The Benedictine students were super
Kansas City, Missouri (PRWEB) May 15, 2009
When a Notre Dame student organization accepted an invitation to participate in a new documentary film about the annual March for Life, producer Jack Cashill was pleased. "Notre Dame is the iconic Catholic university," said Cashill.
The plan was to put a cameraman with the students on a day-long bus journey to the nation's capital and capture their participation at the March for Life as a segment of the documentary, Thine Eyes: A Witness to the March for Life.
But about five days before shooting was to begin, the administration threw up some insurmountable roadblocks.
"Notre Dame's attorney sent us a 'memorandum of understanding' that included any number of terms that were simply impossible to meet," said Cashill.
Even though the camera on the Notre Dame bus was just one of six dedicated to the shoot, Notre Dame insisted on the right to review in advance both the documentary itself and all of its marketing materials lest either "imply endorsement" by the university.
Cashill said that the irony of the memo is that its stated purpose was to protect "the University's character as a Catholic institution of higher learning."
"The Obama invite does just the opposite," added Cashill, who believes that the administration had no interest in seeing Notre Dame publicly associated with "something as unblushingly Christian as the March For Life."
With President Obama's scheduled May 17 commencement address at the University of Notre Dame coinciding with the release of Thine Eyes, A Witness To The March For Life, Cashill considers it providential that Notre Dame backed out of the project.
"Despite the students' eagerness to participate, the Obama invite would have compromised our message," Cashill said.
Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, immediately accepted a last minute invitation to join the project. The president of Benedictine, Steve Minnis, attended the March himself.
"The Benedictine students were super," said Cashill. "More than 10 percent of the Benedictine student body went to Washington. They are not embarrassed to be Catholic and Pro-life."
About Thine Eyes -- Thine Eyes is a documentary film project focused on the world's largest and most consistent Pro-life event, the annual March for Life in Washington DC.
Contact Steve Sanborn at 816.733.2028.
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