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BOSTON-RICE May-10-2006 (740 words) With photo. xxxn
Citing Iraq, some Boston College faculty protest honor to Rice
By Agostino Bono
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Boston College's decision to award an honorary degree to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at its May 22 commencement has caused sharp division among faculty at the Jesuit-run institution.
Some faculty members see the decision, which includes having her give the commencement speech, as the college's support for the Bush administration's Iraq War, which Pope John Paul II and the U.S. bishops opposed on ethical grounds.
Opposition to honoring Rice is also a sign that Catholic institutions should not single out abortion when it comes to taking a stand on public policy issues, said Jesuit Father David Hollenbach, theology professor.
College officials and other professors said that Rice's career makes her worthy of an honorary degree and that honoring her does not automatically mean the college supports U.S. policy on Iraq.
For Jack Dunn, college public affairs director, the situation shows how difficult it is currently to find a noted commencement speaker who will not stir controversy on a Catholic campus.
A May 8 statement by Jesuit Father William Leahy, Boston College president, reconfirmed that Rice would be honored at commencement ceremonies.
"I recognize that some are not in favor of Dr. Rice's selection, but I and many others judge that she is an appropriate honorary degree recipient and graduation speaker for Boston College," said Father Leahy.
After the initial announcement May 1 that Rice would be honored, Father Hollenbach and another member of the theology department circulated a petition opposing the decision.
The petition cited the "tragic war in Iraq" and said that the "policies that have shaped the war's ongoing conduct cannot be justified in the light of the moral values of the Catholic tradition."
Honoring Rice "contradicts the university's Catholic, Jesuit and humanistic identity," it said.
The petition was signed by about 200 of the school's 1,000 full-time and part-time faculty members.
"One is free to disagree with her policies. But it is grotesque to say she is unworthy of honor by Boston College," said Marc Landy, political science professor, who sent an e-mail to faculty members urging them not to sign the protest petition.
"This is the secretary of state, not somebody off the street," he told Catholic News Service in a telephone interview May 9.
Father Hollenbach told CNS that Rice was being honored because she is secretary of state and "not because she was a professor at Stanford University" in California before entering public life.
"I would be happy to have Rice give an academic lecture where there would be the opportunity for discussion of her views," he said May 8.
But a commencement speech is "a one-way address" that does not allow for debate, he said.
Father Hollenbach added that the Catholic Church has to be seen as supporting a "consistent ethic of life. It can't just oppose people who take a position for abortion."
The Iraq War "is unjust according to Catholic tradition," he said.
Father Hollenbach also noted that Rice describes herself as "mildly pro-choice."
Rice in several newspaper interviews over the years has said she is "mildly pro-choice" and a supporter of parental notification and a ban on late-term abortions.
Jesuit Father Paul McNellis, philosophy professor, told CNS that opposition to Rice comes from faculty members who are politically opposed to the Iraq War and these professors were wrong in framing their opposition in Catholic and Jesuit principles.
"This is a political disagreement, not one of dogma or doctrine," he said.
Abortion is a clearer pro-life moral issue, he added.
"With abortion we are always dealing with an innocent life. Capital punishment and just-war theory are more difficult cases in which there can be legitimate disagreement about the facts," Father McNellis said.
Regarding Rice's abortion stand, "I wish her position were more pro-life," he said. "But she is not the surgeon general or the secretary of health and human services. She is not engaged, so far as I know, in abortion policy."
Dunn said that Boston College seeks to honor individuals "whose actions do not conflict with church teachings. But as our counterpart institutions will attest, it is increasingly difficult to find noted speakers who are universally accepted."
Regarding abortion, Dunn said that the college "does not honor Catholic politicians whose viewpoints are not in keeping with Catholic tradition" but that non-Catholics in public life who support keeping abortion legal can be honored.
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Copyright (c) 2006 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
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