[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 76 (Monday, May 18, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H5673-H5674]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      PROTECTION OF INNOCENT LIFE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Daniel E. Lungren) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. Madam Speaker, I rise today to 
make a comment on the appearance yesterday at my alma mater, the 
University of Notre Dame, by President Barack Obama. As I said, I am a 
graduate of the university. My dad is a graduate of the university. My 
two brothers are graduates of the university. My son is a graduate of 
the university. I have three nieces who have graduated from the 
university. It is always an honor when the President of the United 
States addresses your university, particularly when he gives its 
commencement address.
  I have known the former president of the University of Notre Dame, 
Father Hesburgh, for almost my entire life, having met him when I was 
about 6 years old, and consider him a friend to this day. His record on 
civil rights is unparalleled in this country, and he is one of the 
great leaders of the civil rights movement. Now in his nineties, I am 
sure it was with genuine joy that we saw tears in his eyes as the 
President of the United States addressed the University of Notre Dame 
yesterday.
  However, Madam Speaker, I must register my concern about the 
President's address yesterday, and it is because the President has, 
through his actions and his statements, made very clear his position on 
a fundamental issue to this Nation, to the question of ethics and 
morality and public policy. And it is an issue that has generated much 
controversy, but goes to the essence of the Catholic Church's teaching 
on the value of life.
  The church teaches that there are a number of moral principles upon 
which there can be serious discussion and disagreement: areas such as a 
just war; areas about social welfare policy; areas in which the 
Commandments of our Lord must guide us, but the manner in which those 
are applied can differ. Those moral judgments are called prudential 
judgments where we are called upon to use our prudence to come to the 
conclusions as to our proper actions, both individually and as a 
society.
  But there are a few, and very few, principles upon which there is not 
prudential judgment but upon which there is specific moral guidance, 
and protection of innocent life is among them. The question of whether 
one is ever able to take the innocent life of another intentionally 
lies at the root of not only Catholic doctrine, but lies at the root of 
the Judeo-Christian tradition which has given voice to the Constitution 
where it says we have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of 
happiness, with life being the first of those three.
  So the question was when the President appeared at the University of 
Notre Dame, was he engaging in a dialogue in which there was an 
exchange of ideas of substance, or was it an episode in which there 
would be moral confusion afterwards in which the question of the taking 
of innocent life was just a prudential judgment type of issue which was 
the same as many other issues that we can debate and disagree on about 
whether we should go to war, how we should conduct war, how much money 
we should pay for welfare programs, what the level of education is, and 
so forth.
  And that's the question that bothers me. I guess the question I could 
ask would be whether this administration at the University of Notre 
Dame would have asked Stephen Douglas or Abraham Lincoln to deliver the 
commencement address following the great debate that took place between 
those two some 150 years ago. Because one was successful, that is 
Stephen Douglas, he was elected, he was considered a great man in many 
different ways, a great statesman; and the other was Abraham Lincoln 
who had failed in several attempts at election. And the one said that 
slavery was one of those things upon which you could not essentially 
disagree when you really looked at the question of whether one man 
could own another man.
  And while he was unsuccessful in that, he carried the moral argument 
of the day, and the suggestion here is: Was there any dialogue and 
would the suggestion be that all we have to do is reason together and 
use better words rather than essentially go to the substance of the 
issue.

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