'Beyond Ignorance and Dogma' by Christian Smith

Notre Dame Sociology Professor Christian Smith gave sociologists who deride religion a dressing down in the most recent issue of the American Sociological Association's journal. In "Beyond Ignorance and Dogma: On Taking Religion Seriously," Prof. Smith says,

"The time has come for American sociology to stop being so ignorant and dogmatic about religion. As someone who knows something about the real history, cultures, and organizations of religious traditions, I am regularly appalled by the illiterate prejudices about religion that are routinely expressed by sociologist colleagues. It is embarrassing for our discipline and galling to those who know better."

Read the full article on page 14 here.

ND to welcome Patrick Deneen to faculty

Georgetown political science professor Patrick Deneen has publicly announced his move to Notre Dame this fall. He is the founding director of the Tocqueville Forum on the Roots of American Democracy, an accomplished scholar, and a devout Catholic. His announcement has rocked Georgetown's Government Department, and is a cause for celebration at Notre Dame. Read more about his reasons for moving to Notre Dame in his blog post "Why I am leaving Georgetown."

An excerpt:
"Notre Dame has recruited me explicitly because they regard me as someone who can be a significant contributor to its mission and identity, particularly the Catholic identity of the institution. Considerations of “mission fit” has become a criterion for faculty hiring at Notre Dame – indeed, it was a major consideration in seeking to hire me – whereas it is generally not a consideration at Georgetown. Without such a criterion, Georgetown increasingly and inevitably remakes itself in the image of its secular peers, ones that have no internal standard of what a university is for other than the aspiration of prestige for the sake of prestige, its ranking rather than its commitment to Truth. Its Catholic identity, which should inform every activity of the community, from curriculum to dorm life to faculty hiring, has increasingly been cordoned off to optional activities of Campus Ministry. I would like to be a contributor to a more widely-embraced institutional mission in the life of my institution and community. I don’t doubt that there will shortcomings at Our Lady’s University. But, there are at least some comrades-in-arms to share in the effort."

Read a Georgetown student's analysis of the loss here. An excerpt from "The State of the University":

"Perhaps more alarming, though, is Deneen's explicit grievance at the lack of Catholicism at this place. We are Georgetown, the nation's oldest and preeminent Roman Catholic college, founded by no less than the first Catholic bishop in the United States. We are the touchstone of Catholic education in this country. If Georgetown loses the faith, who indeed is left to defend it?

In a word, it is a tragedy that brilliant Catholic academics who wish to integrate their religious convictions into their vocation no longer feel welcome in Washington. We will never go back to being a small religious school. To have the space compressed, however, for those who would defend the old ways, and to squeeze them out slowly is the best example of eradicating intellectual diversity from a place that ostensibly prizes free discourse and thought."

HHS refuses to expand religious exemption to contraception mandate

Earlier this year, Fr. Jenkins, President of Notre Dame, wrote a letter to Kathleen Sebilius, Health and Human Services Secretary for the Obama administration, making a plea for a wider religious exemption from the new laws requiring all employers to cover contraception in their health insurance plans for employees. That plea has fallen on deaf ears. The Obama administration has refused to modify its new rule requiring Notre Dame and religious educational institutions like it to provide coverage of contraceptives in all its health insurance plans. Religious institutions are being given until Aug. 1, 2013 to comply fully with the new mandate. Here is the full statement from the HHS:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 20, 2012

Contact: HHS Press Office (202) 690-6343

A statement by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius

In August 2011, the Department of Health and Human Services issued an interim final rule that will require most health insurance plans to cover preventive services for women including recommended contraceptive services without charging a co-pay, co-insurance or a deductible.  The rule allows certain non-profit religious employers that offer insurance to their employees the choice of whether or not to cover contraceptive services. Today the department is announcing that the final rule on preventive health services will ensure that women with health insurance coverage will have access to the full range of the Institute of Medicine’s recommended preventive services, including all FDA -approved forms of contraception.  Women will not have to forego these services because of expensive co-pays or deductibles, or because an insurance plan doesn’t include contraceptive services. This rule is consistent with the laws in a majority of states which already require contraception coverage in health plans, and includes the exemption in the interim final rule allowing certain religious organizations not to provide contraception coverage. Beginning August 1, 2012, most new and renewed health plans will be required to cover these services without cost sharing for women across the country. 

After evaluating comments, we have decided to add an additional element to the final rule. Nonprofit employers who, based on religious beliefs, do not currently provide contraceptive coverage in their insurance plan, will be provided an additional year, until August 1, 2013, to comply with the new law. Employers wishing to take advantage of the additional year must certify that they qualify for the delayed implementation. This additional year will allow these organizations more time and flexibility to adapt to this new rule.  We intend to require employers that do not offer coverage of contraceptive services to provide notice to employees, which will also state that contraceptive services are available at sites such as community health centers, public clinics, and hospitals with income-based support.  We will continue to work closely with religious groups during this transitional period to discuss their concerns.

Scientists have abundant evidence that birth control has significant health benefits for women and their families, it is documented to significantly reduce health costs, and is the most commonly taken drug in America by young and middle-aged women. This rule will provide women with greater access to contraception by requiring coverage and by prohibiting cost sharing.

