Greetings! The following is our final report on commencement speakers and honorees for 2003. If you can spare the time to e-mail or call these college presidents, your help can have a big impact--if not this year, then next year when it's time to select a new speaker or honoree.

As always, please be courteous and respectful when contacting the college presidents. God bless!

=================== WEDNESDAY, MAY 7, 2003 =====================

FALLS CHURCH, VA (May 7, 2003) - In its annual survey of commencement speakers and honorees, Cardinal Newman Society--the national organization dedicated to strengthening Catholic identity in Catholic higher education--has identified 16 Catholic colleges that have invited inappropriate speakers and honorees and is applauding 14 colleges for their selections.

As evidence of the growing concern about commencement scandals, the American Life League has joined the protest of pro-abortion speakers as part of its "Crusade for the Defense of Our Catholic Church." Other pro-life and alumni groups are participating in local protests.

"We are pleased with most of this year's speakers," said Patrick Reilly, president of Cardinal Newman Society. "But it's shameful that 16 Catholic colleges and universities would invite scandal by honoring abortion-rights advocates and other inappropriate speakers and honorees. Certainly they realize that there are thousands of upstanding, admirable people out there who deserve these honors?"

Charles Millard, former chairman of the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, and the influential Catholic intellectual Rev. Richard John Neuhaus have joined with alumni to protest the College's selection of political commentator Christopher Matthews to give this year's commencement address and receive an honorary degree on May 23. Matthews has expressed his support for abortion rights on his MSNBC show and in newspaper columns. Alumni members of the Holy Cross Cardinal Newman Society and the Life Action League of Massachusetts are planning to protest the event.

Protesters will also greet pro-abortion Reps. Linda and Loretta Sanchez (D-CA) at Mount St. Mary College in Los Angeles, California on May 10. Groups involved in the protest include American Life League, Hispanics for Life and Monrovians Against Planned Parenthood.

Other inappropriate speakers highlighted by Cardinal Newman Society include:

· New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg at the College of Saint Rose in Albany, New York. An avowed advocate of abortion rights and contraception, Bloomberg was given the Champion of Choice Award this year by the New York chapter of NARAL. Last month Bloomberg signed a bill making free "morning-after pills" available in city health facilities. He has also ordered New York City's public hospitals to make abortion training mandatory for ob-gyn residents.

· New Jersey Superior Court Judge Reginald Stanton at Saint Peter's College in Jersey City, New Jersey. Stanton has reached far beyond his judicial obligations to publicly advocate abortion rights and assisted suicide by starvation. In 1991, he read a 15-page statement from the bench arguing that it would be "most unwise" and "unjust and morally wrong" to make abortion a crime. In 1986, Stanton forced a Catholic hospital to starve a woman to death according to her wishes. He called the hospital's policy against assisted suicide "coercive," arguing that "dying people must be treated with dignity, including the right to choose one's own treatment."

· Pro-abortion politicians including Vermont Gov. James Douglas at the College of Saint Joseph in Rutland, Vermont; former Massachusetts Gov. Paul Cellucci at Niagara University in Niagara Falls, New York; and Cleveland Mayor Jane Campbell at Notre Dame College in South Euclid, Ohio.

Details on speakers protested by Cardinal Newman Society are below.

Cardinal Newman Society also has identified colleges and universities particularly deserving of praise for their excellent speaker and honoree selections. They include:

· Several speakers and honorees are U.S. bishops, including Bishop Daniel Conlon and Bishop Donald Wuerl at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio; Archbishop Timothy Dolan at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton at Ohio Dominican University in Columbus, Ohio; and Bishop George Murry, S.J. at Saint Leo University in Florida. Cardinal Francis Stafford, President of the Pontifical Council for the Laity at the Vatican, will speak at Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, California.

Cardinal Avery Dulles, S.J. will be honored at Christendom College in Front Royal, Virginia; the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts; Saint Joseph's College in Rennselaer, Indiana; and Siena College in Loudonville, New York. At Cardinal Newman Society's national conference in 2001, Cardinal Dulles chided Catholic colleges for being "very apologetic, almost embarrassed, by their obligation to adhere to the faith of the Church" and called on them to "proudly reaffirm the essentials of their own tradition."

· Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS), a recent convert to the Catholic faith, will speak at Ave Maria School of Law in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

· Ralph McInerny, one of the world's foremost philosophers and a professor at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, will speak at the University of Saint Thomas in Houston, Texas.

· Michael Novak, distinguished Catholic theologian and author, spoke on May 2 at Ave Maria College in Ypsilanti, Michigan.

· Death-penalty opponent Sister Helen Prejean will speak at Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama.

· Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), who has unabashedly proclaimed his Catholic faith while serving as a leader in the U.S. Senate, will speak at Christendom College in Front Royal, Virginia, and Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia.

