Yesterday (April 29, 2009), Tom McFeely, of the National Catholic Register posted a brief story relating the “back story” to Mary Ann Glendon’s declining the Laetare Medal.
Catholic writer and art historian Elizabeth Lev is Mary Ann Glendon’s
daughter.
In a post at
PoliticsDaily.com, Lev — who lives in Rome and is a regular contributor to
Zenit news service — discusses her mother’s decision to refuse to accept Notre
Dame’s Laetare Medal.
Lev explains that Glendon’s action, undertaken because of
Notre Dame’s honoring of pro-abortion President Barack Obama, must be
considered in the context of Glendon’s proven commitment to defending the human
rights of all vulnerable people, born and unborn.
And, Lev said, in light of that commitment it’s silly to
dismiss her mother’s principled action as merely a gesture by someone who cares
only about the pro-life cause.
“Professor Glendon was to have been honored for not only for
her scholarship, but for her second career, her pro-bono work — ranging from
the civil rights movement of the 1960s to the great civil rights issues of the
present day — namely, the defense of human life from conception to natural
death,” writes Lev. “Her concerns range from the aging and dying population to
the unborn to the well-being and dignity of every life, regardless of race,
religion, or economic status. Her outstanding work in this field has earned her
the respect of the most brilliant minds of the international community,
regardless of whether they agree with her position. So again, to see her merely
as ‘strongly anti-abortion’ instead of as a tireless defender of the dignity of
life, is to reveal not only a lack of understanding of the subject’s work, but
also the writer’s real interest in this question.”