This decision was made after very careful consideration, including the important concerns some have raised about religious liberty. I believe this proposal strikes the appropriate balance between respecting religious freedom and increasing access to important preventive services. The administration remains fully committed to its partnerships with faith-based organizations, which promote healthy communities and serve the common good.  And this final rule will have no impact on the protections that existing conscience laws and regulations give to health care providers.

The Future of Catholic Higher Education

Inside Higher Ed has an article today on "The Key Task for Catholic Higher Ed" by Rev. Gregory Kalscheur of Boston College. He worries that while Catholic universities are working hard to maintain a Catholic ethos in their Campus Ministries, Student Activities, and even Residential Life, they are ignoring the most essential aspect of a Catholic education: the Catholic intellectual tradition.

An excerpt:
"Ten years after Ex Corde was formally adopted by U.S. Catholic bishops, Catholic colleges and universities today must meet the challenge to reaffirm and revitalize their engagement with the Catholic intellectual tradition. Failure to do so will mean that they are content by default to risk leaving Catholic identity to what happens outside the classroom by abandoning the conviction that, to be authentically Catholic, they must integrate their 2000-year intellectual legacy into the academic life of their campuses."

Read the full article here.

45th Anniversary of the Observer

To mark the Notre Dame Observer's 45th anniversary, the school newspaper reprinted their very first issue, from Nov. 3, 1966. We are posting here an article we especially enjoyed, detailing the campus politics of the student senate of the time. Read to the end for student Ken Beirne's incisive commentary on student life in 1966 and the direction the University was heading: “It is time for one last look; when it happens there will be no memories for there will be no awareness. The Notre Dame boy can choose relative asceticism and a grasp of life, or he can for the final time reaffirm his weary attempts at alcoholic or sexual prowess and settle for ontological impotence. To have both is impossible.”

Thursday, November 3, 1966

“The Magnificent Reactionary” by Dennis O’Dea

To call Notre Dame a hot bed of seething discontent and potential eruption would be as far from the truth as labeling motherhood a subversive institution. Notre Dame is the home of the “Fighting Irish,” Our Lady, and Knute Rockne – that’s all.

Yet people do live there. And every fall they elect representatives whose task it is to articulate their thought – a very difficult challenge; but one that is met with great courage and energy by the asps and fish on the campus.

Ideas are never very central to Student Government elections – though it is in vogue now to rattle your sword over student rights and freedom. The way to get rights and freedom, of course, is to take University authority, and drown it in the lake, and replace it with student responsibility, honor code, and community spirit. And just about everybody seems to agree that there lies the hope and salvation of Our Lady...almost everybody.

In the senate election in Lyons Hall though, Kenneth Beirne decided to challenge the popular mythology and suggest a new approach. Said Beirne: “We are now unfettered, but we are not free. Freedom demands a purpose. The man is not free who has no chains, unless he has something to do. In the last year we have seen freedom of motion take over in the absence of a significant sense of m oral and academic freedom. Soon the latter may both be gone.”

We are all members of the great “honest” and “sincere” generation. Everyone is being “honest” about sexual morality and ethical values. Students at Notre Dame are honest too – or as Ken Beirne says, “honestly dishonest.” And when they say they want freedom, they are quite clear in how they define it: elimination of all curfews, and restrictions on their physical freedom, women in the halls, cars for everybody – and anything else they think they might have overlooked (i.e. anarchy). The assumption seems to be that the best authority at all – let Christian community take care of it – whatever that means.

Ken Beirne did not take a very positive view of this student action in his campaign: “The Asp (or ASP if you will) seems certain that the administration is afraid of them. I rather think it hopes they’ll stay around, for if that organization and Student Government keep themselves busy on cars and other trivia, they won’t look at themselves and discover that they are the symptoms of a rapidly weakening Christian educational system. Those demanding surfeit cannot at the same time demand an education, and that demand the administration fears, for I don’t think it’s at all sure how to go about it. The administration can only sit in horror, wondering what someone in the past knew that they don’t, and watch Notre Dame be slowly turned into a chicken Berkeley.”

And this is the central accusation Beirne makes against the Notre Dame community. The Administration is not providing its students with an education, is not providing the moral center this generation desperately needs. Instead it is hiding behind its long black skirts and slowly retreating before the hysteria of freedom, student rights and anarchy.

And what has to be done to save Notre Dame from “Chicken” Berkeleyism? Here Ken Beirne fights extremism with extremism with such proposals as: “…reduction of the student body to a tolerable level, at the cost of the non-liberal arts schools” …and… “voluntary reinstatement of curfews and similar restrictions, sponsored by the student body, to preserve leisure on campus and provide any interested advisor with a clue to the most severely disoriented individuals.” Along with these rather unique suggestions, are more common and conservative demands for reevaluation of stay hall, honor code, curriculum faculty salaries, tuition, and the traditional demand for a more interested and involved clergy – yet here Ken breaks out and blazes a new trail. Instead of demanding that the University show its interest by acquiescing to student demands and assist the march toward anarchy, he wants the students to “force” the University to take power: “It is time the Catholic clergy reaffirmed its right to butt in on its own students’ personal lives, or else let it take up knitting.” So there it is – the emergence of the Anti-student, a student who does not want other students “to escape from the realization that it might take four years of relative asceticism to prepare oneself for a meaningful moral existence.”

