Scheidler: Jenkins Remains Utterly Immovable on ND 88

Says talking to Jenkins about the issue like talking to a "stone"
By James Tillman

WASHINGTON, DC, January 25, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) -- Joseph Scheidler of the Pro-Life Action League says that prior to last week he had sent letters “begging and pleading” for a chance to meet with Father John Jenkins, President of Notre Dame, but he was never given the chance to do so.

So when he saw Father Jenkins at the March for Life in Washington last Thursday, he thought that it was "too good a chance to miss."

Jenkins had agreed to attend this year's March for Life as part of the pro-life measures he began on campus in response to the outcry caused by his invitation of President Obama to speak at last year’s Notre Dame commencement.

However, Jenkins’ announcement that he intended to participate in the March for Life did little to assuage the criticisms of pro-life activists, in large part because of his continued refusal to ask that the charges against the 88 peaceful pro-life protestors who were arrested on the campus last year be dropped.

The 88 pro-lifers face up to a year in prison and a $5,000 fine if they are found guilty of the charge of trespassing. Currently an online petition effort, demanding that Fr. Jenkins request that the charges be dropped, has been signed by over 5,000 concerned individuals.

However, according to Scheidler, Fr. Jenkins remains obstinate in his refusal to do so, saying that talking to Jenkins about the issue was like talking to a “stone.”

Scheidler told LifeSiteNews (LSN) that he told Fr. Jenkins “that many, many of my friends wanted me to talk to him about removing the charges of the Notre Dame 88. So [Father Jenkins] said, 'Well, now you've told me what they want,' and that was it."

“So I thought, 'Well, that wasn't very good,'” said Scheidler. “So I went back and I said, 'You know, I not only was a student at Notre Dame but I taught at Notre Dame, and I'm very fond of Notre Dame. And I am really concerned that these 88 people were arrested for simply going on the campus doing something that they should do,' or something to that effect. And he said 'Alright, now you've said that.' And he was very off-putting."

Joseph Scheidler is among those listed as "Notable Alumni" on the Notre Dame website. Other Notre Dame alumni are of a similar opinion as Scheidler; according toReplaceJenkins.com donations totaling over $16 million from over 1,500 alumni have been withheld from Notre Dame because of Father Jenkins' actions.

According to Scheidler, the whole impression Father Jenkins gave was that, "You can talk to me all day about this, and my mind's made up."

"I think he's going to stand his ground on this," he continued. "Although, you know, anything could happen. But I wouldn't want to be one of the 88, because they are facing, you know, a possible 6 months in jail and possible 5,000 dollar fine."

"I don't give much hope for any change. ... You might as well have been talking to a stone."
Such inflexibility, according to Scheidler, makes Jenkins' arrival at the March for Life little more than an empty gesture. "Going to the March was a very small payment for having Obama there," Scheidler said, "and nothing for saving these 88 people ... [from] paying for what was not a crime."

"He has said before that it’s out of his hands," he continued. "Well, it's not. He could say 'Drop the charges,' and they'd be dropped."

The problem posed by Father Jenkins’ obstinacy makes Scheidler fear for Notre Dame’s reputation, especially after Jenkins’ recent reelection to another five years in his position. “He's got five more years handed to him,” said Scheidler, “and I have great fears that Notre Dame is going to lose its reputation. It’s losing it fast. And it would be almost impossible to get it back.”

To sign the petition to Free the ND 88, click here.

Notre Dame's Jenkins Would Do it Again - Calls Obama Visit "Successful"

By Kathleen Gilbert

SOUTH BEND, Indiana, January 6, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The unprecedented controversy that rent the U.S. Catholic community over President Obama's abortion-themed commencement speech and his reception of an honorary law degree at the University of Notre Dame last May has apparently not fazed the school's president, who called the climax of the scandal "a successful" day that he does not regret.

When asked in a South Bend Tribune interview published December 27 whether he would do it all over again, Notre Dame president Fr. John Jenkins answered, "Yes, I would."

"He is the president of the United States, and there was a tradition of Notre Dame inviting presidents to be commencement speakers and receive honorary degrees, and we continue that tradition," he said. Jenkins went on to point out the historicity of Obama as the nation's first black president, saying it was "an honor for us to welcome him to campus."

"For all the controversy, I think it was a successful day," he said.

The decision to host the President at the Catholic university sparked an immense outpouring of criticism in the weeks leading up to the speech, with 80 active U.S. bishops and over 360,000 petitioners opposed to the decision.

"It's important not to be afraid of controversies. If the issues are addressed with reason and respect, that's the best you can do. And universities, particularly, should be places where controversy can be addressed with reason and mutual respect," Jenkins said. He insisted that "there were things in [Obama's] life and his leadership that we could affirm." Regarding areas of disagreement, especially the President's enthusiastic support for abortion, the day allowed an opportunity to "speak about those differences openly."

"I thought he said things that he'd never said before on the issue of abortion - such as seeking a reasonable conscience clause, such as reducing the number of abortions - and I think it was a day when there was genuine dialogue among people who differed. And that’s really what a university is about," he said.

However, there is a group of individuals who have reason not to be completely satisfied by Jenkins' words about the need for "genuine dialogue": the 88 pro-life individuals who were arrested on campus May 17 while protesting President Obama are still facing up to a year in jail and a $5,000 fine on charges of trespassing. While witnesses say pro-Obama protesters were allowed to roam free, the arrested individuals were singled out for displaying any pro-life message - including slogans on the sanctity of life, a large wooden cross, and images of Mary.

Fr. Jenkins has denied pleas from several corners to request that the charges be dropped - a request lawyers say the St. Joseph county prosecutor would likely heed. Fr. Weslin, one of the 88 arrested, called on his fellow priest in June to dialogue over the scandal - a request Jenkins ignored.

Notre Dame law professor emeritus Charles Rice called Jenkins' pursuit of token pro-life initiatives a "mockery" while he allowed the protesters to continue facing charges.

"It would be a mockery for you to present yourself now at the March, even at the invitation of Notre Dame students, as a pro-life advocate while, in practical effect, you continue to be the jailer, as common criminals, of those persons who were authentic pro-life witnesses at Notre Dame," wrote Rice in a September letter to Fr. Jenkins.

In the Tribune interview, Jenkins also touched upon his relationship with the local ordinary, Fort Wayne-South Bend bishop John D'Arcy, who took the unusual step of boycotting the commencment exercises, and instead showed up at a smaller ceremony held by Notre Dame graduates protesting the invitation elsewhere on campus. The Notre Dame president has met with D'Arcy several times since the event, he said, and they remain at loggerheads. He says he has not discussed the issue with Bishop Kevin Rhoades, who will take over for the retiring Bishop D'Arcy in January.

Upon learning of the invitation, about which he had not been consulted, D'Arcy stated last March that "the diocesan bishop must ask whether a Catholic institution compromises its obligation to give public witness by placing prestige over truth," and condemned the appearance of "surrender to a culture opposed to the truth about life and love."

Meeting in June, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops approved a resolution expressing solidarity with Bishop D'Arcy and his "solicitude for [Notre Dame's] Catholic identity."

URL: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/jan/10010609.html

Notre Dame President Fr. Jenkins Gets 2nd Term Despite Catholic Identity Abuses

On Friday, October 19, 2009, the president of the University of Notre Dame, Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., was appointed to a second term as president.

"Notre Dame has suffered terribly in recent years because of a lack of leadership and commitment to its Catholic identity," said Patrick J. Reilly, president of The Cardinal Newman Society (CNS). "The Board of Trustees has once again neglected their responsibility to uphold Notre Dame's Catholic mission by reelecting a president who has displayed public disrespect for the bishops and has permitted repeated scandals including the honors to President Obama and performances of The Vagina Monologues."

Fr. Jenkins was first elected to a five-year term as president of Notre Dame on April 30, 2004, becoming the university’s 17th president. Chairman Richard Notebaert announced last Friday that the University of Notre Dame Board of Trustees elected Fr. Jenkins to serve a second five-year term.

On May 17, 2009, Notre Dame bestowed an honorary doctor of laws degree upon U.S. President Barack Obama, whose pro-abortion and other anti-life policies and statements have set him opposed to fundamental moral teachings of the Catholic Church.

Led by Bishop John D'Arcy of the Fort Wayne-South Bend Diocese, in which Notre Dame is located, 83 U.S. bishops vocally opposed the honor for the pro-abortion president. They were joined by the more than 367,000 individuals who signed The Cardinal Newman Society's petition at NotreDameScandal.com, calling on Fr. Jenkins to rescind the honor.

Fr. Jenkins acted in direct defiance of the 2004 United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) statement "Catholics in Political Life", which most bishops cited in opposing the honor for President Obama. The statement prohibits Catholic institutions from honoring "those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles." In June, 2009, the USCCB released a statement affirming Bishop D'Arcy's "pastoral concern for Notre Dame University."

The scandalous play The Vagina Monologues has been hosted more than once at Notre Dame on Fr. Jenkins' watch. Despite growing momentum against the play, public opposition by Bishop D'Arcy and an annual CNS campaign informing Catholic college presidents of the dangers of the play, in 2008 Jenkins issued a statement officially approving the return of the Monologues after a one-year hiatus. In protest, a committee of bishops moved their theological seminar off the Notre Dame campus. Although the play did not return in 2009, Fr. Jenkins has not taken any apparent action to prevent future productions.

Fr. Jenkins also sits on the board of Millennium Promise, an anti-poverty organization which reportedly supports the distribution of condoms and encourages abortion services where legal.

In September 2009, Fr. Jenkins issued a statement announcing new pro-life initiatives at the University of Notre Dame. CNS has commended the show of good will, but noted that there are "serious steps that Notre Dame should take immediately to atone for its shocking betrayal of the U.S. bishops and the Catholic Church last spring."

Notre Dame Pays Student Expenses to D.C. March for Gay "Marriage"

The University of Notre Dame gave financial assistance to five students to participate in Sunday's national gay rights demonstration, which was organized in part to advocate homosexual “"marriage," a campus newspaper has reported.

