The leaders of America’s 28 Jesuit colleges and universities “lack credibility” in their support for the University of Notre Dame’s plan to honor President Barack Obama as its commencement speaker and with an honorary law degree, according to a national Catholic education organization.

“It is sadly ironic that Jesuit college leaders have called for ‘dialogue’ with the bishops in lieu of protests against the Notre Dame scandal,” said Patrick J. Reilly, President of The Cardinal Newman Society. “Until they reform their own institutions, they lack credibility. For more than four decades, many Jesuit college leaders have often blatantly ignored efforts by the Vatican and the bishops to improve Catholic higher education – and they are doing so now.

“Despite the U.S. bishops’ clear policy against honors to pro-abortion politicians – and the public outrage of nearly three dozen bishops and more than 264,000 Catholics at NotreDameScandal.com – Jesuit college leaders are supporting Notre Dame’s betrayal of Catholic values even while feigning temperance.”

The Cardinal Newman Society responded to remarks made by Fr. Charles Currie, S.J., president of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (AJCU), who told the National Catholic Reporter that the leaders of the AJCU’s 28 member institutions in the United States have expressed support for Notre Dame’s action.

The AJCU president called for an end to the U.S. bishops’ condemnations of Notre Dame and more “substantive talks” between college presidents and bishops. “We have to raise the level of the dialogue beyond condemnations,” he said, adding that he and other members of the AJCU “have been talking to individual bishops to see if we can’t lower the volume and lessen the heat of the discussion.”

Thus far 33 bishops have issued statements or written letters to Notre Dame president Fr. John Jenkins, C.S.C., criticizing his decision to honor and host President Obama at the Notre Dame commencement ceremony on May 17. Most of the bishops speaking out have cited the 2004 U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops statement “Catholics in Political Life,” which says Catholic institutions should not honor and provide platform for those opposed to the Catholic Church’s fundamental moral principles.

“The ‘dialogue’ the Jesuit leaders propose started long ago without them, from Pope John Paul II’s guidelines for Catholic universities issued in 1990 to Pope Benedict XVI’s address to American Catholic educators last year,” Reilly said. “Meanwhile many Jesuit institutions have continued their spiral downward into secularized education, including honoring pro-abortion leaders just as Notre Dame is doing this year. They deserve the same condemnations that have been directed to Notre Dame.”

Consider just a few recent examples:

Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, a Jesuit institution, will host pro-abortion MSNBC celebrity Chris Matthews as the Jesuit university’s commencement speaker on May 16 and will award him an honorary doctorate in communications. In 2003 Matthews was similarly honored by the Jesuits’ College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., and University of Scranton, Penn., prompting the local Catholic bishops to publicly protest and boycott both commencement ceremonies.

Radically pro-abortion Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi delivered the commencement address at the University of San Francisco in 2007.

This year most of the 15 Catholic universities producing The Vagina Monologues – a vile, sexually explicit play which, in direct opposition of Catholic teachings on sexual ethics, favorably describes lesbian activity and masturbation – were Jesuit colleges and universities.

At the beginning of Lent, Georgetown University hosted “Sex Positive Week.” The events consisted of an Ash Wednesday discussion about “arguably alternative forms of pornography,” a talk by a pornographic film director entitled “Relationships Beyond Monogamy,” and a talk about “dominance and submission, bondage and discipline, fetishism, cross-dressing” as “different expressions of power in love and play.”

The beginning of Lent also coincided with “Transgender Awareness Week” at the Jesuits’ Seattle University. It included a session on allegedly transgendered Bible heroes and heroines and “Criss-Cross Day,” when students were encouraged to “come dressed for the day in your best gender-bending outfit.”

“The Color of Queer Film Series” is taking place this semester at Loyola University Chicago. The series includes Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros about a 12-year-old boy who falls in love with a male police officer.

In a March article in The Hawk, the student newspaper of Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, it was explained how the university finds the “middle ground between Church doctrine and student healthcare.” The director of student health services, Laura Hurst, was quoted stating that “the school's location offers enough convenience and opportunity to encourage students to purchase” condoms. "We're very fortunate that we’re not in a very rural pocket, we're right here on City Avenue," she said.

Just as the Church was preparing for Holy Week, Jesuit Xavier University in Cincinnati hosted “Queer Week” on campus. The Xavier website described the week of activities as a time “to embrace and celebrate the use of queer as an inclusive, unifying socio-political term for people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, straight, transsexual, intersexual, gender queer, or anyone else who supports the equality of all identities and expressions.” Friday was “Same-Sex Hand Holding Day.”