Whether the newly emergent student rightists or Asp people lose any sleep over Ken Beirne’s six page challenge to their credo is unimportant – the challenge is there. Are students at Notre Dame running away from what they know is the truth? Ken Beirne thinks they are: “It is time for one last look; when it happens there will be no memories for there will be no awareness. The Notre Dame boy can choose relative asceticism and a grasp of life, or he can for the final time reaffirm his weary attempts at alcoholic or sexual prowess and settle for ontological impotence. To have both is impossible.”

Ideas such as these will neither sway the masses nor win elections. The most they can hope to do is provoke a response. And whether or not Notre Dame’s absent-minded student body is able to respond is an open question.

Cultivating Catholic Imagination

Dan McInerny, a presenter at our upcoming Fall Conference, discusses how to cultivate a Catholic imagination in this Catholic Exchange article. He has recently started a company called Trojan Tub Entertainment to produce wholesome and humorous children's literature, available through digital media.

An excerpt:

"his is the Catholic moment in the arts. In other words now, more than ever, our culture demands the fruit of a truly Catholic imagination, to save it from the Scylla of hyper-rationalization and the Charybdis of an exaltation of the imagination rooted more in the passions than in reality.


There are many Catholics, as well as other Christians, doing exciting things in the arts. And yet so much more is needed, especially in the arenas of popular culture. Recently I decided to make my own contribution to this effort, to lend my small trowel to the cultural cause. I started a company, Trojan Tub Entertainment, devoted to my Patria series of humorous adventure stories for middle grade readers. With Trojan Tub I hope to share with children and families my passion for wholesome, but always funny, children’s literature."

Read the full article here.

CUA President speaks out about conscience clauses

John Garvey, Notre Dame graduate and President of Catholic University of America, joins Father Jenkins in objecting to the HHS Rules requiring Catholic universities to provide contraceptive services that violate Catholic teaching. Read his Washington Post article here.


An excerpt:
"The regulations that HHS unveiled in August will require Catholic University to offer its students sterilization procedures and prescription contraceptives, including pills that act after fertilization to induce abortions. If we comply, as the law requires, we will be helping our students do things that we teach them, in our classes and in our sacraments, are sinful — sometimes gravely so. It seems to us that a proper respect for religious liberty would warrant an exemption for our university and other institutions like it."

David Brooks highlights Christian Smith's research

New York Times columnist David Brooks' most recent opinion piece highlighted the research of Dr. Christian Smith, a Notre Dame professor of social science who will be speaking at our annual Fall Conference, "Radical Emancipation: Confronting the Challenge of Secularism," Nov. 10-12. Christian Smith's research focuses on the religious experience of teenagers and young adults in the United States, and on what guides their moral reasoning.

An excerpt:
"Smith and company found an atmosphere of extreme moral individualism — of relativism and nonjudgmentalism. Again, this doesn’t mean that America’s young people are immoral. Far from it. But, Smith and company emphasize, they have not been given the resources — by schools, institutions and families — to cultivate their moral intuitions, to think more broadly about moral obligations, to check behaviors that may be degrading. In this way, the study says more about adult America than youthful America."

Read the full article here.

New 'Catholicism' Documentary enthusiastically reviewed

Our Fall Conference this year features Rev. Robert Barron of Word on Fire Ministries for our Thursday night (Nov. 10) keynote address. Fr. Barron has recently produced a book and DVD documentary, "Catholicism," which is being reviewed extraordinarily positively by the Catholic press. It is designed to present a comprehensive introduction to the Catholic faith through a multimedia approach, and by all reports the finished product is masterful. In the first review to be published, by The Catholic Thing, the reviewer says:  

"I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched a Catholic film or TV program and commented, “Surely we can do better than this!” Well, Catholicism is better than I ever imagined such a film could be – a feast for eye and ear and soul."

Read more here, and learn more about the Catholicism Project.

Secularism and education

Irish Times columnist John Waters reflects on what teaching religion really does for children, and why the struggle in Ireland over whether to continue religious instruction in its national schools is a struggle over what education is really for. An excerpt:

"Properly understood, religion enables the opening up of the child’s natural understanding of his/her own structure and relationship with the totality of reality. True education involves the proffering of a tradition in its entirety, together with the freedom to interrogate it. Its fundamental objective is not the “inculcation” of anything, still less the indoctrination of values or beliefs. That Irish Catholicism has tended to misunderstand the meaning of the word “freedom” is insufficient reason to replace a stunted form of propaganda with an outrightly sinister one."

Read the full article here.

Pro-life faculty feel isolated, says UFL president

At the University Faculty for Life's (UFL) annual national conference, held this year at the University of Notre Dame, newly installed UFL president Teresa Collett says professors who hold pro-life views often feel isolated and marginalized on college campuses. Collett is a professor of Law at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis, MN. Despite academia's claim of encouraging diversity and rigorous inquiry into all areas of life and human experience, pro-life research and writing is excluded at secular and Christian institution alike:

"In most institutions, particularly before tenure but even after tenure, the reigning orthodoxy on abortion is enforced by faculty review committees and administrators," Collett said. "Writing about abortion is often discouraged pre-tenure as 'too controversial' and after tenure as a distraction from the faculty member's established area of scholarship," she continued. "For the courageous faculty member who wants to explore these issues, having a community of like-minded scholars to collaborate with is critical."

