Image: Tanit Sakakini
Rocco reports that Mary Ann Glendon has been announced as this year's recipient of Notre Dame's prestigious Laetare Medal, which she will receive when seated on the commencement platform with Barack Obama who will deliver the commencement address and receive an honorary degree this May. Although the Glendon choice appears to have been made in late 2008, it may have been perceived by the Notre Dame administration as a balance on the platform when considering inviting Obama to South Bend.
Amid controversy over its chosen commencement speaker, it's now emerged that President Obama will share the Notre Dame stage with the "first lady" of American Catholicism.
At this hour, as the bells of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart toll in Laetare Sunday, the university has announced Mary Ann Glendon -- the Harvard Law star, pro-life force, Vatican A-lister and, until January, former President Bush's ambassador to the Holy See -- as its 2009 recipient of the Stateside church's oldest and most prestigious honor, the Laetare Medal.
Established by Notre Dame in 1883, the annual award was envisioned as the American counterpart to the Golden Rose -- the ancient gift bestowed by the Popes on Catholic queens and, more frequently in today's world, Marian shrines. Along the way, its winners have included artists, academics, politicians... and even journalists. In 1961, the Laetare was given to John F. Kennedy weeks into the lone Catholic occupancy of the White House.
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(see the complete post at Whispers in the Loggia)
-ConcordPastor
Wow - that's an interesting match-up!
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