By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
Unconfirmed reports are saying that Notre Dame president Fr. John Jenkins may have been summoned to the White house on Wednesday of last week. The university has given no statement on the matter, but a private jet owned by Notre Dame did file a flight plan to Washington for April 22.
The controversy over the invitation of pro-abortion president Barack Obama to speak at the nation’s premier Catholic university has been steadily escalating over the last few weeks and may be raising concerns about security during the president’s May 17 visit.
According to Pewsitter.com, Fr. Jenkins may have been summoned to the White House to discuss the matter with the President. “ . . . (T)here were unconfirmed reports that Fr. Jenkins was summoned to the White House earlier this week for a meeting,” writes Pewsitter’s James Todd. “Though this has not been confirmed definitively, a Notre Dame owned private jet did file a flight plan and fly to Washington on Wednesday of this week.”
Meanwhile, the nationwide outrage over the invitation has received further fuel in the form of reports that the university has agreed to foot the bill for the police protection needed during president’s visit. Earlier this month, the City of South Bend, which is the home of Notre Dame, proposed a new ordinance that would require any person or group who hosts a dignitary to foot the bill for the extra protection rather than saddling taxpayers with the expenses.
“This newest development of Notre Dame’s offering to pay for police protection during the President’s scheduled visit will only fuel the fires of this controversy,” Todd writes. “Notre Dame’s President, Fr. Jenkins, also continued to stoke the fires earlier this week at a town hall meeting in South Bend when he stated: ‘We are very proud and honored to welcome the first African-American President of the United States in a few weeks as our commencement speaker.’”
The cost of Fr. Jenkins’ actions continues to mount. Organizers of ReplaceJenkins.com, an online effort urging alumni and donors to the University of Notre Dame to withhold donations, announced Monday that they have personally confirmed over $8.2 million in withheld donations as a part of their national outreach effort. Thus far, the organization has received over 900 pledges from alumni and donors promising to withhold future donations.
© All Rights Reserved, Living His Life Abundantly/Women of Grace. http://www.womenofgrace.com