For the full story, click here.

Belmont Abbey College opens first college-based maternity home

Belmont Abbey College has provided courageous leadership for Catholic colleges and universities by opening the first college-based maternity home for women who want to carry their babies to term and continue their educations. The college broke ground for the new home on Monday, and the maternity home will provide free room and board to pregnant college students and their babies after birth for up to two years. The new program is operated by Room At The Inn, an organization founded by 1999 Notre Dame alumna Lacy Dodd, who became pregnant her senior year and resisted pressure from her boyfriend to get an abortion. She is now the proud mother of her beautiful 11-year-old daughter and founder and board member of Room At The Inn. She hopes the initiative at Belmont Abbey will be a model for similar maternity homes at other colleges and universities, especially her alma mater, Notre Dame. We would do well to follow her lead.

For LifeNews.com's account of the groundbreaking, click here. For more information on Room At The Inn, click here. For more background on the genesis of the new initiative on Belmont's campus, click here.

ND Trustee Martino resigns over pro-abortion contributions

Notre Dame's Office of Public Relations released the following announcement today:

"Roxanne Martino has resigned from the University of Notre Dame Board of Trustees, effective immediately, in the wake of reports criticizing donations she has made to organizations that characterize themselves as pro-choice.

“In the best interests of the University, I regretfully have decided to step down from the Notre Dame Board of Trustees,” Martino said. “I dearly love my alma mater and remain fully committed to all aspects of Catholic teaching and to the mission of Notre Dame. I had looked forward to contributing in this new role, but the current controversy just doesn’t allow me to be effective.”

“Ms. Martino has served Notre Dame in many ways over the years and is highly regarded as someone who is absolutely dedicated in every way to the Catholic mission of this University,” said Richard C. Notebaert, chairman of the Board of Trustees. “She has lived her life and faith in an exemplary way, including the counsel and support she has provided to Notre Dame, many other Catholic institutions and Thresholds, an organization that provides programs for thousands of people with severe mental illness.”

Martino received her bachelor’s degree in business from Notre Dame and a master of business administration degree from the University of Chicago. She joined Aurora Investment Management in 1990 and now leads the Chicago firm."

Fr. Bill Miscamble, C.S.C., Professor of History and Research Fellow of the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture comments:

"I am grateful that Mrs. Martino had the decency to resign from the Board of Trustees but very disappointed that she included no apology in her statement for her sad record of donations to Emily's List and other virulently pro-abortion PACs like Illinois State Personal PAC.

I am further disappointed by the very limited press release from the University of Notre Dame and by the remarks of Board Chair, Mr. Richard Notebaert.  He neither gives an apology for his earlier misleading statements concerning Mrs. Martino's donations nor expresses regret for his failure to vet this appointment with appropriate diligence.  Further, he gives no assurance that contributing in any way to explicitly 'pro-choice' organizations is incompatible with service on the Notre Dame Board of Trustees.

There is clearly a need for a serious investigation as to how this appointment was made and how similar appointments can be avoided in the future.  Such action will be supported by all those who love Notre Dame and want it to be an unambiguously pro-life institution."

Speech from Alumni Reunion Weekend

“LIFE MATTERS, THE ROXANNE MARTINO CASE, AND THE CATHOLIC CHARACTER OF NOTRE DAME.”

BILL MISCAMBLE, C.S.C.

Presented at the  PROJECT SYCAMORE BREAKFAST,     JUNE 4, 2011

(A shorter version of this talk was also presented as part of a panel on  “The Catholic Identity, Character, and Mission of Notre Dame,” as part of Notre Dame Alumni Association’s Reunion Weekend Program, with John Cavadini, Gary Anderson and Sr. Ann Astell, June 4, 2011.)

Thank you so much for the opportunity to be here today.

I want to thank each one of you for coming to this breakfast, and more especially for your love and interest in Notre Dame and its future.

I want to give special thanks to Bill Dempsey and Project Sycamore for hosting us this morning.

I’m not sure how many of you are regular subscribers to the Project Sycamore bulletins, but I’m sure that those of you who are would readily agree with me as to the important role which Bill Dempsey and his colleagues  are playing in forcing serious discussion about the present circumstance and future direction  of the University we love.

Indeed Project Sycamore plays an enormously important role in promoting the Catholic character and mission of Notre Dame. It provides a sustained and deeply thoughtful monitoring of developments.  It works to influence Notre Dame for the good and it is greatly needed at this time.

Let me encourage any of you who may not have done so to take up the chance to subscribe to Project Sycamore and to receive its regular bulletins.

 Friends, I want to offer a quick overview of some recent developments at Notre Dame and to give some evaluation of where we are as a Catholic university.

My colleague and friend, Prof. David Solomon, will speak as well and plans to address primarily matters associated with the Center for Ethics and Culture, which he heads, and also matters concerning the curriculum.

