The anti-abortion storm troopers of the American Roman Catholic Church are assaulting Notre Dame University for inviting President Barack Obama to deliver this weekend’s commencement address. You can almost hear their hobnailed boots, marching in lockstep, as they trample on our nation’s most fundamental founding principles.

The issue, of course, is the President’s position on abortion and stem-cell research. He has said repeatedly that (a) he opposes abortion as a means of birth control; (b) favors reducing abortion by increasing education about sex and birth control; and (c) supports more research about how to reconcile science and morality in stem-cell research.

But that’s not good enough for the anti-abortion storm troopers. Their rigid, close-minded position was recently reiterated by ultra-conservative U.S. Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky, who said: “You cannot be a Catholic and be pro-choice…It’s not a cafeteria of beliefs in the Catholic church. You can’t say, ‘I pick this one, oh, but this one I’m not going to be able to honor.’ There are beliefs and there are beliefs.”

Well, it’s my belief that Bunning is no better a Catholic than Joe Biden, his former colleague in the Senate and currently the first person of his religious faith to be Vice-President of the U.S. By supporting his running mate, Biden speaks for the liberal wing of the church, the one that recoiled in horror when the bishop of St. Louis said, in effect, that it was a sin to vote for Obama-Biden because of their position on abortion.

This meant voting for Republican Senator John McCain and his runningmate, Sarah Palin, because they subscribed to the Bunning school of thought on abortion. Never mind that they also supported President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq – a war that the Vatican had declared to be immoral.  If you are “pro-life,” shouldn’t  you have opposed the war, as Obama did from the very beginning? The war in Iraq has cost more than 4,000 U.S. lives and countless Iraq lives. Aren’t those lives just as important as barely formed fetuses?

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As much as I detested George W. and most of his policies, I would never criticize a university’s decision to invite him to speak on campus. For one thing, it’s a matter of respecting the office of President of the United States. For another, it’s a matter of believing that our nation’s campuses should be bastions of free speech and intellectual debate.

As a supporter of the American Civil Liberties Union, I would defend a university’s right to invite the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan to be a commencement speaker, if that’s what the students wanted. As the philosopher Descartes said, “I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

I’m certain President Obama will address the abortion issue squarely during his speech at Notre Dame. He can hardly ignore it, given the controversy his invitation has generated and given how far-right-wing branch of the church has made abortion the litmus test for judging one’s commitment to Catholicism.

As a Roman Catholic, I certainly agree it’s an important issue, but I refuse to believe it’s any more important than any number of other social issues. I’m talking about things like poverty, hunger, immigration, ethics, diversity, tolerance, and, world peace. In virtually every one of these areas, the Obama-Biden administration is far better for Catholics than a McCain-Palin administration would have been. And yet because of that one issue – abortion, the 10,000-pound gorilla in the sanctuary – some Catholic leaders crossed the line separating church and state to encourage their parishioners to vote against Obama and Biden.

Thanks heavens the leaders at Notre Dame are more enlightened and open-minded than the abortion storm troopers. They understand that it’s an honor to have the President of the United States – especially this history-making President, still new to the office – address their graduates. They acknowledge that abortion is only one of the problems and challenges facing the President and the nation. They realize that no good can come of religious and intellectual intolerance.

If an idea is wrong, it will sink of its own weight. But if it is right, it will withstand eventually prevail because of its inherent goodness. This is the legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. During the civil-rights movement of the 1950s and ‘60s, his opponents did everything in their power to shut him up. Had Notre Dame invited him to be its commencement speaker in, say, 1963, perhaps there would have been an element in the Catholic Church that would have opposed the invitation.

But powerful ideas cannot be silenced. They take on a life of their own, gathering momentum and support until they cannot be stifled. Personally, my conscience tells me that President Obama’s stance on abortion and stem-cell research is reasonable. It also tells me that it’s certainly no reason for him to be denied the opportunity to speak at Notre Dame or anywhere else.

I’m sure there will be protests in South Bend before, during, and after the President’s commencement speech. This is fine, so long as they’re peaceful and don’t interfere with the graduates’ right to enjoy their ceremony. God help us all if university campuses ever cease to be places where ideas can be expressed, heard, considered, and debated on their intellectual, more than their emotional, merits.

It’s expecting too much for the anti-abortion storm troopers to actually listen to what Obama has to say at Notre Dame. Their minds already are made up. But thank God they haven’t been able to bully Notre Dame into depriving the rest of us, Catholics and non-Catholics alike, of hearing what the President has to say, at the most famous Catholic university in the nation, about the issues that trouble our hearts and souls.