AQUINAS COLLEGE (Grand Rapids, MI): Civil rights activist Roger Wilkins will give the commencement address on May 10. Wilkins is a public advocate of abortion rights. In 1989, Wilkins joined 12 other civil rights leaders assembled by the Planned Parenthood Federation of America to chastise pro-life activists for using nonviolent forms of civil disobedience to demonstrate outside abortion clinics. Wilkins signed a statement claiming a "constitutional right to freedom of choice" and "access to contraception and the development of new contraceptive methods." In 1992, Wilkins served on NARAL's National Commission on America Without Roe and participated in a Washington, D.C. press conference presenting the commission's report. The commission recommended "goals and strategies for protecting reproductive choice in a nation without Roe [v. Wade]" and opposed even minor restrictions on abortion such as 24- or 48-hour waiting periods.

BELLARMINE UNIVERSITY (Louisville, KY): Louisville business leaders Owsley and Christy Brown will receive honorary degrees on May 10. Advocates of abortion rights, just last month the Browns hosted a $500-a-plate fundraiser at their home to benefit One Voice for Choice, a coalition to mobilize abortion-rights activists nationwide. The fundraiser was held following a Louisville rally featuring pro-abortion leaders Sarah Weddington, Rep. Connie Morella (D-MD) and Frances Kissling of the misnamed Catholics for a Free Choice.

BOSTON COLLEGE LAW SCHOOL (Boston, MA): Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen Breyer will give the commencement address on May 23. Breyer has defended and upheld the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion and finding a "privacy right" to abortion. In 2000, Breyer authored the majority opinion in Stenberg v. Carhart, striking down a Nebraska ban on "partial-birth abortion" as unconstitutional because it created an "undue burden" on women seeking abortions. "All those who perform abortion procedures using that method must fear prosecution," Breyer wrote. "The result is an undue burden upon a woman's right to make an abortion decision."

COLLEGE MISERICORDIA (Dallas, PA): Journalists Cokie and Steven Roberts will give the commencement address on May 17. Although Cokie has written in the couple's syndicated column that she "tends to favor pro-life arguments," her husband Steve, "who is Jewish, is more sympathetic to the pro-choice side" (May 25, 1997). Steve's writings portray both pro-life and radical feminist activists as extreme, whereas the "middle" or "moderate" position agrees "that a woman has a right to choose abortion, but the right is not unlimited" (U.S. News & World Report, April 12, 1993). The Roberts' joint column also has repeatedly echoed Steve's call for "moderation" on the abortion issue, endorsing restrictions on abortion but espousing abortion rights. The Roberts have labeled those who respect the dignity of all human life as extremists, while labeling individuals like Christine Todd Whitman-who vetoed a ban on partial-birth abortion-as moderates.

COLLEGE OF SAINT JOSEPH (Rutland, VT): Vermont Gov. James Douglas will give the commencement address on May 11. Although Douglas has supported abortion restrictions including parental notification, he campaigned on a "pro-choice" platform and has publicly endorsed abortion rights.

COLLEGE OF SAINT ROSE (Albany, NY): New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg will give the commencement address and receive an honorary degree on May 10. An avowed advocate of abortion rights and contraception, Bloomberg was given the Champion of Choice Award this year by the New York chapter of NARAL. Last month Bloomberg signed a bill making free "morning-after pills" available in city health facilities. He has also ordered New York City's public hospitals to make abortion training mandatory for ob-gyn residents.

The College of Saint Rose also will honor folk singer Pete Seeger on May 10. Seeger has been a prominent participant in abortion-rights demonstrations. These include performing at a 1989 rally of 150,000 pro-abortion activists in Washington, D.C., a 1994 "call-in" to federal lawmakers to demand that health care reform include abortion services and contraception, and a 1998 full-page newspaper advertisement protesting a hospital merger that would have forced two secular hospitals to adopt the pro-life guidelines of a Catholic hospital.

President: Dr. R. Mark Sullivan. Phone: (518) 454-5121. Address: 432 Western Ave., Albany, NY 12203.

COLLEGE OF THE HOLY CROSS (Worcester, MA): Christopher Matthews, political commentator and host of MSNBC's "Hardball," will give the commencement address and receive an honorary degree on May 23. Matthews has publicly advocated abortion rights during his television appearances and in newspaper columns. While claiming to dislike abortion, he has declared himself "pro-choice," opposed attempts to criminalize abortion and endorsed "keeping abortion constitutionally protected," and expressed sympathy for supporters of partial-birth abortion in cases of severely handicapped babies. Holy Cross president Rev. Michael McFarland has falsely claimed that Matthews' views are "allowable in Catholic thought." (Matthews will also speak at the University of Scranton, see below.)

ELMS COLLEGE (Chicopee, MA): Theologian Diana Hayes will give the commencement address and receive an honorary degree on May 25. Hayes has been a vocal opponent of male-only ordination to the priesthood, which Pope John Paul II has declared a settled issue for the Church. She has advocated a "transformed church" that is nonhierarchical, nonauthoritarian and without ordained priests. Hayes has argued for a feminist Christology; in 1995 she asked, "If the maleness of Jesus is critical to his being, how can women be saved by a male God, and why would they want to be?"