After we are both done I hope there will be plenty of time for questions and observations from you.

Let me at the outset make clear that there are many wonderful developments taking place at Notre Dame.   Some good teaching occurs and good scholarship is undertaken.  Some good hires are made.  We benefit from such fine initiatives as the Alliance for Catholic Education.  We are fortunate and privileged to have fine students attend and most benefit from their time here.  The place looks great and even some of our sports teams are pretty successful  -- let’s hear it for that fencing team and for women’s soccer and basketball.  (Thank God for the women!)

I first arrived here to begin graduate studies in 1976 and have been teaching here as a priest in Holy Cross  for a quarter century. It is hard for me to imagine teaching anywhere else.

Now, you know well that the Notre Dame public relations machine is excellent at producing expensive visual presentations, all kinds of engaging website material and glossy brochures to propagate the most positive spin on things around the place. 

--Some folk  here seem to think it  inappropriate if one does not simply join the P.R.  cheerleading squad and read from the “frequently asked questions” sheet  [known as the UND NIGHT FAQs]  prepared for speakers who hit the road for Universal Notre Dame Night presentations.  

-- But I see my responsibility differently.  I actually believe in the intelligence of Notre Dame alums and their spouses––and don’t think you should have to settle for canned answers.  I have taught some great students over the years and I feel confident they can handle the reality of our circumstance.  I feel the same about each of you.

I draw some inspiration for my remarks today from a story told about my favorite American president––Harry S. Truman. The story is told by Bill Moyers who served as an aide to LBJ. It took place in Truman’s home on Delaware Avenue in Independence, Missouri  in 1965.

QUOTING MOYERS: 

LBJ brought a passel of his young aides, because he was insistent that we would meet Harry Truman. We were in a circle in what was the dining room of his house.  And LBJ brought Harry Truman around and had every one of the aides shake his hands and introduced us each by name.

As we were leaving, Harry Truman said: “Boys, you take care of the president.”

And somebody said, “he can take care of himself.”

Truman said, “Boys let me tell you what I mean. Since the president won the largest plurality in American political history last fall he’s going to say, “2+2 is five isn’t it?” And everyone in the room is going to say: “yes, Mr. President 2+2 is five.” 

And he’s going to say, ‘the sun comes up in the West, right?’  And everyone’s going to say, “yes, Mr. President, the sun comes up in the West.”

And he’s going to say: “I don’t have to put my pants on one leg at a time do I?” And everyone in the room’s going to say, “No, Mr. President, you don’t have to put your pants on one leg at a time.”

And your job, boys is to tell the president, “2+2 is still four,  the sun still comes up in the East, and we don’t care how you put your pants on, but your fly is unzipped.”

Let me try to talk to you plainly and directly about recent developments here. 

Forgive the brevity with which I pass over  events – but our time is relatively short.

It is just over two years ago since the May 2009 commencement at which Notre Dame honored Pres. Barack Obama,  a politician deeply committed to  the abortion regime that prevails in the United States today. This was in many ways a sad event. As you may recall the visit brought forth criticism of the country’s  leading Catholic University from over 80 bishops, from literally thousands of Notre Dame alums and from hundreds of thousands of committed Catholic folk who love Notre Dame and expected more from her.

My purpose here is not to rehash the Obama visit in any detail but to use it as my point of departure and to review what has happened subsequently at Notre Dame.

The Obama visit was explained and defended by Fr. John Jenkins, the president, and by Richard Notebaert,  the Chair of the Board of Trustees, as an exercise in “dialogue.” This was misleading, of course.  There was no two-way exchange of views at any time.   It is a sad exercise in obfuscation to suggest so -- rather like saying that “2+2 equals five.”  But it is not the only occasion they have engaged in such behavior, as we shall see.

On one level the visit of Pres. Obama was a “success” for Notre Dame––great visuals, cheering crowds  on the actual day etc., but the picture is a more complicated one as we know.

The visit put Notre Dame at odds in a very direct way with the local bishop––then Bishop John D’Arcy. It strained the University’s relationship with the institutional Church.  I think it fair to say that it was a source of scandal for some.

The Notre Dame administration was surprised by the extent of the negative reaction––however much they might deny that. They had given out a very mixed moral message on the life issue. Indeed, they had chosen “prestige over truth” to use the words of Bishop D’Arcy. Far from being able to celebrate the Obama visit,  the administration was pushed into the work of damage limitation,  at least to some degree.

DAMAGE LIMITATION

Perhaps we should take some heart from the fact that the Notre Dame administration was pushed into damage limitation mode. Sadly the pressure to do so did not really come from within the university––

––certainly not from the faculty;

––not it would appear from the trustees;

––and not, I regret to say, from the Holy Cross community.

No, it was ND alumni and friends as well as the sense that Notre Dame’s reputation and credibility as a Catholic university had been hurt and was in need of repair.

Of course, there was no indication of regret. There was no apology to Bishop D’Arcy––who is now retired and been replaced by Bishop Kevin Rhoades.  Yet, there is surprisingly little mention of the event in administration publicity. In fact there is a certain downplaying of it.   What received more attention were worthy initiatives to strengthen Notre Dame’s pro-life credentials. 

