Catholic University Boasts Obama Visit…And Oh Yeah, the Pope Too
Not many American colleges can boast being founded by a saint. That’s why it’s so disturbing to see that in the month leading up to the presidential election, Xavier University in Louisiana has decided to feature President Barack Obama on its homepage, commemorating the president’s visit to the campus in 2010.
A much smaller picture commemorating Pope John Paul II’s 1987 visit to the university is fitted on the right.
Shockingly, the Catholic university founded by Saint Katharine Drexel seems to draw an equivalence between the two leaders as it refers to both the pro-abortion/pro-gay marriage president and the Pope as “prominent leaders who share inspirational messages.”
President Obama spoke at Xavier to mark the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina in 2010. The Cardinal Newman Society president Patrick Reilly said at the time, “U.S. bishops’ policy is clear. No Catholic institution should provide an honor or platform to a public opponent of fundamental Catholic teachings. This is most important at a university that is dedicated to seeking and teaching the truth, and which embraces the Catholic faith.”
This is hardly an anomalous event for the university. In 2009, Archbishop Alfred C. Hughes, Archbishop of New Orleans, boycotted the university’s May 9 commencement exercises to protest the selection of pro-abortion Donna Brazile as speaker and honoree.
In 2006, then U.S. Senator Barack Obama delivered the commencement address. According to the university’s website, “Xavier president Dr. Norman C. Francis was hoping to identify somebody special to address graduating seniors in their first Commencement since the campus had recovered from Hurricane Katrina’s devastation less than a year before.”