Gonzaga University, a Catholic school, has invited Desmond Tutu to give the commencement address next month to Gonzaga’s graduating class. It also plans to give him an honorary Doctor of Laws degree. But that doesn’t sit well with some graduates. They think he’s not good enough and not Catholic enough (the latter not all that surprising since he’s not a Catholic at all).
Patrick Kirby, a 1993 Gonzaga graduate, said Tutu is pro-abortion rights, has made offensive statements toward Jews and supports contraception and the ordination of gay clergy and shouldn’t be honored by a Catholic institution.
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“I don’t have any realistic expectations that they’ll do that (cancel Tutu’s invitation). The goal for me is to bring attention to it and hopefully remind administrators at Gonzaga about their Catholic identity and how far they’ve wandered away from it,” Kirby said.
He said Catholic institutions all across the U.S. are choosing popularity over morality by honoring and hiring people who do not represent Catholic values, which he said sends an unclear message to students.
Actually they’re choosing better morality over worse morality, or morality over authoritarian control-freakery. Catholic “values” are not identical to morality, and often they’re its opposite. (Trying to prevent people from using contraception, for instance – that’s staggeringly immoral.)
I suppose we should rejoice. They’ll do themselves in if they go on this way; no bums on the seats, no coin in the plate, no more bubble car.