President Biden Skips Commencement Speech at Notre Dame Following Petition

President Joe Biden won’t be speaking at Notre Dame’s commencement ceremony after over 4,700 people with ties to the university signed a petition criticizing the president’s views on abortion and religious liberty.

Traditionally, either the president or vice president attends the university’s commencement during their first year in office. According to Fox News, “President George W. Bush gave the commencement address in 2001, President Barack Obama gave the address in 2009 and Vice President Mike Pence spoke at the ceremony in 2017.”

The petition was addressed to Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., the president of the University of Notre Dame.

“We, the undersigned members of the Notre Dame community and others dismayed by the pro-abortion and anti-religious liberty agenda of President Joe Biden, having learned from your Crux interview that you are considering inviting President Biden to be Commencement speaker and, accordingly, recipient of an honorary degree, write to urge that you not do so,” the petition began.

“[President Biden] rejects Church teachings on abortion, marriage, sex and gender and is hostile to religious liberty. He embraces the most pro-abortion and anti-religious liberty public policy program in history.

“In brief, to begin with abortion, Biden’s actions already taken and those promised will result in the killing of countless innocent unborn both here and abroad through federal funding of abortions and abortion organizations.

“This is not hyperbole. It is demonstrable fact because of Biden’s lifting the bar against the flow of federal funds to both domestic and international Planned Parenthood and similar organizations. The calamity will assume truly harrowing proportions if Biden achieves his goal of providing direct federal funding of abortions.

“In terms of Notre Dame’s honoring Biden, matters are made still worse by Biden’s repeated profession of his Catholicism, and one who, as you have acknowledged, believes abortion to be morally wrong.”

The letter goes on to quote several prominent Catholic bishop’s statements criticizing the president’s policies.

As of publishing time, the letter had garnered 4,791 signatories, most of whom identified themselves as students or alumni of the university.

The White House said that though the president was invited to speak, he could not do so due to a scheduling conflict.

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Photo from The White House