Before President Obama’s recent speech at Georgetown University, his handlers asked that all religious signs and symbols that might show up in the backdrop to where the (ostensibly) Christian president was to speak be covered over. Georgetown subserviently complied, making certain that the symbol “IHS,” a monogram of the name Jesus Christ, was not visible.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue commented:

The cowardice of Georgetown to stand fast on principle tells us more than we need to know about what is going on there, but the bigger story is the audacity of the Obama administration to ask a religious school to neuter itself before the president speaks there.

And then there’s the president’s forthcoming commencement address and award of an honorary doctoral degree at Notre Dame in May:

Will his advance team ask Notre Dame to scrub the campus clean of religious symbols? Or just the ones that might appear behind the podium? Obama is in enough trouble with Catholics—over his pro-abortion executive orders and appointees, his position on embryonic stem cell research and his war on the conscience rights of healthcare workers—that it seems almost suicidal for his administration to push the envelope one more time.

Or could it be that Notre Dame, the president, and too many Catholics and other citizens no longer care about religious freedom and integrity?