The "National Equality March" on Sunday, October 11, in Washington, D.C., was sponsored by Equality Across America, which aims to build a national grassroots network asserting homosexual couples' "right to marry" as well as other demands. The Catholic Church believes that marriage is possible only between a man and a woman.

"Faithful Catholics will ask whether Notre Dame has learned its lesson from the scandalous commencement ceremony last spring," said Patrick J. Reilly, President of The Cardinal Newman Society. "What university seeking to reassure families of its Catholic identity would pay for students to attack the family and oppose Catholic teachings on marriage?"

Students from Notre Dame's Progressive Student Alliance (PSA) petitioned the Student Activities Office and were granted funding to travel to and participate in the demonstration. The Notre Dame students marched two miles across D.C. and then joined gay rights activists for a Capitol Hill rally.

The president of the Progressive Students Alliance told The Observer, "The fact that we were University-approved was surprising but it was a wonderful surprise. The University hasn't always been entirely receptive in the past."

Read The Observer's article here.

Fr. Jenkins, Notre Dame betrayed true goal of Catholic education, archbishop says

Fr. Jenkins, Notre Dame betrayed true goal of Catholic education, archbishop says

Denver, Colo., May 18, 2009 / 04:50 pm (CNA).- In a strong statement released today, the Most Reverend Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap, blamed Fr. John Jenkins C.S.C and the University of Notre Dame for betraying the true, original goal of Catholic higher education, not only by conferring a degree on President Barack Obama despite his anti-life record, but for attempting a disingenuous justification for the invitation during his commencement speech on Sunday.

Quoting Fr. Jenkins when he said that "I have found that even among those who did not go to Notre Dame, even among those who do not share the Catholic faith, there is a special expectation, a special hope, for what Notre Dame can accomplish in the world;" Archbishop Chaput says that "most graduation speeches are a mix of piety and optimism designed to ease students smoothly into real life. The best have humor. Some genuinely inspire. But only a rare few manage to be pious, optimistic, evasive, sad and damaging all at the same time."

"Father John Jenkins, C.S.C., Notre Dame's president, is a man of substantial intellect and ability. This makes his introductory comments to President Obama's Notre Dame commencement speech on May 17 all the more embarrassing."

The Archbishop of Denver recalls in his statement that the debate over President Obama's appearance at Notre Dame "was never about whether he is a good or bad man. The president is clearly a sincere and able man."

"By his own words, religion has had a major influence in his life. We owe him the respect Scripture calls us to show all public officials. We have a duty to pray for his wisdom and for the success of his service to the common good -- insofar as it is guided by right moral reasoning."

Nevertheless, Archbishop Chaput adds, "we also have the duty to oppose him when he's wrong on foundational issues like abortion, embryonic stem cell research and similar matters. And we also have the duty to avoid prostituting our Catholic identity by appeals to phony dialogue that mask an abdication of our moral witness."

"Notre Dame did not merely invite the president to speak at its commencement. It also conferred an unnecessary and unearned honorary law degree on a man committed to upholding one of the worst Supreme Court decisions in our nation's history," he says.

According to Archbishop Chaput, in doing so, Notre Dame ignored the U.S. bishops' guidance in their 2004 statement, "Catholics in Political Life," ignored "the concerns of Ambassador Mary Ann Glendon, Notre Dame's 2009 Laetare Medal honoree -- who, unlike the president, certainly did deserve her award, but finally declined it in frustration with the university's action. It ignored appeals from the university's local bishop, the president of the U.S. Catholic bishops' conference, more than 70 other bishops, many thousands of Notre Dame alumni and hundreds of thousands of other American Catholics."

"Even here in Colorado -- Chaput says, - I've heard from too many to count."

The Archbishop of Denver claims that "there was no excuse -- none, except intellectual vanity -- for the university to persist in its course."

"And Father Jenkins compounded a bad original decision with evasive and disingenuous explanations to subsequently justify it."

"These are hard words," he admits, "but they're deserved precisely because of Father Jenkins's own remarks on May 17: Until now, American Catholics have indeed had 'a special expectation, a special hope for what Notre Dame can accomplish in the world.' For many faithful Catholics -- and not just a 'small but vocal group' described with such inexcusable disdain and ignorance in journals like Time magazine -- that changed Sunday."

Archbishop Chaput finds in the May 17 events "some fitting irony."

"Almost exactly 25 years ago, Notre Dame provided the forum for Gov. Mario Cuomo to outline the 'Catholic' case for 'pro-choice' public service."

"At the time, Cuomo's speech was hailed in the media as a masterpiece of American Catholic legal and moral reasoning. In retrospect, it's clearly adroit. It's also, just as clearly, an illogical and intellectually shabby exercise in the manufacture of excuses."

The archbishop also notes that "Father Jenkins' explanations, and President Obama's honorary degree, are a fitting national bookend to a quarter century of softening Catholic witness in Catholic higher education."

"Together," he adds in his statement, "they've given the next generation of Catholic leadership all the excuses they need to baptize their personal conveniences and ignore what it really demands to be 'Catholic' in the public square."

According to Chaput, the "heart of the matter" is that "Notre Dame is hardly alone in its institutional confusion."

"Notre Dame's leadership has done a real disservice to the Church, and now seeks to ride out the criticism by treating it as an expression of fringe anger. But the damage remains, and Notre Dame’s critics are right."

The Archbishop of Denver says also that "the most vital thing faithful Catholics can do now is to insist -- by their words, actions and financial support -- that institutions claiming to be 'Catholic' actually live the faith with courage and consistency."

"If that happens, Notre Dame's failure may yet do some unintended good," he concludes.

Read the Archbishop's full statement: http://www.archden.org/index.cfm/ID/2081

'I Saw Catholics Arrested for Being Catholic at a Catholic University'

Note: The articles about what happened at Notre Dame came fast and furious and are too numerous to post. This one sums up the moral bankruptcy on display yesterday. Notre Dame has not only turned its back on the Catholic Church. They have declared war on it.

Pastor Says: 'I Saw Catholics Arrested for Being Catholic at a Catholic University'

5/16/2009 1:11:00 AM
By Catherine Rouse -Vision America

Vision America President Pastor Rick Scarborough said he was sickened by what he saw when those protesting Obama's speech at Notre Dame were arrested on the campus.

"I wept when I saw my friends arrested and taken to jail," Scarborough disclosed. "They almost broke the arm of a priest who appeared to be in his 80s, by dragging him on the ground."
Scarborough, who's a Southern Baptist preacher, said he was in South Bend in solidarity with Catholics who are protesting the upcoming commencement speech at Notre Dame by the most anti-life president in history.

"Millions of Catholics who were persecuted in their countries of origin came to these shores for religious freedom," Scarborough said. "These hard-working folk built institutions like Notre Dame to educate their children and strengthen their Church."

"Now Notre Dame is honoring Barack Obama, a man Catholics and other Christians should shun, as many of the Catholic bishops have."

When asked why he wasn't arrested, Scarborough explained: "This was a Catholic demonstration, As a Baptist, I had to respect that. I did not want to intrude. At the same time, I wanted to support a group of people I'm so proud of for standing up for Judeo-Christian morality."

Fr. Norman Weslin, the 80 year old priest who was arrested today at Notre Dame is a retired Air Force General who went into the priesthood after his wife died.

After his open heart surgery, despite the warnings from his doctors, Father led a pro-life youth group in a walk across the country. He's been arrested many times in the past during pro-life demonstrations.

Today, Notre Dame had him taken away to jail in a plastic bag for carrying a cross onto a supposedly Catholic campus.

Notre Dame President Sits on Board of Directors of Pro-Abortion, Pro-Contraception Organization

Notre Dame President Sits on Board of Directors of Pro-Abortion, Pro-Contraception Organization

By Alex Bush and John Jalsevac

SOUTH BEND, Indiana, May 13, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Fr. John Jenkins, President of Notre Dame University, sits on the board of directors of Millennium Promise, an organization dedicated to fighting poverty in Africa that promotes contraceptives and abortion, it has been revealed.

The finding comes as the controversy over President Obama's award and speech at the University reaches a fever pitch in the last week before the event. As the president of Notre Dame, Fr. Jenkins has received the majority of the heat for the scandal. However, despite the criticism of over 70 U.S. bishops and over 350,000 petitioners, Jenkins has steadfastly continued to defend the university's honoring of the president. In a letter to graduating students dated this past Monday, Jenkins said that Obama is "a remarkable figure in American history and I look forward to welcoming him to Notre Dame."

Fr. Jenkins' involvement on the board of the Millennium Promise was first reported by the Drew Mariani Show and PewSitter.com. (See the list of board members here: http://www.millenniumpromise.org/site/PageServer?pagename=about_bod) Patrick Reilly, president of the Cardinal Newman Society, a Catholic education watchdog organization, responded to the news of Fr. Jenkins' involvement in Millennium Promise, saying in an interview with LSN, "One has to wonder what Fr. Jenkins' opinion is of the Church's teaching on contraception."

Millennium Promise's mission is to enact the eight so-called Millennium Development Goals by 2015. However, the Millennium Development Goals have been widely promoted by pro-contraception and pro-abortion organizations, such as Millennium Promise, as including the goal of increasing access to contraception and abortion globally.

Millennium Promise raises funds from the private sector for what it calls its "flagship initiative," Millennium Villages, a group that works with small villages in Africa.

A Millennium Villages handbook explains that "family planning and contraception services are critical to allow women to choose family size and birth spacing, to combat sexually transmitted infections, including HIV infection, and contribute to the reduction of maternal morbidity and mortality."

It continues to explain that, "Services include: (1) Counseling; (2) Male and female condoms; (3) Pharmacologic contraceptives including oral, transdermal, intramuscular, and implanted methods; and (4) IUDs."

The handbook continues with an encouragement for "safe" abortion: "In countries where abortion is legal, safe abortion services in controlled settings by skilled practitioners should be established." (http://www.millenniumvillages.org/docs/MVP_Handbook_complete_18jun08.pdf page 92).

Fr. Jenkins has stated in the past that Notre Dame participates in the Millennium Villages Project via the Notre Dame Millennium Development Initiative (NDMDI). The efforts of the NDMDI focus on Uganda "where Notre Dame, through the Congregation of Holy Cross, has strong ties."

