By Jesse Davis
May 18, 2009 12:22 am
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SOUTH BEND — The 164th commencement ceremonies at the University of Notre Dame were interrupted by screaming protesters during President Barack Obama’s comments to graduating students.
“You owe an apology to the mother of God!” one man screamed repeatedly from the back of the Joyce Center before and while being escorted out by a combination of law enforcement, secret service and university staff. He was one of four removed from the event for angry outbursts.
“I felt like it was really distracting with the people in the audience giving these outbursts,” Jill Mazur, a Pre-med and English graduate from Pittsburgh, Pa., said. “It really turned the attention away from the graduates it became a political issue, it became so many other issues, and the focus should have stayed with the graduating seniors because that’s what it’s all about, and I didn’t feel that here, at my own graduation.”
Mazur said she didn’t think Obama should have addressed the abortion issue at all, arguing that a commencement address is the wrong arena for the topic.
“I just feel like if they wanted a true dialogue, they could have had him come some other time during the year, not commencement, because it was supposed to be about seniors today, and a lot of my friends and myself feel like it wasn’t,” she said.
During his speech, Obama addressed the controversy surrounding the speaking engagement, while also discussing the current state of the world, the challenge of living together in peace as “one human family,” Notre Dame tradition and Catholic tradition.
“I enjoyed it,” Eileen Murphy said.
Murphy, a Lee, N.H., native, graduated with a degree in architecture.
“It was obviously a response to the controversy that’s been going on, and I thought it was appropriate that he addressed the controversy. And he twisted it in a nice way so that was university applicable to all of us, unifying our communities around us whenever there’s a problem that comes up,” she said. “I thought it was well-fitted to the situation and addressed the situation appropriately.”
One attendee, a Fogelsville, Pa., resident, said he enjoyed the speeches given by both Obama and Notre Dame President, the Rev. John Jenkins.
“Father Jenkins’ speech was great and certainly Barack Obama’s speech was great. They did a nice job of addressing the issue at hand, they didn’t dodge the fact that it was a controversial visit, and I thought they did a real classy job of meeting in the middle,” Tom Thielen said.
Thielen’s son, Joel, graduated with a degree from the Mendoza College of Business at Notre Dame.
“Obama’s obviously a very engaging speaker, disarming the crowd and getting them loose before he launched into the serious part of his speech, and I thought that was as animated and passionate as I’ve seen Father Jenkins speak before,” he said.
Marlene Daut, who graduated with a doctorate in English, was even more glowing in her reaction.
“It was by far the best that I’ve ever heard, but it’s probably the most distinguished speaker I’ve ever heard also,” she said.
She said most of the graduate students, who had already received their degrees Saturday, probably would not have attended the main ceremony had Obama not been the speaker.
“I liked how he addressed the controversy but he also spoke from a nuanced perspective, that it’s not just a black-and-white issue, that there are many places in between, and that if people want to reduce the numbers of abortions then they have to actually work to make that happen, they can’t just be opposed to it but not support any kind of reform,” Daut said.
President Obama was the sixth United States president to speak at a Notre Dame commencement ceremony, and the ninth to be awarded an honorary degree.
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