Where's Bill Donahue When You Need Him?

Sorry I’m a little late with this one…

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri) had been invited to speak at her daughter’s upcoming commencement ceremony from St. Joseph’s Academy, but the invitation was rescinded by the school upon the recommendation of Raymond Burke, the archbishop of St. Louis (as noted here).

Archbishop Burke is no stranger to controversy, of course. As noted in this Wikipedia article, he publicly stated during the 2004 presidential election that John Kerry and other Catholic politicians who vote pro-choice should not receive the Eucharist and were guilty of committing a mortal sin (of course, he modified the part about mortal sin after the election – how thoughtful of him).

I guess snubbing McCaskill is a bit of a payback for the snit over Sheryl Crow’s performance in an April benefit concert for Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital, of which Burke was chairman of the board. Burke resigned in response to the performance by Crow, who is pro choice (no word on whether or not Burke thanked her for trying to do something good; I guess he just decided to have an ecclesiastical hissy fit instead).

And as if all of this isn’t enough, Michelle Pilecki of HuffPo informs us that Dubya is scheduled to give the graduation address at Saint Vincent’s College, a 161-year-old Benedictine institution this Friday May 11th (the school is located in the Laurel Highlands of southwestern, PA, just the type of scenic backdrop for another thoroughly nauseating photo-op).

Here is a petition started by the school’s students to protest the visit.

So…a mother of a daughter attending a Catholic school cannot attend a commencement because the mother, a U.S. Senator, is pro choice and supports stem cell research.

However, a president chiefly responsible for a ruinous war without end that has claimed thousands upon thousands of lives as well as the greatest refugee crisis on this earth, a president who has done nothing in response to the global climate crisis as part of the almost biblical destruction wrought by his environmental neglect, a president who has actually encouraged the offshoring of our jobs as part of his war on the middle class of this country, a president whose administration is fraught with corruption and cronyism with new scandals and unseemly revelations appearing almost daily, a president who has crippled our army and utterly bankrupted our country to the point where every man, woman and child now statistically inherits a dollar debt ranging into five figures…this man is allowed to speak at a commencement instead of the mother, who is a U.S. Senator.

I just wanted to make sure we’re all clear on that, OK?