Interestingly, Uganda is known for its unprecedented success in reducing its HIV rate over the past several decades, using the so-called ABC approach, which emphasizes abstinence and faithfulness as the surest means of avoiding infection. In the last few years, however, anti-HIV leaders in Uganda have complained about an increasing effort by large Western aid organizations to pressure the country to vastly increase its promotion of condoms.

Patrick Reilly of the Cardinal Newman Society said that in his research into Millennium Promise he was extremely concerned to find that "not only condom distribution, but distribution of the pill, injectible contraception, and even abortion are part of the Millennium project's efforts."

"Any Catholic university that supports a program to reduce poverty by eliminating poor children has a serious problem," he said, adding that no Catholic "should be taking a leadership role in an effort that distributes contraception or promotes abortion."

ND alumna asks whether Obama honor encourages indifference to abortion

ND alumna asks whether Obama honor encourages indifference to abortion

Washington D.C., May 2, 2009 / 04:58 pm (CNA).- Providing a new take on the controversy, a University of Notre Dame alumna has asked whether her alma mater's decision to honor President Barack Obama would discourage pro-life women in crisis pregnancies and encourage Catholics who believe Church teaching on abortion is "just dining-room talk."

Lacy Dodd, a 1999 graduate of the university, explained in a May 1 essay for the website of the journal "First Things" how she had become pregnant by her boyfriend in the last semester of her senior year at the school.

She told how she had run to the school's famous Marian Grotto after testing positive for pregnancy.

"I was confused and full of conflicting emotions," Dodd wrote.

"But I knew this: No amount of shame or embarrassment would ever lead me to get rid of my baby. Of all women, Our Lady could surely feel pity for an unplanned pregnancy. I recalled her surrendered love to God's invitation to become the home of the Incarnate Word. 'Let it be done to me according to thy word,' she had said. In my hour of need, on my knees, I asked Mary for courage and strength. And she did not disappoint."

She said her boyfriend, also a Notre Dame senior, tried to pressure her into having an abortion.

"Like so many women in similar circumstances, I found out the kind of man the father of my child was at precisely the moment I needed him most. 'All that talk about abortion is just dining-room talk,' he said. 'When it's really you in the situation, it's different. I will drive you to Chicago and pay for a good doctor.'"

Replying to her insistence that this was not an option, he said he was pro-choice.

"I responded by informing him that my choice was life. And I learned, as so many pregnant women have before and since, that life is the one choice that pro-choicers won't support."

Though having an unsupportive boyfriend, Dodd said she could rely on the "priceless gift" of her family who would "welcome into their hearts the life that God had put in my womb."

She also relied on the people at Women's Care Center in South Bend, who she says encouraged her "everything was going to be all right," educated her on her pregnancy and provided her with information on how to stay healthy.

Dodd graduated from Notre Dame with a bachelor's degree in American Studies and earned a ROTC commission as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army.

Though she considered adoption, she decided to raise her baby. She gave birth to a baby girl on All Saints Day and named her Mary.

"Her name is no accident. This Mary was living inside me while I walked the campus of a university dedicated to a woman who is mother of us all, and it was Mary Our Mother who gave me courage when I was afraid of what would lie ahead," she wrote at the First Things website.

Though calling Notre Dame a "special place," Dodd said it is not immune to "the realities of modern life."

"There are students who face unplanned pregnancies, and--most tragically--women who think their only option is abortion," she said, noting that one in five women who have an abortion is a college student.

"On campuses all across this country, abortion is the status quo. We need to change that with an unambiguous stand for life, and Notre Dame needs to be in the lead."

She closed with a question to Fr. John Jenkins, the president of Notre Dame:

"Who draws support from your decision to honor President Obama--the young, pregnant Notre Dame woman sitting in that graduating class who wants desperately to keep her baby, or the Notre Dame man who believes that the Catholic teaching on the intrinsic evil of abortion is just dining-room talk?"

First 300,000 Petition Signatures Delivered to Notre Dame Board Members, Fr. Jenkins

First 300,000 Petition Signatures Delivered to Notre Dame Board Members, Fr. Jenkins

Copies Are Being Rushed to Rome, Papal Nuncio, USCCB and ND Bishop John D'Arcy

This morning, April 29, 2009, the first 300,000 names of individuals who signed the petition at NotreDameScandal.com -- opposing the University of Notre Dame's decision to honor President Barack Obama at commencement -- began to be delivered to Notre Dame president Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., the Board of Trustees and the Board of Fellows as they prepare for scheduled meetings on Friday, May 1, at Notre Dame.

As of this morning, more than 344,000 people have signed the petition, but because of the overwhelming numbers it took The Cardinal Newman Society more than 24 hours to prepare the data and print more than 64,000 sheets of paper, double sided, which were then bound in notebooks and sent via FedEx to Father Jenkins and individual members of the Notre Dame Board of Trustees and Board of Fellows.

Copies of the petitions are also being rushed by The Cardinal Newman Society, which sponsored the petition, to Archbishop Zenon Cardinal Grocholewski, Prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for Catholic Education; Archbishop Pietro Sambi, the Apostolic Nuncio (Vatican ambassador) to the United States; Francis Cardinal George, President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB); Bishop John D'Arcy, of Fort Wayne-South Bend, who presides over Notre Dame; and Bishop Robert McManus, Chairman of the USCCB Education Committee.

"Only the Notre Dame Trustees and Fellows have direct authority over Father Jenkins, so their meetings on Friday are our best hope for an end to this scandal," said Patrick J. Reilly, President of The Cardinal Newman Society.

"It is critical for all of us to pray that the Trustees and Fellows charged with safeguarding Notre Dame's Catholic identity will heed the 50 bishops and hundreds of thousands of faithful Catholics urging Notre Dame to withdraw its invitation to President Obama."

The University of Notre Dame is governed by a 12-member Board of Fellows, including six Holy Cross priests, who are charged with ensuring "that the University maintains its essential character as a Catholic institution of higher learning." The Fellows delegate most of their governing authority to the 38-member Board of Trustees, comprised mostly of lay people.

The university's charter states: "The essential character of the University as a Catholic institution of higher learning shall at all times be maintained, it being the stated intention and desire of the present Fellows of the University that the University shall retain in perpetuity its identity as such an institution."

Mary Ann Glendon refuses to accept Laetare Medal from Notre Dame

Mary Ann Glendon refuses to accept Laetare Medal from Notre Dame

South Bend, Ind., Apr 27, 2009 / 11:55 am (CNA).- Less than a month before Notre Dame’s Commencement, the former Vatican ambassador Mary Ann Glendon has written President Jenkins to refuse the university's Laetare Medal, rebuffing his claim that her acceptance speech would somehow "balance" the event.

Mary Ann Glendon, a pro-life feminist and Harvard professor, today released an open letter to Notre Dame President John I. Jenkins, in which she told Jenkins that she could not speak alongside President Obama at the May 17th Commencement exercises.

In her letter, Glendon related that she was initially "profoundly moved" at the news that she would receive Notre Dame's coveted Laetare Medal. After hearing the news, she said she quickly began crafting an acceptance speech that she "hoped would be worthy of the occasion."

In March, Glendon said that she received a phone call from Fr. Jenkins informing her that she would not be giving the commencement speech, but that instead President Obama would fill that role. Upon learning of the change of plans, Glendon said that a "task that once seemed so delightful" had now been "complicated by a number of factors."

The first factor Glendon mentioned was her work as a "longtime consultant" to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which caused her to become "dismayed" that Notre Dame "planned to award the president an honorary degree." This action, she said, would "disregard" the U.S. Bishop's "Catholics in Political Life" document.

Glendon also rebuffed the idea that the teaching "seeks to control or interfere" with a Catholic institution's "freedom to invite and engaged in serious debate whomever it wishes."

The former Vatican ambassador also took exception to Fr. Jenkins' "talking point" that awarding the Laetare Medal to her would "balance the event." Fort Wayne-South Bend Bishop John D’Arcy also criticized Jenkins' "talking points" by calling them "wrong" and a "flawed justification."

"A commencement," Ms. Glendon wrote, "is supposed to be a joyous day for the graduates and their families. It is not the right place, nor is a brief acceptance speech the right vehicle, for engagement with the very serious problems raised by Notre Dame's decision--in disregard of the settled position of the U.S. bishops--to honor a prominent and uncompromising opponent of the Church's position on issues involving fundamental principles of justice."

She also worried that Notre Dame's decision is having a "ripple effect" that is encouraging other Catholic institutions to ignore the U.S. Bishop's teaching.

"It is with great sadness, therefore, that I have concluded that I cannot accept the Laetare Medal or participate in the May 17 graduation ceremony," she concluded.

President Jenkins responded to the criticism by saying Notre Dame is "disappointed" with Glendon's decision and that the university intends "to award the Laetare Medal to another deserving recipient."

Notre Dame said they will make the "announcement as soon as possible."

Father Jenkins Should Resign

Dear Father Jenkins:

I have read the excerpted letter from Bishop D’Arcy and it brought tears to my eyes. It is the appeal of a Shepherd of the Church to one of his flock that has gone astray. In it he points out that if there was any question of right interpretation of Catholic doctrine, the local bishop is the authority to resolve it whether you like him or not.

Further, the good bishop points out that your letter to the trustees of Notre Dame relies on the opinions of theologians. And you sought them to the exclusion of your own bishop. Some are likewise from apostate Catholic colleges or universities. Their opinions are not only untrustworthy, they are irrelevant. This is like looking out over a crowd for an opinion and only picking out your friends.

Pointing to the majority of young people in your care that also support the invitation of President Obama actually strengthens Bishop D’Arcy’s argument. As a Catholic leader, you are obligated to tell the truth, to lead young people, to evangelize, whether in the majority and whether in agreement with power or not. By leading these young people to the conclusion that disobedience to the local bishop is acceptable, you teach falsehood and heresy. You do so at great risk to yourself, your very immortal soul.

