lay faithful is properly in the public arena and we are the ones responsible for making sure our Christian beliefs help shape public policy.

Lamenting whether or not the bishops called us to political responsibility in a timely fashion is not going to do us any good. The most recent call came in 2007 with the USCCB's publication No. 7-026, "Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship." It is time we heed the call.

I don't think I'm viewing this through the lens of moral relativism, I'm just commenting on the irony of this not being an issue before now. Nobody complained when Carter was given an honorary degree. I was in college then, and remember my Newman Center group wanting to hold campus candlelight rallies on the anniversary of Roe v Wade and inviting the other campus religious groups to join us. We were rebuffed because at that time, abortion was considered strictly a "Catholic issue" and the mainstream protestants and evangelicals weren't really involved then (at least where I was living). So the Catholic Church really blew a chance to call attention to the importance of this issue thirty years ago when Notre Dame honored our first openly "Christian" and openly pro-choice president. And I respectfully disagree that the death penalty is less important than abortion. We cannot be pro-life in some instances and not all others. I would like to see the Church decrying the death penalty a little more, in addition to oppositon to abortion. Especially now, that we know through DNA analysis that many innocent people sit on death row.

Samra, when you view things through the lens of moral relativism, then yes, abortion is just one more issue, and there is no big deal about Obama being honored by Notre Dame.

But the truth is not all issues are equal. Some are a lot more serious. The issue of abortion is very serious.

Maybe Catholics have been quiet before, but when a giant proponent of abortion, such as Obama, is being honored by a Catholic university, they are justified in voicing their outrage. In voicing their objections they are fulfilling their duties as faithful citizens.

BEA--Thanks for your thoughtful response. I agree, two wrongs don't make a right, I was just making the observation that nobody objected in the other cases, so why suddenly is this one case so dramatically important? Are people paying more attention? Possibly, because we have so many more mass communications options available today, but that doesn't explain the lack of nearly universal condemnation by the bishops in the earlier cases. Or are people so focused on ONE issue that they forget there are many other issues to consider when selecting candidates. And because both political parties are committed to principles that are in direct contrast to Christian teaching, how are we to choose? It's a definite dilemma.

As for your question on being opinionated--I think God made us all with the capacity to develop opinions, just some of us are more willing to go out on a limb and express them. There is an interesting work by Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann called The Spiral of Silence. I read her early work when it came out in the 80s (when I was in graduate school) and she's developed it further since then. Basically, though, she hypothesizes that people are less likely to express an opinion if they sense they are in the minority, out of fear of isolation and recriminations by the majority. It's a very interesting communications and political science theory, somewhat controversial at the time, but may help explain why some people appear to be more opinionated than others, and why they may be more comfortable speaking out on certain issues and stay silent on others. Her latest work came out in the 1990s--it would be interesting to see what further research would show in the age of relative anonymity in Web 2.0 formats!

Thanks for asking about my scripture study. I'm trying to work on that informally and independently now, and will join one of the groups at St. Marks when they start up again in the fall. It's a challenge fitting in the time every day, but it's also a nice respite from all the worldly duties I'm juggling right now, and helps keep things in the proper perspective.

This is the kind of discussion I really hate to get into online, but I guess I'm having a little trouble understanding what the deal is here. Perhaps we all need to be reminded of history. Jimmy Carter was decidedly pro-choice and he was awarded an honorary degree by Notre Dame in 1977, and nobody made a peep about it. President Reagan and both Presidents Bush were pro death-penalty--another position contrary to Catholic teaching--and they were awarded honorary degrees by Notre Dame, without complaint. So why is everybody suddenly up in arms over Obama's getting an honorary degree? And if you look at the list of distinguished world figures who have been honored by Notre Dame over the decades, I don't think every one of them adhered strictly to Catholic teachings, so why now is this one honoree being singled out?

I think what this discussion really emphasizes is how difficult it is as a Catholic to decide how to vote when elections occur.

Fr. Tim, you bring up an interesting point - “For many years after the Second Vatican Council, the churches tended to be very plain and emphasized the community, hence their rounded shape.” Wasn’t this a direct result of the 1978 “Environment & Art in Catholic Worship”, which was never adopted by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops nor approved by the Vatican, rather then the emphasis on community? Parishes were led to believe in the authoritative nature of this document which stripped away many of our sacramental, liturgical and cultural traditions. We need a Church design that incorporates a sense of sacred space again, a place to escape from this secular ungodly world. It’s Jesus presence in the Eucharist that we going to Mass for, not community, correct?

Thanks for your clarification, Fr. Tim. And I don't envy your position, or that of the building committee as we move ahead with planning of any kind. As Bill Cosby once said, "I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody."

I do think a happy medium can be reached on decor--for example, when I say "traditional" design, I'm thinking more in terms of shape of the liturgical space. Whether or not it's ornate or simple in design doesn't matter, to me at least, as long as it is recognizable as a sanctuary. I'm guessing that most folks who want a traditional design would go for that.

And I agree, after Vatican II, some parishes took modernization too far. My hometown church even covered up ornate, historical decorations from the 1880's with modern 1960's era wood paneling. Fortunately, new leadership later saw the error of this, and the church was restored, minus the altar railing.

At this point in time I think it's worth discussing all this stuff, but truth is, when we get to the point of designing and funding a church, the community may have evolved and the consensus might lead in another direction from what was learned in the survey conducted several years ago. The important thing is we have a place to worship and a community to which we can feel a part of, and I think we have that now.

I shouldn't totally evade the issue of church design even if we are not planning this right now.

As the Second Vatican Council taught, the church does not have one artistic style. There have been many artistic styles in church design, church art and music. Nothing fully and finally captures spiritual beauty (if that is what we are capturing.) For many years after the Second Vatican Council, the churches tended to be very plain and emphasized the community, hence their rounded shape. There has been a reaction to that, a desire to bring back more devotional elements with statues and more ornate decorations. Quite frankly, plain, as I prefer, is out. Will the pendulum swing again? If it is a pendulum, it will but perhaps not as far in the other direction. Time will tell.

Just to clear something up... We are not planning to build a church at this moment and do not intend to design a church. The building committee has met with George Jezek of Wallace and Associates and we are initially doing a master plan for Crawford Rd. and designing the basic buildings needed for a parish, offices, education building and a gathering hall. A church will be designed and built later. So, there is no baby to throw out with the bathwater since we won't have a tub for a while. (I hope that is not a confusing metaphor or simile or whatever.)