Obamas deliver commencement speeches.(NEWSWATCH)(Barack and Michelle Obama)

President Barack Obama urged graduates at the University of Notre Dame IN to listen to those who disagree with them and work to right the world's wrongs--even as hecklers tried to disrupt his speech.

Police arrested 39 protesters for trespassing, who opposed the prominent Catholic university inviting a supporter of abortion rights and awarding him an honorary doctor of law degree.

"When we open up our hearts and our minds to those who may not think precisely like we do or believe precisely what we believe--that's when we discover at least the possibility of common ground," he said.

Dr. Patricia McGuire, speaking to graduates as president at Trinity Washington University DC, denounced the "religious vigilantism" of those opposing Obama's speech and called their protests "an embarrassment to all Catholics," including herself.

"The real scandal is the misappropriation of sacred teachings for political ends," she said, accusing groups that have no standing in the church of using the media to disrupt the speech by the first African American president. "Theirs is a narrow faith devoted almost exclusively to one issue. They defend the rights of the unborn but have no charity toward the living. They mock social justice as a liberal mythology."

McGuire, the first lay president of Trinity, said she is proud of the accomplishments of Trinity alumnae Kathleen Sebelius nominated as Secretary of the ...