Curiously, there was enormous room for the Notre Dame administration to act in this area,  for there was little of substance to demonstrate the reality of  Fr. Jenkins oft-given assurance that Notre Dame was  “unambiguously prolife.”    

Indeed, we might see it as a measure of the secularization of Catholic universities generally that they have clearly distanced themselves from pro-life endeavors. Instead of being institutional bastions of support and sustenance for the pro-life movement they often seem to be embarrassed to be associated with the most important moral cause of our time.  (Such a pro-life course, my friends, is just not the way you impress the New York Times and your preferred peer institutions out there on the East Coast.)

Nonetheless,  Fr. Jenkins took some actions:

1.      He set up the Notre Dame task force on supporting the choice for life––which was chaired by John Cavadini (theology) and Peg Brinig  (law). This group worked hard and produced two valuable statements:–

A.      An institutional statement supporting the choice for life––which indicated the University’s commitment to the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death;

B.      and the University of Notre Dame’s statement of principles for institutional charitable activity.

There were other positive developments:

––Fr. Jenkins and a considerably larger faculty group participated in the March for life in both 2010 and 2011;

––Fr. Jenkins quietly resigned from the Millennium Promise Board   (One should note  that Fr. Hesburgh had never resigned from the board of the Rockefeller Foundation despite its extensive support of population control measures throughout the Third World.)

––the Office of Life Initiatives was established and Mary Daly was appointed to staff it;

--and I am very glad to report that the Alumni Association has appointed a Life Initiatives Coordinator to liaise with Clubs and assist and support their endeavors.  I hope Alums will benefit greatly from the efforts of Beth Bubik.)

––a firm commitment was made not to engage in embryonic stem cell research.

Let us be grateful for these measures. They were at least something but we should not overstate them.

The main pro-life efforts on campus continued to be those pushed by the students in Notre Dame Right to Life and by those faculty most closely associated with the Center for Ethics and Culture, certain terrific folk in the Law School,  and the Faculty for Life group.

Speaking for myself, I would say the central administration did what they felt was required but little more. Certainly there was no generosity of spirit towards the ND 88––indeed quite the opposite.

There could be and there must be a much stronger effort to support and sustain the pro-life cause at Notre Dame.   We should proudly see ourselves as the institution that will train a new generation of pro-life leaders.   

--There must be strong institutional support for PROJECT GUADALUPE --   the effort led by Prof. David Solomon and the Notre Dame Fund to Protect Human Life to equip young folk well to engage effectively in the pro-life struggle. 

There are many other ways in which Notre Dame could further demonstrate its deep commitment to the pro-life cause. At a minimum we should assure that our students leave Notre Dame more likely to be pro-life than when they enter, which is not the case now.  (Perhaps the institution could gift them with a copy of John Paul II’s Evangelium Vitae and encourage them to read it and discuss it.)

Most certainly the institution should do something more to support pregnant students in need – and not just ND students but young women from other Colleges just as is being done through the “Room at the Inn” organization associated with  Belmont Abbey College in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Friends, we all know that there is much more that Notre Dame can do if there is the desire and commitment to do so.

But is there that desire and commitment?  Is there a real and deeply felt need to demonstrate that  Notre Dame is unambiguously pro-life?

Recent events would suggest otherwise.

The Roxanne Martino Case

Some of you would be very familiar with the case from reading the informative Project Sycamore bulletins and forceful pieces written by the Wall Street Journal columnist, Bill McGurn.

The basic details are these.  The Fellows of Notre Dame have elected to the Board of Trustees, Roxanne Martino, a Chicago businesswoman and ND alumna, who has given over $25,000 to the pro-abortion Political Action Committee, Emily’s List.  Her most recent donation was $5,000  made last December.  [This is apparently the maximum amount permitted.]

Mr. Notebaert and Fr. Jenkins have sought to defend Mrs. Martino.   They  assert that Mrs. Martino  (who, by the way,  handles other people’s investments)  was simply unaware of the purposes of Emily’s List to which she donated over a ten-year period. They are seeking to mount an “ignorance defense “ on behalf of Mrs. Martino claiming that she did not know that Emily’s list took a pro-choice position.  

I suspect they must think that Notre Dame graduates  are idiots and morons who will simply accept this and move on to worrying about next football season.  Perhaps they think that saying “2 + 2 equals five” will really make it so.   Their dissembling  is an embarrassment to our university. That the leaders of Notre Dame are seeking to defend such an appointment is simply a disgrace and it must be named as such.

Clearly a mistake was made in vetting Mrs Martino.   Certainly I know from a CSC member of the Fellows that they had no knowledge of Mrs. Martino’s history of giving to Emily’s list when they voted in her favor.

But I ask you––would an “unambiguously pro-life” institution  seek to defend this appointment.? 

And that “defense” is becoming increasingly more difficult.  Today (June 4), a report reveals that “Ms. Martino gave to  another group solely dedicated to advancing abortion rights: the Illinois state Personal Pac.  Like Emily’s List, this group makes no secret of its agenda, stating up front across the top of its home page:  ‘Vital to Electing a Pro-choice Illinois.’”   As Bill McGurn has noted: “This new information makes the official spin that Emily’s List was an accident much harder to swallow.”

