Would it Be Such a Big Leap From Inviting Sebelius?

Yet another controversial speaker at a Catholic college:

In a move already denounced by Catholic bishops & other leading religious conservatives, St. Sincerus University, the nation’s 84^th largest Catholic university, has invited Satan to deliver its commencement speech later this month. Also known as the Prince of Darkness, Lucifer, &, more popularly, the Devil, Satan is a divisive figure among Catholics & other Christians. Several Catholic universities have upset religious conservatives in recent years by inviting controversial figures to deliver commencement speeches, as when the University of Notre Dame, the nation’s largest Catholic University, invited President Barack Obama, who supports a woman’s right to abortion, in 2009. The invitation to Satan by SSU president Fr. Thad Despereaux comes at a time when many Catholics are highly critical of the Obama administration’s attempts to reform health care, which some claim would force Catholic institutions to violate their Church’s teachings by providing contraceptives as part of their health insurance plans. Fr. Despereaux, in comments made to the Daily Sham, SSU’s student newspaper, said that having Satan on campus gives bold witness to a central Catholic principle that God can be found in all things. “The continuing politicization of the faith indicates just how important it is for us to build bridges,” Fr. Despereaux said. “Our whole mission as a university is to bring people together. Satan is badly misunderstood by many people, & we hope to show our graduates that stereotypes, & the hatred they engender, have no place on a Catholic campus. As Catholics we are to hate hate.”

Go here to Catholic Phoenix to read the hilarious rest.   One commenter on the website of the National Catholic Distorter has defended the invitation to Satan:

The battle of ideas is not worth the waging? Or the winning? Satan is not being “in-your-face” honored; he is being given an appropriate forum in the open marketplace that is this university, and a tremendous university at that. To close the marketplace of ideas, to restrict speech, to prescribe an intellectual litmus test, to deny expertise, to impose prior restraints, to shun Fallen angelic officials when they reach the campus gate at the Valleybottom, to fear ideas, and to proclaim to the world Sincerus Simpletonians are unprepared to individually learn, reason, challenge, process, and disagree–these concepts would add fuel to the charge that Sincerus can be a great Catholic university but never a Catholic great university. Intellectual conformity is comfortable; a closed marketplace of ideas is safe–but only in the moment. And never at a place that carries the brand “university.”  Be not insular Sincerus. Be not provincial. Be not afraid to open those gates.