Rocco points this out from New Orleans:
… over the weekend Archbishop Alfred Hughes of New Orleans announced his withdrawl from next month’s commencement exercises at the Crescent City’s Xavier University over the school’s choice of veteran Democratic operative Donna Brazile as its commencement speaker.
A New Orleans native and prominent African-American Catholic, Brazile’s selection by the historically Black university founded by St Katharine Drexel had raised an outcry from conservative groups. In the statement announcing his boycott, the archbishop referred to Brazile as a “pro-abortion strategist.”
“I recognize that Ms. Brazile is a Catholic Louisiana native who has worked effectively in service to the poor and African Americans in particular,” Hughes wrote Xavier President Dr Norman Francis.
“However, her public statements on the abortion issue are not in keeping with Catholic moral teaching.”
As the local Times-Picayune pointed out, however, no protests ensued over the choice of Xavier’s 2006 commencement speaker: Barack Obama.
Inconsistency at best. To be fair, I think Archbishop Hughes who is a great man who helped the city immensely through the Katrina nightmare, at least had the good sense to praise her work in other venues. I wish this were at least done more often.
