CV NEWS FEED // In an open letter primarily addressed to outgoing University of Notre Dame President, Rev John I. Jenkins, C.S.C, alumni are calling for President Joe Biden’s 2016 Laetare Medal to be rescinded.
Penned by Sycamore Trust, an independent Notre Dame alumni organization dedicated to preserving the University’s Catholic identity, the petition is open to alumni, family and friends of the University, and other concerned Catholics to sign.
“Whatever the warrant for the award at that time,” the letter states: “Biden as President has become the most formidable adversary of the Catholic Church on abortion, the very issue the nation’s bishops, in their guide to Catholic voters, have consistently declared their ‘preeminent priority.’”
Biden’s support of abortion throughout his embattled presidency, the letter points out, is a far cry from “illustrating the ideals of the Church,” a hallmark characteristic of those bestowed with the Laetare Medal.
“In these circumstances,” the letter continues, “President Biden’s perduring title to the Laetare Medal dishonors both the Medal and the University and scandalizes her students and alumni as well as the broader Catholic community.”
Noting past instances of the award being revoked by the University on account of sexual abuse claims from former awardees such as Theodore McCarrick, Bill Cosby, and Jean Vanier, the undersigned argue that “rescission here is far more compelling than it was in those instances.”
“These offenses, while grievous indeed, are dwarfed by President Biden’s wide-ranging campaign to stoke America’s malignant abortion abattoir,” they argue, asserting that if the petition goes ignored, “the clear message to American Catholics will be that the nation’s most prominent Catholic university is untroubled by President Biden’s pro-abortion campaign.”
Concluding, the letter entreats outgoing President Jenkins to rescind the award before vacating his position, since he had been the one to both select Biden for the award and establish procedures for revoking honors under necessary circumstances.