LE MOYNE COLLEGE (Syracuse, NY): Activist Kerry Kennedy Cuomo will give the commencement address and receive an honorary degree on May 18. As the daughter-in-law of former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, Kerry Kennedy Cuomo actively campaigned for him on an abortion-rights platform. In 1994, she joined other women in high-profile events to ridicule then-state Sen. George Pataki--himself an advocate of abortion rights--as soft on the issue because he had voted in favor of abortion restrictions. A few weeks before the 1994 gubernatorial election, Kerry Kennedy Cuomo held her own news conference to declare Pataki a "liar" and denounce his prior votes against Medicaid funding for abortions and in support of parental notification for girls under 16. Since then, Cuomo has also been a public advocate of special homosexual rights.

NIAGARA UNIVERSITY (Niagara University, NY): Former Massachusetts Gov. Paul Cellucci will give the commencement address on May 17. Cellucci is a public advocate of abortion rights and homosexual rights. It was his extreme views that prompted Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston to prevent him from speaking at an archdiocesan high school several years ago. It was also the reason Cellucci's nomination to serve as ambassador to Canada almost stalled in the U.S. Senate in 2001.

Quoting from the Family Research Council which opposed Cellucci's selection as ambassador: "In Massachusetts, Gov. Cellucci introduced legislation to dispense with parental consent for minor children as young as 16 to have an abortion. Also, of his three appointments to the Massachusetts Supreme Court, one previously served as an attorney for Planned Parenthood, and the other, the current chief justice, previously served on the board of directors for an abortion clinic.. The governor has demonstrated a long-term pattern of support for organizations whose avowed purpose is to indoctrinate children through the public schools into an acceptance of homosexuality and sexual promiscuity as 'normal' and the moral equivalent of heterosexual monogamous marriage. As acting governor in August 1997, Mr. Cellucci increased funding for the Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth from $250,000 to $1.5 million annually. No other state publicly funds such pro-homosexual activism. The Commission works closely with and partially funds the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) which promotes homosexuality in the public schools. In fact, as evidenced by the now infamous 'GLSENgate' conference of March 25, 2000, GLSEN actively promotes among children instruction in grossly immoral and potentially lethal sexual acts. GLSEN is a major opponent of traditional pro- family values nationwide and a chief propagandist for the mainstreaming of homosexuality among the nation's children."

NOTRE DAME COLLEGE (South Euclid, OH): Cleveland Mayor Jane Campbell will give the commencement address on May 10. During her previous term as an Ohio state legislator, Campbell was described as "one of the legislature's most vocal abortion rights advocates" by the liberal National Public Radio. Campbell advocated keeping abortion legal until a baby is viable outside the womb.

President: Dr. Anne L. Deming. Phone: (216) 373-5200. Address: 4545 College Rd., South Euclid, OH 44121.

QUINCY UNIVERSITY (Quincy, IL): Radio personality and commentator Paul Harvey will give the commencement address on May 18. Harvey has been a public advocate of abortion rights: "I think that that choice should be left to a woman and her God and her doctor; and the government ought to stay out of it altogether. It's none of our business" (Washington Post, July 7, 1995).

SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY (St. Louis, MO): St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Bill McClellan will give the commencement address on May 17. McClellan was a last-minute selection after the university disinvited American Airlines CEO Donald Carty, who resigned his job last month amid concerns that he had granted large bonuses to executives of the beleaguered airline. McClellan has publicly written of his "pro-choice" views and his support for embryonic stem cell research, expressed sympathy for opponents of a ban on partial-birth abortion, and ridiculed the Missouri Catholic Conference for advocating a law that would mandate counseling for women before aborting their babies. He has accused the Catholic Church of contributing to violence against abortionists and issuing "almost half-hearted" denouncements when violence occurs.

SAINT PETER'S COLLEGE (Jersey City, NJ): New Jersey Superior Court Judge Reginald Stanton will give the commencement address on May 18. Stanton has reached far beyond his judicial obligations to publicly advocate abortion rights and assisted suicide by starvation. In 1991, he read a 15-page statement from the bench arguing that it would be "most unwise" and "unjust and morally wrong" to make abortion a crime. In 1986, Stanton forced a Catholic hospital to starve a woman to death according to her wishes. He called the hospital's policy against assisted suicide "coercive," arguing that "dying people must be treated with dignity, including the right to choose one's own treatment."

UNIVERSITY OF SCRANTON (Scranton, PA): Christopher Matthews, political commentator and host of MSNBC's "Hardball," will give the commencement address and receive an honorary degree on May 25. Matthews has publicly advocated abortion rights during his television appearances and in newspaper columns. While claiming to dislike abortion, he has declared himself "pro-choice," opposed attempts to criminalize abortion and endorsed "keeping abortion constitutionally protected," and expressed sympathy for supporters of partial-birth abortion in cases of severely handicapped babies. (Matthews will also speak at the College of the Holy Cross, see above.)