Notre Dame Student Coalition Announces Demonstration

Notre Dame Response was formed as an ad hoc coalition consisting of various student groups at the University concerned for its Catholic identity.

NOTRE DAME, INDIANA - The University of Notre Dame's student-formed coalition, Notre Dame Response, has announced plans for its first official demonstration on campus: a 2:00 PM prayer rally on Sunday, April 5, 2009 to be held in front of the University's Main Building following the noon Palm Sunday Mass at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart.

The coalition was formed in response to the University's announcement, earlier this month, of its selection of President Barack Obama as its 2009 Commencement speaker. The University also plans to award the President an honorary doctor of laws degree during the Commencement exercises.

The main speaker at the rally will be nationally recognized attorney, Harold Cassidy, who has litigated pro-life cases that have advanced the true rights and interests of pregnant mothers. He will address the human rights violations of abortion, and how abortion violates the rights, interests and health of women.

Central to that discussion will be remarks concerning the role of Catholic institutions in the abortion debate, and the role and influence in advancing the human rights violation of abortion in the speech Governor Mario Cuomo delivered at Notre Dame in 1984.

Notre Dame Response hopes that through this prayerful and public demonstration on Palm Sunday, the University community will be respectfully reminded to celebrate its Catholic character and to defend those non-negotiable principles for which Notre Dame stands, including an overarching recognition of the inherent dignity and value of all human life.

This event is also a response to University President Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., who last week expressed the hope that the invitation of President Obama will present an authentic "basis for an engagement with him" on those key issues that "we care so much about."

Notre Dame Response was formed as an ad hoc, coalition consisting of various student groups at the University. Its initial statement describes the group as being committed to "acts of witness that will be characterized by respect, prayerfulness, outspoken fidelity to the Church, and true concern for the good of our University."

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A coalition of student groups on the campus of the University of Notre Dame including Notre Dame Right to Life, Jus Vitae (Notre Dame Law School Right to Life), the Irish Rover independent student newspaper, Notre Dame College Republicans, The University of Notre Dame Anscombe Society, The Identity Project of Notre Dame, Notre Dame Militia Immaculata, Notre Dame Children of Mary, the Orestes Brownson Council, Notre Dame Law St. Thomas More Society, and the Federalist Society of the Notre Dame Law School.