Yesterday afternoon Cabrini College, a Catholic institution, honored media personality Cokie Roberts with its Ivy Young Willis Award for outstanding contributions in public affairs.

Cardinal Newman Society President Patrick Reilly criticized the award noting that “Cokie Roberts is an outspoken antagonist of Pope Benedict XVI, a supporter of gay marriage and embryonic stem-cell research, an enthusiast for married clergy and the ordination of women, and a detractor of the partial-birth abortion ban and the pro-life movement.”

Last week The Cardinal Newman Society faxed a letter to Cabrini College President Dr. Marie Angelella George strongly urging her to revoke the award offer to Roberts. No response was received.

Reilly noted that the college’s actions violate a clear directive of the American Catholic bishops in 2004 which says: “The Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions.”

Roberts, who is a Roman Catholic herself, is a political commentator for ABC News and a senior news analyst for National Public Radio. In her syndicated column with husband Steve Roberts, she has espoused abortion rights and ridiculed pro-lifers as “extremists.” In an April 2007 segment for ABC News, she said that she found the Supreme Court decision upholding the ban on partial-birth abortion “offensive as a woman.”

The Roberts have also written that they would “prefer that the Vatican allow women to become priests.” They accuse the hierarchy of the Catholic Church of “condemning countless Catholics” to life without sacraments because they refuse to ordain women and married men.”

Relentless in their opposition to Church authority, the Roberts have also been critical of Catholic teaching against embryonic stem-cell research and homosexual marriage. “The potential benefits of stepped-up research far outweigh the moral hazard of destroying the embryos,” they wrote in June of 2004. Publicly arguing for the acceptance and legalization of gay marriage, the Roberts wrote, “The whole idea that they [homosexuals] endanger the institution of matrimony by wanting to join it is absurd.”

Roberts has also publicly attacked Pope Benedict XVI as “really lacking in the theological virtue of charity.” In another column with her husband she argued that the authority of the Catholic bishops has been significantly weakened, in part because of the teaching on homosexuality and contraception.