by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Journalist
The controversy surrounding the prosecution of 88 pro-life demonstrators who were arrested on the campus of Notre Dame (ND) last spring intensified when it was discovered that the judge assigned to the case is married to a prominent pro-abortion ND professor.
According to LifeSiteNews.com, Judge Jenny Pitts Manier, the judge assigned to hear the case of the “ND 88,” is married to teh outspoken pro-abortion ND Professor Edward Manier.
The attorney representing the ND 88, Tom Dixon, says Indiana law requires Judge Manier to recuse herself because of the existence of sufficient actual and perceived bias in the case.
Dixon points out that Prof. Manier has written about his pro-abortion views and donated “a significant sum of money” to Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, as well as contributed to other pro-abortion candidates. Manier also attacked Pope Paul VI’s encyclical, Humanae Vitae, calling it “intellectually stillborn.”
“When one analyzes Edward Manier’s political contributions to pro abortion candidates and Political Action Committee, when one reads Edward Manier’s writings referencing members of the Christian right, calling them ‘fundamentalist mullahs’ and ‘jackleg preachers,'” Dixon writes, “it is hard to comprehend how Judge Manier could derive from her husband’s writings the notion that he has no interest in the outcome of these cases.”
The ND 88 case involves the arrest of 88 pro-life demonstrators who were charged with trespassing after peacefully witnessing against the presence of President Obama at Notre Dame last spring. Trespassers who were carrying signs in support of President Obama were permitted to roam the campus while demonstrators carrying signs protesting abortion and the president’s visit were singled out for arrest.
The refusal of ND president Fr. John Jenkins to drop the charges against the ND 88 has been drawing increasing criticism, especially in light of his recent attempts to reconstruct the school’s pro-life image by forming a new pro life Task Force. The Task Force has been assigned the task of considering ways to foster “serious and specific discussion about a reasonable conscience clause, the most effective ways to support pregnant women … and the best policies for facilitating adoptions.”
The gesture is seen as too little, too late in the eyes of many, including the distinguished Notre Dame Law professor emeritus, Charles Rice.
In an open letter to Fr. Jenkins last week, Prof. Rice wrote: “As long as you pursue the criminalization of those pro-life witnesses, your newest pro-life statements will be regarded reasonably as a cosmetic covering of the institutional anatomy in the wake of the continuing backlash arising from your conferral of Notre Dame’s highest honor on the most relentlessly pro-abortion public official in the world.”
Fr. Jenkins also promised to attend this year’s March for Life in Washington, a gesture that also drew criticism from Prof. Rice.
“It would be a mockery for you to present yourself now at the March, even at the invitation of Notre Dame students, as a pro-life advocate while, in practical effect, you continue to be the jailer, as common criminals, of those persons who were authentic pro-life witnesses at Notre Dame,” wrote Rice.
To learn how to help the ND 88, visit http://freethend88.org/
© All Rights Reserved, Living His Life Abundantly®/Women of Grace® http://www.womenofgrace.com
