Kneeling was 'act of conscience'

Notre Dame student Daniel J. Moriarty: University wrong to invite Bush 

Jack Colwell / South Bend Tribune (Indiana) 22may01

Daniel J. Moriarty, a candidate for a master's degree from the University of Notre Dame, kneels Sunday in protest to the address at Notre Dame by President Bush. Tribune File Photo

SOUTH BEND -- The Notre Dame graduate student who knelt in the center aisle at commencement, back to President Bush and saying the rosary throughout the president's 22-minute speech, came forward Monday with an explanation: "The university was wrong to invite President Bush."

Why wrong?

Daniel J. Moriarty, candidate for a master's degree in arts and peace studies, said Bush's stance is in conflict with Catholic social teaching on issues from "the death penalty and labor to the environment and nuclear proliferation."

News media attempts to identify the kneeling protester Sunday after the commencement ceremony were unsuccessful. It appeared that Moriarty had slipped away and wished anonymity.

Not so.

He came forward Monday, contacting The Tribune with a request that his explanation be printed. His statement appears today as a Michiana Point of View on Page A11.

Moriarty also answered questions about why he did what he did and the reaction of fellow students.

First he stood, back to the stage, when an honorary doctorate was conferred upon Bush, Moriarty said, and "a few people shouted at me to sit down."

So, Moriarty said, for the longer protest during the Bush speech, he decided to kneel.

"It was an appropriate posture," he said, "and it would not anger people (fellow graduates) who have a right to hear their speaker."

Moriarty is a 30-year-old graduate student in the master's program at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at Notre Dame. His degree will be awarded next month. He then will be a social justice minister on the campus ministry team at Seattle University, a Jesuit institution at which he will work with undergraduates on social justice outreach efforts. His home town is near Seattle.

Between receiving his undergraduate degree at William & Mary College and coming to Notre Dame last August, Moriarty spent five years as a lay missionary in Bolivia, taught in a Washington, D.C., school and worked in the American Embassy in the Hague.

Kind of hard on the knees?

Yes, the 22 minutes of kneeling in the Joyce Center aisle got uncomfortable, Moriarty said. "I was sweating."

He was also saying the rosary. "I made it through two," Moriarty said. But he said he isn't "like some kind of monk" frequently saying the rosary. He did so Sunday in such a public way, he said, because of a need for "an act of conscience" to protest Bush's policies and Notre Dame's decision to honor the president.

Moriarty said he was appalled when the president appeared to laugh and make a joking aside to Notre Dame President Edward A. Malloy in response to a critical remark about the death penalty in the valedictorian's address.

He said that "such public displays of callousness on the part of Mr. Bush symbolized for me all that was wrong with the invitation."

It was no spur-of-the-moment decision to protest, Moriarty said. "I thought about it since I heard President Bush was coming."

But he wasn't sure exactly what he would do.

Stand? Face away from the stage? Could he get a seat on the aisle?

Even his wife, who was in the audience, "wasn't sure what I'd end up doing." And she didn't know until afterward. Not everybody could see the kneeling graduate student. Among those who couldn't was his wife, so she could not record his protest on their video camera.

Worth it?

Well, he had to do something, Moriarty said. But he feared that being shown as "one guy in the aisle" gave an impression that he was the lone protester. Others protested outside, Moriarty noted, and some inside, faculty and graduates, wore white arm bands in protest.

Did the president see the kneeling protest? It would have been hard to miss from the stage. But it paled in comparison with the more visible and vocal protests Bush encountered Monday at Yale University, his own alma mater.