Mary Ann Glendon Turns Down Notre Dame Award Due To Decision to Award Honorary Degree to Obama

MSNBC.com: Abortion Foe Declines Notre Dame Award, by Christopher Wilson:

Mary Ann Glendon, a conservative Harvard law professor who was U.S. ambassador to the Vatican under George W. Bush, has announced that she will not be accepting the Laetare Medal at the University of Notre Dame’s commencement ceremony on May 17. In her letter to Notre Dame President Rev. John Jenkins, Glendon stated that she would no longer be accepting, citing the conflict with President Barack Obama’s presence as both a commencement speaker and a recipient of an honorary degree. 
 
Glendon is staunchly anti-abortion, and she expressed disappointment that Notre Dame was awarding someone -- in this case the president of the United States -- whose position on abortion is so starkly different from Catholic Church's and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops'.