You have made a grave miscalculation and in so doing have scandalized the little ones in your care, especially those who hold fast to Christ’s words and commands in a culture increasingly hostile to His message. Your reasoning is twisted and false and illogical. A child could see through it. You wish to gain the personal prestige that a presidential visit brings as well as the economic windfall government grants will surely bring because you have chosen to suffer for your messiah, Barack Obama. You took the easy road.

I call on you to resign and to apologize to your students, the faculty, the trustees, your order and most of all to the bishop, that shepherd who teaches in the person of Christ.

I will continue to pray for you, for Notre Dame and for our country.

In Christ,

Steve

Canon Lawyer: Notre Dame Prez Reasoning "Too Bizarre for Words"

Canon Lawyer: Notre Dame Prez Reasoning "Too Bizarre for Words"

By Kathleen Gilbert

DETROIT, Michigan, April 14, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A prominent American canon lawyer has issued a stinging criticism of the reasoning given by Notre Dame's president Fr. John Jenkins, by which he defends the school's invitation of President Obama to speak and receive an honorary law degree, calling Jenkins' argumentation "too bizarre for words."

Canon lawyer Ed Peters responded to correspondence from Fr. Jenkins to Notre Dame trustees, which was obtained and published exclusively by LifeSiteNews.com last week. In the memo, Jenkins told trustees that he considers the invitation to honor Obama to be faithful to the "letter and the spirit" of the U.S. Bishops Conference 2004 document "Catholics in Political Life."

(http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/apr/09040808.html)

Several of the bishops who have condemned the scandal, including USCCB President Cardinal Francis George, have indicated that Notre Dame's invitation violates the 2004 directive. The document forbids Catholic schools from honoring "those who act in defiance of our [Catholic] fundamental moral principles."

Fr. Jenkins had written: "Because the title of the document is 'Catholics in Political Life', we understood this to refer to honoring Catholics whose actions are not in accord with our moral principles." Jenkins cited "fellow university presidents" who informed him "that their bishops have told them that in fact it is only Catholic politicians who are referred to in this document."

In response, Peters commented on his blog "In the Light of the Law" on Thursday: "Is the man serious?"

"Does Jenkins really think that Catholic bishops would countenance a Catholic institution honoring a philanthropic murderer, or a free-speech crusading pornographer, or a right-to-privacy pimp, provided merely that the awardee was not a Catholic?

"Really, that's too bizarre for words."

Peters also questioned Jenkins' statement that his interpretation "was supported by canon lawyers we consulted, who advised us that, by definition, only Catholics who implicitly recognize the authority of Church teaching can act in 'defiance' of it."

"What's this 'by definition' stuff? ... A definition of 'defiance'?" Peters asked. "The word 'defiance' is not in the Code. Even the Latin pertinacia does not seem to apply to our facts, so, what exactly is Jenkins talking about here?

"I don't know, but whatever Jenkins or his canonists hope it means, the sentence he/they put so much stock in was obviously not drafted to stand up to close textual parsing," he said. "Else, all a Catholic would have to do to avoid the charge of acting in 'defiance' of Church authority would be to decline recognizing Church authority in the first place!"

To Jenkins' assertion that giving Obama an honorary doctorate does not "suggest support" for his pro-abortion record, Peters countered, "An honorary doctorate of law does not 'suggest' support for a politicians' legal philosophy, no, instead it screams it."

(To view Dr. Peters' full commentary: http://www.canonlaw.info/2009/04/fr-jenkins-discovers-canon-law-not.html)

See recent LifeSiteNews.com coverage:

Leaked: ND Prez Comment on USCCB Document Prohibiting Honoring Pro-Abortion Politicianshttp://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/apr/09040808.html

Bishops Bruskewitz, Aquila Issue Stinging Condemnations to "Formerly Catholic" Notre Damehttp://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/apr/09040906.html

Notre Dame's Bishop on Obama's Pro-Abortion Views: "No One Is Allowed to Say Who Sits at Table of Life"http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/apr/09040804.html

Former Vatican Ambassador: Notre Dame Scandal Will "Wake Catholics Up"http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/apr/09040907.html

Bishops Bruskewitz, Aquila Issue Stinging Condemnations to "Formerly Catholic" Notre Dame

Bishops Bruskewitz, Aquila Issue Stinging Condemnations to "Formerly Catholic" Notre Dame
By Kathleen Gilbert

NOTRE DAME, Indiana, April 9, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Two more bishops have written and made public strongly-worded letters to University president Fr. John Jenkins, bringing the number of U.S. bishops to 31 protesting the school's invitation to President Obama to speak at commencement and receive an honorary law degree May 17.

Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz of the Lincoln Diocese supplied his letter, addressed to University president Fr. John Jenkins, today to the Cardinal Newman Society, which is hosting a petition against the scandal, now bearing well over a quarter million signatures (http://www.notredamescandal.com).

"Permit me to add my name as well to the long list of Bishops of the Catholic Church who are utterly appalled at your dedication to immorality and wrong-doing represented by your support for the obscenity called 'The Vagina Monologues' and your absolute indifference to the murderous abortion program and beliefs of this President of the United States," reads the brief letter, dated April 3.

"The fact that you have some sort of past connection with the State of Nebraska makes it all the more painful that the Catholic people here have to see your betrayal of the moral teachings of the Catholic Church," Bruskewitz wrote. "I can assure you of my prayers for your conversion, and for the conversion of your formerly Catholic University."

Bishop Samuel Aquila of Fargo, ND wrote an April 5 letter to Fr. Jenkins published on the diocesan website saying he was "surprised and saddened" to learn of the invitation, and adding that Jenkins' defense of the honors has "only deepened" his dismay.

Expressing confidence that Jenkins is "a man of integrity" who believes in "the Church's witness," Aquila mentioned the papal encyclical Ex Corde Ecclesiae and the U.S. Bishops Conference directive, "Catholics in Political Life," which respectively urge Catholic schools to witness to Catholic teaching and forbid them from honoring pro-abortion politicians.

"Even though President Obama is not Catholic, he clearly rejects the truth about human dignity through his constant support of a so called 'right to abortion,'" wrote Aquila. "Inviting President Obama to award him a degree and to speak at a Catholic University implicitly extends legitimacy to his views on these issues in the minds of the average onlooker.

"Your actions and that of the Board of Trustees of Notre Dame do real harm to the mission of Catholic education in this country and further splinters Catholic witness in the public square," he continued.

Providing a forum for an abortion advocate at a school that teaches the truths of the Faith, wrote the bishop, "places commitment to these truths on an equal plane with a commitment to an intrinsic evil which destroys innocent human life."

"Your judgment in this matter is seriously flawed, with damaging consequences, for '…you are not on the side of God, but of men' (Mt 16:23)."

Noting the fidelity of many among the Notre Dame community, Aquila said, "Unfortunately, your action and that of your Board diminishes the reputation of Notre Dame and makes one wonder what its mission truly is."

The bishops who have so far publicly criticized Notre Dame's invitation to Obama (in alphabetical order) are:

1. Bishop John D'Arcy - Fort Wayne-South Bend, IN
2. Bishop Samuel Aquila - Fargo, ND
3. Bishop Gregory Aymond - Austin, TX
4. Archbishop Daniel Buechlein - Indianapolis, IN
5. Bishop Robert Baker - Birmingham, AL
6. Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz - Lincoln, NE
7. Archbishop Eusebius Beltran - Oklahoma City, OK
8. Auxiliary Bishop Oscar Cantú - San Antonio, TX
9. Cardinal Daniel DiNardo - Houston, TX
10. Archbishop Timothy Dolan - New York, NY
11. Bishop Thomas Doran - Rockford, IL
12. Auxiliary Bishop John Dougherty - Scranton, PA
13. Cardinal Francis George - Chicago, IL; President, USCCB
14. Archbishop José Gomez - San Antonio, TX
15. Bishop William Higi - Lafayette, IN
16. Archbishop Alfred Hughs - New Orleans, LA
17. Bishop Jerome Listecki - La Crosse, WI
18. Bishop William E. Lori - Bridgeport, CT
19. Bishop Robert Lynch - St. Petersburg, FL
20. Bishop Joseph Martino - Scranton, PA
21. Bishop Charles Morlino - Madison, WI
22. Bishop George Murry - Youngstown, OH
23. Archbishop John J. Myers - Newark, NJ
24. Bishop R. Walker Nickless - Sioux City, IA
25. Archbishop John C. Nienstedt - St. Paul-Minneapolis, MD
26. Archbishop Edwin O'Brien - Baltimore, MD
27. Bishop Thomas Olmsted - Phoenix, AZ
28. Bishop Kevin Rhoades - Harrisburg
29. Bishop Alexander Sample - Marquette, MI
30. Bishop Edward J. Slattery - Tulsa, OK
31. Bishop Anthony Taylor - Little Rock, AR

Notre Dame Announces Homosexual-Themed Events for Easter Week

The Cardinal Newman Society
For Immediate Release

April 9, 2009

Notre Dame Announces Homosexual-Themed Events for Easter Week

Manassas, Va. - Late in the afternoon on Holy Thursday, the University of Notre Dame announced a series of events during Easter Week to promote an "inclusive spirit" in support of homosexual students, including a film that blames a mother's Christian faith for causing her gay son's suicide.

"Christianity is under attack from within our own Catholic universities," said Patrick J. Reilly, President of The Cardinal Newman Society. "The bad news continues, perhaps appropriately on the day when we recall Christ's terrible agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. We need Catholics worldwide to draw the line, here and now, by joining more than 255,000 witnesses for the Faith at NotreDameScandal.com."

"StaND Against Hate Week," to occur April 14 through 17, is co-sponsored by Notre Dame's Gender Relations Center, student government and University Counseling Center.

The week includes a screening of the film Prayers for Bobby, which portrays Mary Griffith, a faithful Christian mother who seeks spiritual healing for her homosexual son, as the cause of her son's suicide. According to a review at ReligionDispatches.org, the film biography ignores the real-life Bobby's drug use and "stint as a gay prostitute." The real Mary Griffith has renounced her faith and champions homosexual rights, including same-sex marriage.

Notre Dame also will participate in the national "Day of Silence" on April 17, an event to oppose harassment of homosexual students in schools. Despite the worthy goal, the national event is used by the sponsoring Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network to promote school curricula that equate "sexual identity" with racial and ethnic differences, without clarification about the moral and health consequences of homosexual activity.

