USF UPDATE: Lynn Woolsey, Goodwin Liu to Receive Honorary Degrees at USF Commencement

On May 17-19, the (Jesuit) University of San Francisco will celebrate its spring 2012 commencement exercises. Speeches will be made, honorary degrees will be awarded, and once again the Catholic Church will be abused.

On May 19 the students of USF’s McLaren School of Management will be addressed by Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey. According to Project Vote Smart, since 1995 Woolsey has not once received anything other than a 100% rating from Planned Parenthood or NARAL. Since 1995 she has not once received a rating other than 100% from the Human Rights Campaign, the most powerful homosexual activist lobbying group in the country.

Particulars of Woolsey's record, who is a nominal Catholic, are not hard to find. In 2003, she voted against the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban. In 2007, she co-sponsored the “Stem –Cell Research Act.” The act would have allowed embryonic stem-cell research. It was vetoed by then-President George W. Bush. On May 15, 2008, when the California Supreme Court declared same-sex “marriage” to be legal Woolsey wrote “Like many Californians, I am thrilled by this morning’s decision by the California Supreme Court to overturn the ban on same sex marriage.” Six months later, the people of the state of California overruled the state Supreme Court and re-established the true definition of marriage through Proposition 8. In an article published on the Politico website on November 9, 2009, Woolsey actually encouraged the IRS to restrict the freedom of Catholic Bishops to lobby on political issues: “The IRS is less restrictive about church involvement in efforts to influence legislation than it is about involvement in campaigns and elections. Given the political behavior of USCCB in this case, maybe it shouldn’t be.” USF will present Woolsey with an honorary degree.

Also on May 19, USF’s School of Law will be addressed by Goodwin Liu, associate Justice of the Supreme Court of California. Liu’s record has been chronicled extensively in CalCatholic. In 2011, President Obama nominated Liu to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The U.S. Senate rejected the nomination. At the time Curt Levey, executive director of the conservative Committee for Justice, described the pro-abortion Liu “the worst of Obama’s nominees at all levels of the federal courts.” This view was widely shared. Life News reported that Ed Whelan, President of the Ethics and Public Policy Center noted that Liu “…was so left-wing that former ‘White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel initially vetoed’ his candidacy for the Ninth Circuit ‘on the ground that Liu’s left-wing record made him too controversial.” Liu’s defeat did not seem to affect California’s Governor Jerry Brown. In 2011, Brown nominated Liu to the state’s Supreme Court. Liu sailed through the process with no effective statewide opposition. Liu is also a supporter of same-sex “marriage.” On September 1, 2011, the Above the Law blog reported “As a law professor, Liu has backed the rights of same-sex couples to marry, and signed on to legal briefs supporting those rights in a 2008 case that prompted the state Supreme Court to invalidate the state’s previous ban on gay marriage.” USF will present Liu with an honorary degree.

The honoring of such anti-Catholic persons at university commencements is finally meeting some hierarchical opposition. On April 30, Bishop George Murry, SJ of the Diocese of Youngstown, Ohio, instructed Mercy College School of Nursing to rescind its invitation to state representative Bob Hagan, a pro-abortion Democrat. The school had invited Hagan to give its commencement address. Bishop Murry joins Bishop Robert McManus of the Diocese of Worcester, Massachusetts, who in March asked Anna Maria College to rescind its invitation to Victoria Reggie Kennedy, second wife of the late Ted Kennedy. Mrs. Kennedy is pro-abortion. She was scheduled to receive an honorary degree.

That opposition has not yet been expressed in the City by the Bay. To express your opposition and to ask Archbishop George Niederauer to speak out against the conferring of honors upon such open enemies of the Church, please call 415-614-5500.

Correction: In the second to last paragraph I had misidentified Bob Hagan as a member of congress. He is a state representative in Ohio. The post is now corrected.

Posted by Gibbons J. Cooney