UPDATE: Keyes to speak in South Bend about Obama invite

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University of Notre Dame Golden Dome

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By WSBT News1

Story Created: Apr 14, 2009 at 9:50 AM EST

Story Updated: Apr 28, 2009 at 3:12 PM EST

SOUTH BEND — Conservative political activist Alan Keyes is coming to South Bend this week to join Randall Terry’s effort to cancel President Barack Obama’s upcoming commencement visit to the University of Notre Dame.

Keyes will speak at an event at 7 p.m. Thursday in the Gillespie Conference Center at the Hilton Garden Inn, 53995 Indiana 933.

The event is free and open to the public. A free-will offering will be accepted from those attending.

Keyes also will participate in a protest Terry’s group has planned for 10 a.m. Friday on Angela Boulevard near Notre Dame’s main gate.

Keyes, a Catholic, is a former diplomat who has run three times for president and was a three-time Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate. As a Republican, he lost in the race challenging Obama’s U.S. Senate bid in Illinois in 2004.

Terry, a Catholic convert and founder of Operation Rescue, on Monday issued a written statement criticizing the Rev. John D’Arcy, bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, for urging Catholics and others to stay away from demonstrations against Obama, Notre Dame and the Rev. John I. Jenkins, Notre Dame’s president.

D’Arcy will skip the May 17 commencement ceremony because he disagrees with Notre Dame inviting Obama and giving him an honorary degree, but he said such protests are inappropriate.

"Let us pray that even as Peter met the eyes of the suffering Christ – and Peter’s heart was broken as he wept bitter tears – that Bishop D’Arcy meet the eyes of the babies condemned to a brutal death by the man he now suggests we do not protest," Terry wrote in response, declaring that he and his followers will respectfully not obey the bishop’s directive.

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