The announced agenda for the week indicates no effort to teach students about Catholic teaching on homosexual activity as gravely sinful.

April 17 is the one-year anniversary of Pope Benedict XVI's address to Catholic educators in Washington, D.C., during which he called Catholic colleges and universities to a stronger Catholic identity.

"We observe today a timidity in the face of the category of the good and an aimless pursuit of novelty parading as the realization of freedom," Pope Benedict said. He continued, "[P]articularly disturbing, is the reduction of the precious and delicate area of education in sexuality to management of 'risk,' bereft of any reference to the beauty of conjugal love."

Meanwhile, Notre Dame's plan to bestow an honorary law degree on President Barack Obama on May 17 has been protested by students and alumni, 31 Catholic bishops, 10 Holy Cross priests and more than a quarter million Catholics at www.NotreDameScandal.com, which was established by The Cardinal Newman Society.

# # #

600 Priests and Deacons Denounce Notre Dame Scandal

600 Priests and Deacons Denounce Notre Dame Scandal
By Kathleen Gilbert

NOTRE DAME, Indiana, April 9, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Confraternity of Catholic Clergy, a national association of 600 priests and deacons, has issued a statement urging the University of Notre Dame to rescind the invitation to President Obama to be the commencement speaker for this year's graduation and receive an honorary law degree May 17.

The invitation has drawn criticism from Catholics across America, including 31 bishops and over a quarter million Americans who have signed a petition launched by the Cardinal Newman Society against the scandal (http://www.notredamescandal.com).

The Confraternity today called upon Notre Dame to honor the late Pope John Paul II's papal letter, Ex Corde Ecclesiae, which requires Catholic colleges and universities to conform to and defend Magisterial teaching.

"If need be, a Catholic University must have the courage to speak uncomfortable truths which do not please public opinion, but which are necessary to safeguard the authentic good of society," the Pope wrote in the 1990 document, going on to cite the "responsibility to try to communicate to society ... principles which give full meaning to human life" as "a specific priority" of Catholic schools.

"The decision ... to afford an openly pro-abortion politician the privilege of speaking to graduating seniors at the commencement violates every principle of Catholic education insofar as it violates both Divine and Natural Law," said the Confraternity. "We are therefore saddened and outraged that any Catholic institution, let alone a prestigious university like Notre Dame, would afford a public gesture of acceptance and endorsement to a politician who openly supports the so-called legal 'right' to 'choose death', i.e., the direct killing of an unborn human being."

The Confraternity called the reasoning that the invitation would foster "dialogue" with the President on life issues "a non sequitur." "Speaking at Commencement is not an open debate, it is a monologue," said the clergymen. "Parents did not pay tuition for celebrities to speak at their son or daughter's graduation, they paid it to ensure a Catholic education."

Noting that they welcome respectful debate on life issues, the group states, "It is an oxymoron at best and an outrageous insult at worst to ask a politician, even a president, who is openly pro-abortion to be Commencement Speaker at a graduation from a Catholic school.

"President Obama is not only ideologically but also legislatively and administratively proactive in perpetuating and proliferating abortion," affirmed the Confraternity. "Honor the office and respect the man but repudiate and denounce his policies and appointments which endorse and promote the injustice of abortion."

Holy Cross Superior writes to Obama over Notre Dame invite

Note: Though the good priest is to be commended for framing the incident correctly, it really appears that as a so-called superior, like the bishops, he's just passing the buck. There are certainly actions at his disposal that he could take to stop this travesty but he won't. Shepherd lay down their lives for their sheep. They protect them. Who is standing up for the devout Catholics at Notre Dame who are being marginalized by this? Answer: No one.

Holy Cross Superior writes to Obama over Notre Dame invite

Bridgeport, Conn., Mar 31, 2009 / 07:21 pm (CNA).- Today Holy Cross Superior General, Fr. Hugh W. Cleary, released an open letter to President Barack Obama addressing the Notre Dame scandal and claiming that Obama has "made a mistake" on his support for legalized abortion.

However, Fr. Cleary said that he is unable to rescind the invitation since Notre Dame is legally seperate from the Holy Cross order.Opening his letter to Obama, Fr. Cleary explained the history of the University of Notre Dame and its founding by the Congregation of the Holy Cross, of which he is the Superior General. Fr. Cleary was also careful to note that he does not have authority over the decision -making of the university, a power which rests in the hands of its Board of Fellows and Board of Trustees. He did say, on the other hand, that he exercises personal authority over all Holy Cross priests, including Fr. John Jenkins, the university's president.

The Holy Cross Superior General then congratulated the President for being awarded an honorary Doctor of Law degree and spent the next 13 pages of his letter addressing Obama's support for abortion rights and posing the question, "How are we Catholics to participate in all levels of government without betraying our consciences?"

After complementing Obama's intellect and understanding of "the issues of our day," Fr. Cleary then asked Obama not to "dismiss [Catholic] views too off-handedly, without giving them the serious attention and reflection they deserve."

Already, said Fr. Cleary, many faithful Catholics "feel out of the mainstream" when it comes to our "nation's direction and decision making."

Brushing aside the idea that the Notre Dame outrage is "partisan politics," Fr. Cleary said that he wants to "rejoice in [Obama's] presence at Notre Dame," but wonders how Catholics should "deal with [him], or any other government leader, who upholds what we believe to be the intrinsic evil of abortion."

Fr. Cleary called on Obama to re-evaluate the "civil laws framing our United States cultural values" which see a human embryo growing as just "new tissue, a kind of cancerous, biological growth infecting a woman's body and threatening a woman's independent way of life."

In a reference to slavery, Fr. Cleary said that the United States has a history of defining "parameters of human life when it suits our self interest" saying that slavery was a way of "denying that a black human being of African decent" was not fully human for the sake of "economic progress," just like many argue an unwanted child could be for a struggling mother.

He also questioned how a Catholic should respond to a government and a president that are willing to support the Freedom of Choice Act, which would force faith-based hospitals to perform abortions, or deny health care workers their freedom to choose life. Obama's logic would then make it "lawful to choose abortion but it [would] be a crime to choose life," a postiion that Fr. Cleary believes would be a government "persecution of the Catholic Church."

Pondering the possible passage of FOCA, he wondered if it would mean that Catholics should "flee to Canada in protest" or the desert as early Christians did to escape the "sinful society seemingly beyond conversion."

The Pope's visit to Africa, Fr. Cleary said, is another example of "Catholic bashing" and persecution of the Church by the "free press." By focusing on a sound-byte by the Pope, instead of his entire "thoughtful and gracious answer" the "industrial news media complex" has shown it is more eager to "make news and money" than properly report and enforce the values. Cleary also said he feared that media owners have become the "new teaching hierarchy of the culture wars," which the Catholic Church cannot compete with.

Drawing his letter to a close, the Holy Cross superior told President Obama that "[Catholics] want to be taken seriously. We insist on taking ourselves seriously, that is why there has been so much protest and turmoil in regard to your presence at Notre Dame." He then offered a topic for Obama's commencement speech: "how Catholics can be taken seriously for our faith convictions without being dismissed off-handedly and shunned."

CNA was able to obtain the full letter Fr. Cleary sent to President Obama. To read the letter, please click here.

Archbishop Nienstedt protests 'egregious' invite of Obama to Notre Dame

Archbishop Nienstedt protests 'egregious' invite of Obama to Notre Dame

Minneapolis, Minn., Apr 1, 2009 / 05:37 am (CNA).- Citing President Barack Obama's "deliberate disregard of the unborn," Archbishop John Nienstedt of St. Paul and Minneapolis has written to the president of the University of Notre Dame, protesting the "egregious decision" to invite the president as commencement speaker and honorary degree recipient. The archbishop joins several other U.S. bishops who have opposed the invitation.

Writing a March 31 letter to University of Notre Dame President Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., Archbishop Nienstedt characterized President Obama as a former "pro-abortion legislator" who has indicated his "deliberate disregard for the unborn" by promoting "the FOCA agenda" and "lifting the ban on embryonic stem cell research."

The Freedom of Choice Act involves laws that would further enshrine permissive abortion policies in federal law and could threaten both restrictions on taxpayer funding for abortions and protections for those who object to performing abortions. The "FOCA agenda" is a term used by FOCA opponents to describe the piecemeal implementation of FOCA and other pro-abortion legislation.

President Obama recently overturned President George W. Bush's restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. President Bush did not ban the research outright.

Archbishop Nienstedt in his letter also objected to President Obama's "open support for gay rights."

"It is a travesty that the University of Notre Dame, considered by many to be a Catholic University, should give its public support to such an anti-Catholic politician," the archbishop wrote, asking President Jenkins to reconsider the decision.

If the decision is not reconsidered, the archbishop said, "please do not expect me to support your University in the future."

Responding to the letter, Patrick Reilly, President of the Cardinal Newman Society, said the faithful owe "a debt of prayerful thanks" to Archbishop Nienstedt.

The Cardinal Newman Society, an organization dedicated to strengthening Catholic higher education, has organized a petition drive asking President Jenkins to rescind the invitation to President Obama. As of Tuesday afternoon the petition had more than 220,000 signatures.

Notre Dame's 2009 commencement is scheduled for May 17.

Exclusive: President of US Bishops' Conference: Notre Dame Obama Invite an "Extreme Embarassment"

Note: I can agree that this is an embarrassment to the bishops but only because it exposes their impotence and lack of action regarding Catholic institutions in America. If they really want to, they could end the embarrassment simply by declaring Notre Dame "Not Catholic". Then Notre Dame would have two options - remove Father Jenkins and dis invite President Obama or agree that they are no longer a Catholic institution. Either way, the scandal goes away. But the bishops, as is almost always the case, reserve penalties for monetary issues only and this incident is likely to produce not cost money.

Exclusive: President of US Bishops' Conference: Notre Dame Obama Invite an "Extreme Embarrassment"

By Kathleen Gilbert

NOTRE DAME, Indiana, March 31, 2009

(LifeSiteNews.com) - Cardinal Francis George, Archbishop of Chicago, has said that the University of Notre Dame's decision to host and honor President Obama at their commencement ceremony this year was an "extreme embarrassment" to Catholics.