Surely,  there should have been a quick and honest admission of a mistake and a request for Mrs. Martino to stand down.   Surely she herself should be  genuinely troubled at having given substantial money to Emily’s List?  (Hopefully, she might  take some actions in subsequent years to demonstrate the depths of her acceptance of Catholic teaching on respect for every human life  and compensate for her sad track record of generosity to an organization that promotes and defends one of the most liberal abortion regimes in the world.)   Mrs Martino, however, should not set policies and the broad direction of Notre Dame!!

In many ways this matter is more important than the Obama fiasco for what it means about the future direction of Notre Dame and for what it tells us about those who lead our university.

Already the case has raised for me substantial questions about the suitability of Mr. Notebaert to lead our Board. 

--He has emerged as the main defender of Mrs. Martino and seems to have supplanted Fr. Jenkins in determining university policy on the matter.  If he can’t understand the damage that an appointment like this does to Notre Dame’s credibility and reputation as a Catholic University then his credentials and capabilities to lead the Board must surely be questioned.

Regrettably, the six Holy Cross fellows seem ready to acquiesce in Mr. Notebaert’s decisions.   This has not been in episode in which Holy Cross has sought to lead.   I know this disappoints many of you who expect more of the Order.  

(I can only say as someone who served as Rector of Moreau Seminary  some years ago that there are some among the younger Holy Cross priests who see the matter differently.   They wish to be explicit in their loyalty to the Church and they understand that loyalty to Christ is integrally related to commitment in his Church. I hope and pray they will have the chance to exercise some influence in this place.)

A Catholic University at its Heart

In the end, for Notre Dame to be unambiguously pro-life it will have to be very clear that it wants to be a Catholic university at its heart and not just at the periphery.

Notre Dame must clarify well what is the foundational document that guides its present course and its future direction.

Mr. Notebaert seems to think that the Land O’Lakes Statement  with its strictures for complete institutional autonomy from the Church should serve this role.  This is a disastrous course and one that pushes us further down the road to the marginalization of religion and ultimately to secularization.  It is a course that asks us to ape and mirror the secular schools that lie ahead of us in the U.S. New and World Report rankings.  (So, we must strive hard to match Northwestern at what it does and so forth.)

The alternate course is the one offered by John Paul II’ s Ex Corde Ecclesiae  and which is already incorporated into Notre Dame’s Mission Statement.      Thus,  our mission statement reads:

“a Catholic university draws it’s a basic inspiration from Jesus Christ as the source of wisdom and from the conviction that in him all things can be brought to their completion. As a Catholic university, Notre Dame wishes to contribute to this educational mission.”

The debate between these two versions is occurring right now. How this contest gets worked out in practice will determine the long-term direction of Notre Dame.

Will we merely settle for a Catholic “gloss” on or around Notre Dame.––this is what my colleague Fred Freddoso from Philosophy was getting at when he suggested that Notre Dame might be willing to be “a public school  in a Catholic neighborhood.”

There would still be the beautiful Basilica, perhaps even chapels in the dorms, touchdown Jesus, the Lady on the Dome, and  a couple of old priests drooling in their rocking chairs on the Corby Hall porch.   But the central academic project would not be guided by Catholic principles or by the call of Christ.

Dear alumni friends—please don’t allow the university to settle for this. There are enormous issues at stake and I ask you to keep track of two essential areas and they are related.

The first is  what is taught and how. This is the whole area of curriculum. Will Notre Dame provide a distinct Catholic education which offers not only intellectual but   moral and spiritual formation?  Can Notre Dame provide an education that aides folk to be not only smart but good?  Can it be a place where young men and women of our day can come and ask:  “Teacher, what must I do to have eternal life?” and not be laughed at and dismissed? (JP II  Veritatis Splendor)

The second is of course, who teaches here––will we have faculty (Catholics and non-Catholics alike) who are supportive of the broad and distinct mission of Notre Dame?  

I will be glad to address these issues in our question and answer session.   They are  essential matters  -- faculty hiring and the content of the curriculum.

 

But, let me beseech you again to stay involved with Notre Dame.  Some folk occasionally get so disappointed with the school that they want to break ties with it.  This is a foolish course and a recipe for defeat for all that is best at Notre Dame.

Yet, you must recognize well that the pressures to simply conform to the reigning secular education model are strong.  Many here want to be recognized by the American Association of Universities and so forth.  They want the esteem and regard of the leaders in American higher education.

But friend, there are already plenty of schools where intellect has managed to detach itself from morality   -- places like Princeton where Professor Peter Singer holds an endowed chair and  yet thinks it is okay to kill babies.   Is this the model we want to conform to and imitate?

Rather, would you not have Notre Dame be the place that unabashedly pursues the truth in these challenging times for both the church and society – and we know how challenging they are and have been.  

Shouldn’t it strive to be “different” – to be  a place where Faith and reason “are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of the truth.”  (JP II --  Fides et Ratio)

Would you not rather that Notre Dame be the place that resisted the vain temptation to gain the whole world at the expense of its soul?

Thank you.

