Members of the pro-life organization Operation Rescue, protest against abortion across the street from the White House on April 1, 2009 in Washington, DC. An invitation by the University of Notre Dame to US President Barack Obama to speak at the school’s commencement ceremonies in May, has met with great debate by pro-life organizations and conservative Catholilc groups who believe that Obama’s view on abortion clashes with core church teachings about human life.Sigh. Catholics and I are having a bad week. We’ll get through this, but … right now? This is just uncalled for, ya think?

FOX News as well as The Associated Press are reporting that 10 Holy Cross Priests are opposing an appearance by the president and an honorary degree based on his policies.

More after the jump.

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Ten priests from the order that founded the University of Notre Dame say the school risks its “true soul” and could distance itself from the Roman Catholic Church by inviting President Obama to campus next month.

The members of the Congregation of the Holy Cross, which helps run the university, asked the Rev. John Jenkins, the Holy Cross priest who is Notre Dame’s president, and the university’s board of fellows to reconsider the invitation to Obama because he supports abortion rights.

“Failure to do so will damage the integrity of the institution,” said the letter published Wednesday in Notre Dame Observer.

Notre Dame announced last month that Obama would deliver the university’s May 17 commencement address and receive an honorary degree. The decision by the nation’s best-known Catholic university sparked widespread anger among many Catholics who said Notre Dame should not honor someone whose policies on abortion and embryonic stem-cell research clash with core church teachings on human life.

Hundreds of abortion opponents protested on campus Sunday, and the priests said the invitation has opened a “fissure” between Notre Dame and many bishops. More than a dozen bishops have denounced Obama’s appearance, including Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Jenkins has said the university does not condone all of Obama’s policies, and spokesman Dennis Brown has said Notre Dame does not plan to rescind the invitation.

“We respect the opinions of members of the Holy Cross community and others,” Brown said. (FOX News)

My St. Louis homeskillet Negro Intellectual hipped me to the news and my head nearly exploded because this initially sounded like such a dick move by former Archbishop Raymond Burke move. As the former head of our Archdiocese he was best known for calling for the denial of communion to John Kerry, excommunicating a priest because the priest and his flock didn’t want to abandon their church just to pay of the “bad touch” lawsuits, calling for Sheryl Crow to be kicked off a Catholic charity event because she’s pro-abortion, condemning St. Louis University basketball coach Rick Majerus, not Catholic so technically not in his jurisdiction, for going to a Hillary Clinton rally and eventually calling for no one pro-abortion to receive communion and calling Obama pro-death.

But if you’re for the death penalty or genocide or rape or child molestation, Jesus, apparently, LOVES you.

And that was sarcasm.

Basically, dude is a total ass. He even tried to ruin St. Patty’s day one year. I kept wanting to scream, these are AMERICAN Catholics. They love Jesus and all, but they want their damn green beer.

But it wasn’t Burke, who was so good at ruining everyone good time they promoted him to Rome. Nope. It was ten mini-Burkes who suffer from Obama myopia where one politician’s conflicting views carry more weight that others.

Take other presidents who’ve received this honorary degree and spoke:

Dwight Eisenhower: This was really Truman’s deal, but Eisenhower continued to further relations with Pope Pius XII making Americans and Catholics good buddies after years of mistrust and dirty looks. Putting that whole “All you protestants are damned” thing aside, Truman, Eisenhower and Pius XII agreed that Christians need to stick together after something as demonstrably fucked up as World War II. Can’t really blame them.

Jimmy Carter: Pope John Paul II didn’t have a lot to say about Jimmy that was bad. He seem to generally like the guy, even if he was an evangelical and therefore, according to Catholic cannon, going to hell no matter how many houses he build and Popey blessed. But the two were tight. They both were fighting the Cold War together, so there was little complaint when Jimmy bungled the fall of the Shah of Iran and the rescue of American hostages.

Ronald Reagan: No problem here. Like with Jimmy, Old Popey and the Prez had a common enemy in a Nuclear Holocaust. Pope John Paul II was Polish and the Gipper threatened to turn Eastern Europe into a parking lot if anyone touched his home country, so I’m assuming the Pope over looked our usual South American assassinations and random meddling in Middle East affairs.

George H.W. Bush: Popey Paul was totally against the first Gulf War. Like a lot. He wanted a peaceful resolution to Saddam getting his ass out of Kuwait. But Poppy Bush and Gen. Colin Powell had this CRAZY idea that if you roll up in the Middle East with nearly 700,000 troops and all your homies — don’t start nuttin’, won’t be nuttin’. Still, the Pope did not approve, yet Bush spoke at Notre Dame.

George W. Bush: Like father like son, Pope John Paul was pretty critical of Little George and came out against the war in Iraq and criticized US for … um … almost everything related to foreign relations, but was still really polite about it because he was John Paul, the Pope everyone liked.

And despite all the hateration, Little George still got to speak and the Pope was probably the most critical of him of all. Not to mention how not one of these eight gentlemen have done a durn thing to actually stop the death penalty, abortion, gays and poverty (save Jimmy — Habitat for Humanity, blessed by a Pope!).

Georgie did try to slow science down with stem cells and Bill Clinton banned cloning, but … no invite for him.

Yet Obama gets the invite and people want to cause a fuss.

How can I put this in a way these ten autocrats can understand?

You don’t have to agree to get things done. My word! You think all Protestants and non-Catholics are going to hell yet you follow Pius Xii’s example of shutting the eff up and working together towards common goals. If it were up to geniuses like you the Catholic church would have an army again and we’d be on our 15th Crusade for the Holy Land and there would be five Jews and they’d all live in Brooklyn.  There’s a REASON you don’t rule the Western world anymore. You can really be douches.

From the whole “condoms don’t work,” which is the equivalent to “seat belts don’t work.” Yeah, you still might get injured, but if you’re going to have sex or drive maybe you should think about some protection.

To the whole the unborn mean everything but if you’re alive, FUCK YOU that many suffer from. (Not all, obviously. Some are actually consistent in wanting to preserve all life as sacred and believe that we can all be saved by God’s grace.)

Just stop the foolishness. Just stop. I’ll be honest. I once considered converting to Catholicism because of all the wonderful ritual, history and the fact that I wanted to focus more on God and less on the packaging that exists in modern, “hip” churches. Thankfully a pair of Anglicans talked me out of it. In the end, I couldn’t deal with the hypocrisy of those in charge, from molestation charges to the treatment of gays to that whole “Catholic or nothing” attitude because I don’t think my friends the Anglicans who saved my life countless times are hellbound just because they want to read the Bible themselves and talk to God themselves.

I have love for the Catholic people, but … Good Lord, to the men in robes: Quit with the fake controversies and work on fixing your damaged image. You’re worked up about Obama’s stance on abortion. (He’s against gay marriage and cloning? Not good enough for you?) Yet you’re evicting retired nuns out of their homes to pay for lawsuits. You say God is God, but if God speaks to a woman it needs to be interpreted properly because, heavens to Betsy, we can’t have God telling women they should follow Jesus and be priests like my Anglican friends did and are doing.

I’ll stop, because we’re just having a bad week. I’m sure next week I’ll be back captivated by your history and ritual, but for right now … please, STFU. You lost the moral high ground in the states a long, long time ago.