"Whatever else is clear, it is clear that Notre Dame didn't understand what it means to be Catholic when they issued this invitation," George told the crowd at a conference Saturday on the Vatican document Dignitatis Personae. The conference was hosted by the Chicago archdiocese's Respect Life office and Office for Evangelization at the Marriott O'Hare hotel.

In a video obtained by LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) today, Cardinal George prefaced his remarks by noting that although he is the president of the USCCB, he does not have jurisdiction or authority over other bishops. His role, he indicated, nonetheless has "some moral authority, without any kind of jurisdiction or any sort of real authority."

(Download the brief video to view in Windows Media format - http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/video/CardinalGeorge.wmv - or QuickTime format - http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/video/CardinalGeorge.mov - allow time for the download to complete.)

"As president of the U.S. bishops' conference I have to precisely speak for the bishops and not in my own name, as I could as Archbishop of Chicago," he added.

George said he had spoken with the administrative committee of the bishops' conference and corresponded with University president Fr. John Jenkins several times on the issue.

"That conversation will continue .... whether or not it will have some kind of consequence that will bring, I think, the University of Notre Dame to its [the USCCB's] understanding of what it means to be Catholic," said the Cardinal. "That is, when you're Catholic, everything you do changes the life of everybody else who calls himself a personal Catholic - it's a network of relationships.

"So quite apart from the president's own positions, which are well known, the problem is in that you have a Catholic university - the flagship Catholic university - do something that brought extreme embarrassment to many, many people who are Catholic," said the cardinal.

"So whatever else is clear, it is clear that Notre Dame didn't understand what it means to be Catholic when they issued this invitation, and didn't anticipate the kind of uproar that would be consequent to the decision, at least not to the extent that it has happened," said George.

The Cardinal urged concerned Catholics "to do what you are supposed to be doing: to call, to email, to write letters, to express what's in your heart about this: the embarrassment, the difficulties."

However, Cardinal George emphasized that the U.S. presidency "is an office that deserves some respect, no matter who is holding it," and said that Notre Dame would not disinvite the president, since "you just don't do that (disinvite the president of the United States)."

According to the cardinal requests to revoke the invitation would fall on deaf ears, but he also observed that there is legitimate potential to organize some form of protest at the ceremony.

"You have to sit back and get past the immediate moral outrage and say, 'Now what's the best thing to do in these circumstances?'" said the Cardinal.

"I can assure you the bishops are doing that."

Cardinal George is the ninth U.S. bishop to speak out against the scandal.

Is Notre Dame Still Catholic?

Is Notre Dame Still Catholic?

Tuesday, March 31, 2009
By Patrick J. Buchanan

By inviting Barack Obama to deliver the commencement address and receive an honorary degree at Notre Dame, the Rev. John Jenkins has polarized the Catholic community nationwide--and raised a question. What does it mean to be a Catholic university in post-Christian America?

Are there truths about faith and morality that are closed to debate at Notre Dame? Or is Notre Dame like London's Hyde Park, where all ideas and all advocates get a hearing?

To Catholics, abortion is the killing of an unborn child, a premeditated breach of God's Commandment "Thou Shalt Not Kill." The case is closed for all time. Any who participate in an abortion are excommunicated. Catholic politicians from Nancy Pelosi to Joe Biden who support a "woman's right to choose" have been denounced from pulpits and denied Communion.

Obama, however, is the most pro-abortion president ever. On his third day in office, by executive order, he repealed the Bush prohibition against using tax dollars to fund agencies abroad that perform abortions.

He supports partial-birth abortion, where a baby's soft skull is sliced open with scissors in the birth canal and its brains sucked out to ease its passage, a procedure Sen. Pat Moynihan said "comes as close to infanticide as anything I have seen in our judiciary."

In the Illinois legislature, Obama helped block the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, a bill to save the lives of infant survivors of abortion. He voted to allow doctors and nurses to let these tiny babies die of neglect and be tossed out with the medical waste.

Barack is committed to signing the Freedom of Choice Act, which would repeal every federal and state restriction on abortion. He has smoothed the path for federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.

Notre Dame, a university that teaches that all innocent human life is sacred, will thus honor a leader determined to ensure that a woman's right to destroy her unborn child in the womb remains unrestricted.

There is thus a direct clash between what Notre Dame professes to stand for and what Notre Dame is doing.

Says Ralph McInerny, a philosophy professor since 1955: "By inviting Barack Obama to be the 2009 commencement speaker, Notre Dame has forfeited its right to call itself a Catholic University... (T)his is a deliberate thumbing of the collective nose at the Roman Catholic Church to which Notre Dame purports to be faithful.

"Faithful? Tell it to Julian the Apostate."

McInerny calls Father Jenkins' invitation to Obama worse than the "usual effort of the university to get into warm contact with the power figures of the day. It is an unequivocal abandonment of any pretense at being a Catholic university."

An honorary degree, writes Catholic author George Weigel, is a statement that here is a man we should admire and emulate. But how can a Catholic university say that about a man who means to appoint Supreme Court justices who will keep constitutional and legal the systematic slaughter of the unborn that has taken 50 million lives in 35 years?

Can Father Jenkins not see the contradiction here that renders Notre Dame a morally incoherent institution?

Diocesan Bishop John D'Arcy of Fort Wayne-South Bend has told Father Jenkins he will not be attending commencement because of Obama's support of embryonic stem cell research.

Said the bishop, "While claiming to separate policies from science, (Obama) has in fact separated science from ethics and has brought the American government, for the first time in history, into supporting direct destruction of innocent human life."

Pope Benedict has yet to be heard from. But on his visit to the United States, he declared that any appeal to academic freedom "to justify positions that contradict the faith and teaching of the church would obstruct or even betray the university’s identity and mission."

Does not honoring the most visible pro-abortion advocate in America “betray the identity and mission” of Notre Dame?
Father Jenkins says the invitation "should not be taken as condoning or endorsing his positions on specific issues regarding the protection of human life."

But what Notre Dame is saying with this invitation is that Obama's 100 percent support for policies and programs that bring death to more than a million unborn children every year is no disqualification to being honored by a university dedicated to Our Lady who carried to term the Son of God.

Chris Carrington, a political science major, regards the opposition to Obama's appearance as un-Catholic: "To not allow someone here because of their beliefs would seem a little hypocritical and contradictory to what the mission of the university and church should be."

The obtuse Carrington has stumbled on the relevant question: Is Notre Dame still a repository, teacher and exemplar of eternal truths about God and Man, right and wrong, whose mission is to convey and defend those truths in a hostile world?

Or has Notre Dame joined the secularists in their endless scavenger hunt to seek and find truth in the marketplace of ideas?

Touchdown Obama

Touchdown Obama

By George Neumayr
on 3.27.09 @ 6:08AM

The Catholic Church in America has bred her own destroyers, graduating from doctrinally corrupt catechetical programs, schools and colleges two generations of pro-abortion politicians. Barack Obama, in his effortless Alinskyite style, has exploited this phenomenon to the hilt, seeking out Catholics such as Joe Biden and Kathleen Sebelius to serve as his agents of destruction.

The controversy this week at Notre Dame is one more snapshot of this self-implosion. Here we have the American bishops' most prominent university planning to confer an honorary degree upon Obama even as he accelerates the destruction of its moral teachings.

Were Saul Alinsky alive today, he would have to smile at the ease of it all. Obama can not only thwart the Church at every crucial turn and still retain the Catholic vote; he can even expect over the next few years prizes and pats on the back from Catholic colleges for doing so.

Jesuit Georgetown University is no doubt itching to honor him too; its professors ranked seventh among all university faculties in donations to Obama during the campaign, reported the Chronicle of Higher Education. The Jesuit magazine America and Jesuit Thomas Reese rushed to Notre Dame's defense this week.

Perhaps Obama enthusiast/fellow Alinskyite Father Michael Pfleger can travel over from Chicago for ND's commencement exercises to fill in for the boycotting Fort Wayne-South Bend Bishop John D'Arcy.

To his credit, D'Arcy, a long and lonely opponent of Notre Dame's secularization, wants no part in the sham, correctly noting that the school is once again panting after "prestige" at the expense of "truth." Four decades of surrendering to secularist culture and championing progressive politics at Notre Dame have culminated in an honorary degree to the most pro-abortion president ever.

Responding to this criticism, its president, Father John Jenkins, has had to dust off the "dialogue" defense from the recent Vagina Monologues controversy on campus to justify his decision.

Out rolled from the president's office the familiar cart of clichés. "You cannot change the world if you shun the people you want to persuade, and if you cannot persuade them…show respect for them and listen to them," Jenkins was quoted as saying.

What's the logic here? To dialogue with a public figure a school has to confer an honorary degree upon him? This makes no sense, but it is the kind of head-faking non sequitur that appeals to Jenkins.

Just as he twisted the Vagina Monologues controversy into a beside-the-point discussion about the value of free speech, so he is casting this recent one as some sort of test of Notre Dame's commitment to "positive engagement."

The White House, sensing the drift of this script, joined in the charade, saying in response to the controversy that it welcomes the "spirit of debate and healthy disagreement on important issues."

Which makes one wonder: When exactly will the debate take place? Before, during or after the commencement exercises? Will it proceed like Jenkins' "creative contexualization" panel discussions about the Vagina Monologues? Or is Obama's interest in "healthy disagreement" about as plausible as Jenkins' notion of "positive engagement"?

Notice also that for additional PR protection Jenkins is playing the race card. "It is of special significance that we will hear from our first African-American president, a person who has spoken eloquently and movingly about race in this nation. Racial prejudice has been a deep wound in America, and Mr. Obama has been a healer," he was quoted saying this week.

Again, how is this relevant to honorary-degree-conferring from a Catholic university? Does opposing racial injustice absolve supporting other injustices?

Imagine a reverse scenario, say a politician who supported the Church's moral teachings down the line but had some racist blot in his past. Would Jenkins honor him? No, he woudn't dare. But somehow Obama's formal cooperation in the injustice of destroying innocent lives just isn't so bad.

