Arrested at Notre Dame

Contributed by a Concerned Citizen

The following was written by pro-life activist Randall Terry about his recent arrest at the University of Notre Dame for protesting their invitation to President Obama to speak at their graduation.

Six of us went to Notre Dame on Friday, May 1, to make a visual statement about child-killing and ND's invitation to President Obama to speak at the '09 graduation.

We pushed baby carriages with dolls covered with stage blood, and a bumper sticker stating:

Obama '09
One Dead baby at a Time
Notre Dame

William Kee and I were arrested immediately. The others were given the chance to leave, and did so.

I was taken alone to a cell on campus where I prayed the sorrowful mysteries. With each mystery, my fear for Notre Dame grew; Jesus, betrayed by Judas and abandoned by His friends; "He came unto His own, and his own did not receive Him;" "I received these wounds in the House of my friends..." The irony was chilling.

We were transferred to jail - at Notre Dame's order - for our peaceful, visual defense of the babies; meanwhile Notre Dame plunges ahead with her plan to honor the premier child-slayer of the western hemisphere.

Obama will be honored and welcomed on campus, though the innocent die at his command; we were jailed, and banned forever from the campus, because we defended those dying at his order.

I had the unshakable sense that Mary herself wept at this evil, and the dread that Notre Dame is being weighed in the balance by God, and found wanting.

But my fear goes deeper. I fear for "pro-life Catholics" who condemn our actions; I fear for lukewarm clergy who look askance at our measures; I fear for "Catholic press" that lacks the courage or integrity to even cover our activities, is embarrassed by our tactics, ashamed at our boldness, and seduced to silence by the fear of men.

Yes: we will stand trial for "trespass;" but the arrogant and the fearful in the Church Militant that "trespass against us" by denigrating what it means to be militant are on trial as well.

A dreadful reckoning is coming. The blood of the innocent cries from the ground to God for justice. We will all be judged for our part in allowing this slaughter to continue. We will be held accountable for what we have done, and what we have failed to do; for every idle word, and every silent denial of Christ.

The Obama/Notre Dame harlotry is the "consummation" of Catholic America's godless marriage to moral relativism, lukewarmness, and unholy pacifism.

I leave with the words of three American heroes to rebuke the cowardly, vindicate our actions, and warn of the judgment to come. The first deals with ending segregation; the others to ending slavery. Judge for yourself how they apply.

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.

Martin Luther King Jr.

And next:

I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity?  I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice.  On this subject, I do not wish to think, or to speak, or write, with moderation.  No!  no!  Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; -- but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present.  I am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL BE HEARD.  The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal, and to hasten the resurrection of the dead.

It is pretended, that I am retarding the cause of emancipation by the coarseness of my invective and the precipitancy of my measures.  The charge is not true.  On this question of my influence, -- humble as it is,-- is felt at this moment to a considerable extent, and shall be felt in coming years -- not perniciously, but beneficially -- not as a curse, but as a blessing; and posterity will bear testimony that I was right.  I desire to thank God, that he enables me to disregard "the fear of man which bringeth a snare," and to speak his truth in its simplicity and power.

William Lloyd Garrison

And finally:

"It is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder.  We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.  The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced...There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of the United States, at this very hour."

Frederick Douglas

The reader can easily discern how the words of these men apply today. If we are going to end the slaughter of the innocent in America, we must adopt the fierceness and clarity of their rhetoric, actions, and images: we must follow their examples. If we do not, we will lose the battle to end child-killing, and perish as a nation.