The Revolution of Solid Love in Argentina

One of the most remarkable developments in student culture in recent years has been the revival among small and energetic groups of students of an enthusiasm for traditional conceptions of human sexuality.  These groups rely for the most part on arguments rooted in human reason and the social sciences, eschewing what some regard as the narrower theological reasons to which one might expect them to appeal.  Princeton’s Anscombe Society, founded in 2005,  was among the first such student groups, but the interest in forming similar groups has spread to a number of universities across the country, including Notre Dame.

                The movement now shows signs of going international with student interest popping up in Europe and South America.  Ignacio Ibarzabal,  a 25 year old Argentine lawyer and a very good friend of the Center, is one of the leaders of the movement in Argentina.   He is the founder and Executive Director of Grupo Sólido, an NGO that is leading  the so called "solid love revolution" among young people in Latin America. After studying part of his career in Rome, he graduated at Austral University, Argentina, where he is assistant lecturer of Civil and Family Law. He also worked at the Buenos Aires City Government and served as an advisor to a national congressman.

                Ignacio published an opinion piece in La Nacion—the most important newspaper in Argentina—on February 8^th of this year describing the goals of Grupo Solido.  With Ignacio’s permission we are posting a translation of his very interesting article.  Here at the Center for Ethics and Culture we have a file for pieces like this.  It is labeled “Very Good News.”

The uprising of solid love

                Ignacio Ibarzábal

                For LA NACION

                Tuesday February 8th, 2011 | Published in the printed edition

                Zygmunt Bauman, a Polish sociologist, has achieved great editorial success describing our “liquid” society. On his book “Liquid Love: On the Frailty of Human Bonds”, he captures the postmodern outlook regarding relationships: In these days, bonds among people are fragile, weak, almost ethereal.

                Liquid love is the legacy we inherited from the sexual revolution. And while adults may believe that young people comfortably swim in its waters, many of us are filled with dissatisfaction. In fact, a reaction is about to start.

                In the past few years, everywhere around the world we have seen young-led initiatives coming up against the manipulation of sexuality. The stronger movement sprouted in the United States. It started in February 2005 at Princeton University with the launching of the Anscombe Society. This society has gathered a group of students that—as Ryan T. Anderson, one of its founders, reports—were tired of the dehumanizing campus culture, and hoped to point to an alternative, a better way of celebrating human sexuality. The news spread rapidly, and the model was quickly mirrored on other campuses. Today we have similar groups in more than 30 universities and a new organization, the Love and Fidelity Network, has been created just to furnish resources and training to help these students to articulate and promote their values in the midst of hostile environments. In fact, similar groups are appearing all over the world, including here in Argentina.

                All these young people agree on a common set of ideas, unbeknownst today for too many adults. They believe sexuality is a human dimension to be celebrated. It should never be repressed, but it cannot be either reduced to the use of a partner as a means of pleasure. In this light abstinence acquires meaning and marriage stands out as an act of fundamental freedom that qualitatively enhances the ability to love. These youngsters—the first massive generation of children born from divorced parents–—see the family as a source of unconditional love, as a support for a healthy development of personality, and as a cradle of proactive and responsible citizens.

                The vital notion is that sexuality is where love flows naturally and that sexuality without true love cannot fulfill the hopes and aspirations of human beings.

                Nevertheless, the radical novelty is that these groups do not rely on theological reasons, but rather on human sciences. Which is why they dare to challenge and counter argue the dominant discourse of academia.

                An inattentive observer could claim that this vision contradicts facts. That the hook up culture, the fall of marriage rates, and the increase of divorces are unequivocal proofs that young adults are indeed liquid.

                And he would be partially right. But he will miss the point that social changes are the consequence of creative minorities and not of passive majorities. And these young minorities are longing for an uprise. They no longer face a family authority against to which rebel, not even a sexual ethic to mock at. Today we can only rebel against licentiousness, disorientation and the pain arisen from what Erich Fromm called separateness. Will we let this opportunity go by?

                We stand at the crossroads. Writers and academics continue to fill novels and papers with ink that smells of May 1968; sympathetic governments impose those ideas through public policies; and a legion of journalists, inspired by such breeze of uniformity, believe to be the carriers of the latest news while reporting the ultimate sigh of a revolution that already smells like naphthalene.

                But while the crowd looks at the domes of universities, governments and media, outside those walls new ideas are being born and a counter-reformation is being prepared. When everybody stares amazed at the achievements of the so called sexual freedom, a more attractive freedom settles down in the heart of thousands of young people. And it settles, with the tenacity that arises from the consciousness of being unfairly censored by political correctness.

                Far from winning the cultural war, the sexual revolution has begun to realize that its age is coming to an end, and while at the time it enjoys the rewards earned in the battles of the past, it faces the defeats which are the source of its future extinction. We, young people who were not even born in the sixties nor in the seventies feel tired when adults that were once our age—and alas, they have now become old—put in our mouths words that no longer can be theirs.

                So, while Simone de Beauvoir lies in her deathbed with a smile, contemplating tons of news and thousands of laws putting her ideas into practice, some of the children still unborn are already imagining a different culture. Be sure that they will reap new public policies from the seeds sown by the young people of today, who with the force of their reasons, are already attracting hearts to participate in a new revolution: the revolution of the faithful, true, responsible love. The revolution of solid love.