George Neumayr is editor of Catholic World Report and press critic for California Political Review.

The Big Lie

For Thirty Pieces of Silver?

The furor about President Barack Obama's invitation and honor at Notre Dame brings this blog full circle from where it started. Our objective was to show how most of the Catholic colleges and universities were now under the control of dissenters, heretics and secularists more concerned with prestige among their peers than the truthful formation of Catholic leaders.

The basic premise is that Catholic higher education has strayed so far from Catholic faith and morals as to actuaally be a weapon of Antichrist. It actually serves to deceive the faithful, and is leading many astray. That the trappings of Church imagery and ritual are involved makes it even more diabolical.

Both Obama and Jenkins have chosen extremely deceptive terms to describe this as a "dialogue" and "engagement" as though there was going to be a debate or questions and answers. There isn't. There's going to be a commencement address (read from a TelePrompter no doubt) and an honorary degree conferred. This is in direct contradiction to the US bishops statement on pro-abortion politicians not receiving either a platform or honors from Catholic institutions. In other words, Jenkins is lying.

I read a blog by a priest who wanted to downplay the issue by claiming that Catholic colleges aren't really Catholic but just have a Catholic legacy or were historically founded by Catholics and that they no longer maintain that identity. This premise is simply dishonest on a number of levels.

First, Notre Dame like many prominent Catholic universities trades on its Catholic identity to pull in massive donations from its alumni to bolster its huge endowment. These alumni have been polled and 73% oppose the Obama invitation and honor. Were Notre Dame to be declared no longer Catholic, I wonder how many of these donors would dissociate themselves from it and put there charity elsewhere.

As an aside, I wonder how the translation "Our Lady" would fit a secular school. Perhaps they would claim a new lady and redo the mosaic of Jesus to look like some secular hero, maybe even Obama.

Second, the invitation to Obama reportedly came from the university's president, Father Jenkins, a Catholic priest. At his ordination, if he was licitly ordained, Jenkins vowed obedience to the pope and the magisterium. There is no question the invitation and honor being given to Obama is an act of disobedience. Bishops have stated as much but one need not look far to the past to read the words of the pope himself who addressed Catholic higher education during his recent visit to the US. How ironic then that the qualification for leading Notre Dame, that of being a priest, is also what puts this man in position to secularize the school.

Third, canon law is not silent on what constitutes a Catholic institution or the role of the local bishop to rule on such matters. Indeed sadly there have been a few schools formally declared "not Catholic" over the last decade or so. But this was not done to make a statement of admonishment or correction but only after the actuality of secularization had already occurred. If the Bishop in Indiana were to issue such a decree concerning Notre Dame, all hell would surely break loose.

But what if a bishop did use this tool to correct rather than separate a major Catholic institution? Would alumni pressure the school to return to its roots? Would the religious order in charge of that school remove the president and effect the proper reforms? Would the governing board act to preserve the legacy that has been its cash cow over the years? After all, isn't this really about money in the first place? Notre Dame wants to be recognized as a premier research institution in order to attract not only the top students but research dollars. Having the sitting president, fresh off his historic campaign win, attracts the attention Jenkins craves. It also positions him for some of the massive spending Obama and his administration are proposing.

Jesus was sold for thirty pieces of silver. Notre Dame surely wants a bit more to sell its soul.

And Obama? Surely he is aware that the majority of Catholics voted for him despite his obvious pro-abortion policies. And he is also cognizant that support among those Catholics has slipped in reaction to his change on the Mexico City policy, embryonic stem cell research, conscience protections for health care workers, as well as his appointments of radical pro abortion cabinet members like Kathleen Sebeilius.

So being not only invited to speak at Notre Dame but also receiving an honorary degree gives Obama the platform he's seeking, an approval from the university most identified with Catholicism in America. As the uproar grows I wonder if Jenkins, reveling in the controversy no doubt, just keeps raising the price to be paid for his feigned suffering.

Most disconcerting of course is that there are devout traditional Catholics who chose Notre Dame for its Catholic identity and trappings. As is usually the case in this putrid environment of dissent and apostasy, they are increasingly marginalized and looked down upon by a secular elite that includes many in collars. Who speaks for them? It's obvious that the university president, his order, and the board that appoints or approves him has no interest in addressing the legitimate grievances of practicing Catholics. Their position at Notre Dame is not materially different than at any secular or state run school. Indeed, the school will no doubt take steps to ensure they don't mess up the love fest with their protests.

Many are praising Bishop D'Arcy for deciding not to attend the ceremony. But D'Arcy is responsible for the Catholics in his diocese. How does he make the Catholics at Notre Dame whole? How does he shepherd them? Withdrawal and letter writing affect Jenkins about as much as UN resolutions affect Iran. D'Arcy does have a chance to do more. If only he and the rest of the US bishops had the courage.

-ITH

Notre Dame's Faustian Bargain

Note: A good article that sums up what's going on at Notre Dame...

Notre Dame's Faustian Bargain

By Stephen Barr
Tuesday, March 24, 2009, 12:00 AM

My younger son will be graduating from the University of Notre Dame in May. Last Friday, he informed me that President Obama will be giving the commencement speech and will be awarded an honorary degree. I was, frankly, stunned. The joyful event of our son's graduation has now been overshadowed by a dark cloud. I am proud of my son and of all he achieved at Notre Dame, but I am ashamed of Notre Dame itself.

How can an institution that purports to be Catholic honor as a "doctor of law"--literally a "teacher of law"--a President who has made it very clear by word and deed that he intends to remove from the laws of this nation anything that defends unborn human life? Of course, there is more to Obama than his position on abortion and the life issues. There are things about him that anyone, Catholic or non-Catholic, can respect and admire. But can they justify overlooking his appalling stance on abortion?

Abortion is a defining issue of our time, in the way that slavery was in the mid-nineteenth century and segregation and racial discrimination were in the mid-twentieth century. Overlooking the pro-abortion views of a politician now would be analogous to overlooking pro-slavery or segregationist views in those eras. Would Notre Dame have invited a champion of segregation to be a commencement speaker in the 1960s, however brilliant or talented, however well-meaning in other ways and on other issues he or she may have been?

Some will say that there is no comparison between the issues of racial discrimination and abortion. From a Christian point of view, however, they are at root the same issue: the respect due to our fellow human beings simply as human beings. The lives of fifty million innocent human beings have been snuffed out in the United States since 1973, so it would be absurd to suggest that abortion is less serious an issue than racial discrimination.

The difference between the two issues lies not in their intrinsic moral gravity, but in the way that society views them. Virtually everyone agrees that racial discrimination is morally repugnant. There is a strong social consensus on that issue, whereas on abortion at present there is not. The social elites of this country are largely pro-choice, and being pro-choice is regarded by many as a mark of enlightenment. This, I think, has everything to do with why an institution like Notre Dame would never honor a champion of segregation, but would honor a champion of so-called abortion rights. What governs the moral reflexes of institutions like Notre Dame is not how things appear in the light of the gospel, but how they appear in the eyes of the social elites--or to use more biblical language, how they appear to the world. St. Paul told us not be "conformed to this world," but to put on the "mind of Christ." It seems that the University of Notre Dame is conforming itself to the world.

While the news about President Obama's honorary degree was a nasty shock, I am not actually surprised. Nor was I surprised when Fr. Jenkins did his ignominious retreat on the Vagina Monologues a few years ago. Why was I not surprised then, and why am I not surprised now? It has to do with an experience I had three years ago, when my wife and I were attending Junior Parents' Weekend at Notre Dame for our older son. At that point Fr. Jenkins was still holding the line against showing the Monologues on campus. An article about the controversy had just appeared in the New York Times the previous day, and the tone of the article was distinctly anti-Jenkins. (It featured statements by Fr. Theodore Hesburgh critical of Jenkins’s stand--a revolting act of perfidy if ever there was one.) After the banquet for the juniors and their parents, I approached Fr. Jenkins to congratulate him and encourage him. I planned to say, "The New York Times doesn’t like you. But hang in there; you’re doing the right thing."

I got no further than the first sentence before Fr. Jenkins replied, "I didn’t think the article was that bad." He sounded like he was trying to convince himself that the article's treatment of him was not negative. I said no more to him but rejoined my wife and immediately said to her, "I think he is going to cave." There was something about what he said and the way he said it that made me realize that Fr. Jenkins craved the good opinion of the New York Times and its readers. That is natural, of course. We all like to be thought well of and to be spoken well of. But it is a weakness nonetheless, and one that we have been warned about: "Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you..."

That earlier betrayal by Notre Dame was caused by fear of the world's disapproval. The present one is caused by desire for worldly status. There is a Faustian bargain being struck. President Obama has been feeling great heat on the life issues due to the courageous stands by many of the country's Catholic bishops. Speaking at and being honored by Notre Dame is a way for him to insulate himself from that heat. In return, Notre Dame gets to seem important, by basking in the glory of a presidential visit. The university is willing to sacrifice the integrity of the Church's moral witness on the central social-justice issue of our time to pursue its institutional ambitions.
Let us pray for the University of Notre Dame.

Stephen M. Barr, a member of the editorial advisory board of First Things, is professor of physics at the Bartol Research Institute.

OBAMA INVITE DRAWS NOTRE DAME ALUMNI OUTCRY

OBAMA INVITE DRAWS NOTRE DAME ALUMNI OUTCRY

Project Sycamore Launches Internet Petition

By Karna Swanson

SOUTH BEND, Indiana, MARCH 25, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Notre Dame's decision to invite President Barack Obama to deliver this year's commencement address is a "telling event," says the president of a group of alumni who are protesting the move.

William Dempsey is the president of Project Sycamore, a Web site founded three years ago by alumni concerned about the state of the university's Catholic identity.

In comments to ZENIT, Dempsey affirmed that the university's "Catholic identity has been severely weakened, and this episode brings all of that to the fore."

More than 700 Notre Dame alumni have signed a petition launched today by Project Sycamore protests the university's decision to invite Obama, a known advocate for abortion rights, to speak at its commencement ceremony and give him an honorary degree.

The petition is distinct from the one launched over the weekend by the Cardinal Newman Society, which has attracted over 140,000 signatures. Project Sycamore specifically seeks to target alumni of Notre Dame, and those who have a connection to the university.

The petition of Project Sycamore notes Obama's "unwavering and notorious support of the pro-abortion agenda," and said Notre Dame has "inexplicably decided to honor him."

In a letter sent on behalf of the project to Father John Jenkins, president of Notre Dame, the group expressed their "astonished dismay at, and deep disappointment."

"President Obama's statements and executive and legislative actions identify him as unremittingly hostile to the moral claims of the unborn and accordingly to a central teaching of the Catholic Church," the letter explained. "By virtue of his position, he is now the nation's leading champion of virtually unrestricted abortion rights."

"No matter any disclaimers by the University or what President Obama says," the note added, "the ineradicable facts that will stamp this occasion are the University's decision to inscribe in the University roll of honorees the name of the most pro-abortion President in the nation's history and its choice of him as the person to speak to the 2009 graduates about the values they should hold dear."

"This compromising action gravely diminishes Notre Dame," the petition concluded. "It profoundly wounds its claim to be a Catholic institution. It strikes with incalculable cost at the pride of its graduates. We protest."

In the minority

A member of the class of 1952, Dempsey told ZENIT that he hopes the petition will "draw support not only for this issue, but for our general and strong concern for the weakening of the Catholic identity of the university over recent years."

The Notre Dame alumnus cited "the precipitous drop in the Catholic representation of the faculty from about 85% in the 1970s to only 53% today. And if you discount from the 53% the dissident Catholics on the faculty, and the culture Catholics and not really serious Catholics, then you're way down below the majority that the mission statement requires."

Dempsey explained: "The mission statement of the university says that the Catholic identity of the university depends upon -- not just that it would be nice to have -- but depends upon the continuing presence of a predominant number of Catholic intellectuals on the faculty, and that's been always interpreted to mean a solid majority of real Catholics.

"So the university has fallen below its own standard for maintaining its Catholic identity and that's the problem."

Noting that the "Vagina Monologues" have been allowed to be staged annually on campus, he said that "you just would not have that in a school in which a genuinely Catholic faculty predominated."

The president of the alumni project acknowledges that all is not lost: "There's a core of really splendid dedicated Catholic scholars on that faculty -- it's an aging group, but they're there. The order of priests is still there. They're thinning, but they're still there.

"Then there's the student body that is 85% Catholic. Now that's enormously important in retaining what is being retained of the Catholic identity."

Not easy

Dempsey underlined that Project Sycamore is supported by alumni who are loyal to Notre Dame, and that the current situation in which they have to criticize the university is painful.

"But that is our role," he said. "Our role is to speak the truth about the university, both the good points, and there are many of them, but also the weaknesses."

"Our function, our principle function by far, is to alert alumni to the fact that everything isn't they same as it was when they were there," the alumnus explained. "And that it will require their determined effort and attention to call the university back to its dedicated path."

Dempsey said his alma mater has been overly concerned with "secular ambition" and that they've "been on a quest for secular acclaim, or rising in the rankings of the U.S. News and World Report." He added that the university is also seeking admission in the American Association of Universities as a top-tiered research university.

However, he noted, Notre Dame's law school and business school, which both rank well nationally, have also done well to retain their Catholic identities.

Notre Dame's faculty of the law school is 85%-87% Catholic, and the business school, which is now ranked second in the country, is 64%-65% Catholic.

"What the law school and the business school prove, is that you can be ranked high and still be thoroughly Catholic," said Dempsey.

"If you want to be considered a Catholic university, you must be a Catholic university and have a predominantly Catholic faculty," he concluded. "Otherwise, you're misleading the public. It's false advertising."
--- --- ---
On the Net:
To sign the petition: www.ipetitions.com/petition/oppose_obama/index.html
Project Sycamore: www.sycamoretrust.org/pages/news.php

WSJ Columnist and Notre Dame Alumnus Decries ND Response to Obama Scandal as "Moral Incoherence"

Our take: Once again ,as in the case of Holy Cross, Georgetown, Marquette, Boston College and the rest of the more prominent Catholic colleges and universities, the local bishop is exposed as a weak bystander to his own impotence. When will one of these shepherds actually produce a teaching moment by declaring one of the major colleges "not Catholic"? D'Arcy takes cover by issuing his worthless decrees and protests and nothing at all changes. This Church is supposedly a hierarchical one. Power is vested in the episcopate to declare what is and is not Catholic. But rare is the actual exercise of that power. In this case, as in the case of the Planned Parenthood convention at Holy Cross, it is the faithful Catholic who is marginalized within the institution they love. Who sticks up for them? Will they actually be forced by conscience to miss their own graduation or worse, submit to evil and attend? When will the bishops act instead of cower in their chanceries? Sadly, probably never. They're as guilty as Jenkins in their cooperation with evil in these matters.

WSJ Columnist and Notre Dame Alumnus Decries ND Response to Obama Scandal as "Moral Incoherence"

By Kathleen Gilbert

NEW YORK, March 25, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - William McGurn, former chief editorial writer with The Wall Street Journal and now the newspaper's regular "Main Street" columnist, decried in a recent column the "moral incoherence" of the University of Notre Dame's invitation to host President Obama as commencement speaker on May 17.

"In the end, the result is moral incoherence," wrote McGurn yesterday, commenting on the invite. "It is an incoherence in which abortion-rights advocates have the most to gain, because it demoralizes those who support the cause of life while removing fears of even the slightest social sanction for those who do not. And it is an incoherence we see all across American Catholic life today."

Following a late Friday announcement of the school's plan to honor Obama, Notre Dame alumni and other Catholics unleashed a deluge of protest, calling Obama's deeply anti-life agenda incompatible with the prestigious university's Catholic identity. A fast-moving petition launched by the Cardinal Newman Society protesting the honor had been signed by over 130,000 people as of Wednesday afternoon.

Notre Dame's Bishop D'Arcy released a statement yesterday criticizing the move as contrary to U.S. bishops' policy, and confirming he would boycott the graduation. Notre Dame President Fr. Jenkins has insisted the invitation will stand despite protests.

McGurn, a prominent writer and editor who served as chief speechwriter for George W. Bush, is a University of Notre Dame alumnus.

Commenting on Jenkins' rationale that the invite would be a "catalyst for dialogue" with Obama, McGurn said: "Now, if the president were going to Notre Dame to engage in dialogue, that would be one thing. But Mr. Obama will not be going to Notre Dame to 'dialogue.' He will be going to help advance his agenda.

"At the center of that agenda is abortion," McGurn continued, who went on to list the Obama administration's many early policy changes that are hostile to legal protection for the unborn.
McGurn criticized Notre Dame, often regarded as the nation's most prestigious Catholic university, for its history of having "opted for the inner Cuomo" - referring to the school's infamous decision in 1984 to welcome pro-abortion Catholic Gov. Mario Cuomo.

McGurn said Notre Dame's plan to honor prominent pro-life leader Mary Ann Glendon with the Laetare Award at the same ceremony Obama will attend "appears less a firm stand for life than a cynical PR move aimed at blunting the criticism they no doubt expected if Mr. Obama accepted their invitation to speak."

This "moral incoherence," he said, "has brought us to a day where the most prominent Catholics in America - from Vice President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to virtually every well-known Irish Catholic in the Senate - now defend the snuffing out of tens of millions of innocent human lives as the exercise of a fundamental right.

"And on the Midwestern campus of the Golden Dome, it allows administrators and professors to tell themselves they are in 'dialogue' with the spirit of John F. Kennedy when they are in fact surrendering to a Ted Kennedy reality they themselves have helped create," McGurn concluded.

18,000 (Now > 165,000) Join National Catholic Protest of Obama Honors at Notre Dame

As of 10:00 a.m. on Monday, March 23, more than 18,000 people have joined the nationwide campaign urging the University of Notre Dame to rescind the honor of selecting President Barack Obama as its commencement speaker on May 17. The campaign was launched at 6:00 p.m. Friday, March 20 immediately after The White House and Notre Dame made the announcement that Notre Dame would honor President Obama.

The campaign is organized around The Cardinal Newman Society sponsored website, NotreDameScandal.com, which includes an online petition to Notre Dame president Rev. John Jenkins, CSC, and contact information for the university. Catholics are urged to join the campaign, and the petition is being circulated among leaders of other Catholic organizations.

The petition has averaged more than 270 signatures per hour since its launch, and The Cardinal Newman Society is pleased to announce that CatholicVote.org has joined the campaign as a cosponsor of the petition effort.

The decision to honor President Obama has drawn quick and sharp criticism from Notre Dame alumni and Catholic leaders across the country.

Dr. Ralph McInerny, a professor at Notre Dame for more than 50 years, has written on the popular website The Catholic Thing that "By inviting Barack Obama as commencement speaker, Notre Dame is telling the nation that the teaching of the Catholic church on this fundamental matter [abortion] can be ignored."

Thomas Peters at the American Papist blog has reported that Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput has encouraged Catholics to write to Notre Dame to protest the honor.

Project Sycamore, an organization dedicated to protecting Notre Dame's Catholic identity, is organizing alumni to protest the honor.

NotreDameScandal.com will provide regular updates on all of the activities.

"It is an outrage and a scandal that 'Our Lady's University,' one of the premier Catholic universities in the United States, would bestow such an honor on President Obama given his clear support for policies and laws that directly contradict fundamental Catholic teachings on life and marriage," the petition reads.

Notre Dame Invites President Obama to Speak at Commencement

According to the ND website President Barack Obama will be the principal speaker and the recipient of an honorary doctor of laws degree at the University of Notre Dame's 164th University commencement Ceremony at 2 p.m. May 17 (Sunday).

Go here to sign the petititon and email the president of Notre Dame:

http://www.notredamescandal.com/

PLEASE HELP SPREAD THE WORD:We are trying to get the word out to all that oppose Obama at ND to put a red Christian Cross over all personal ND logos. I.E. Logos on car, get red tape and put a Christian Cross over it; clothing, get red embroidery thread and sew a red Christian Cross over it, or simply use ribbon, and please wear them! For ONCE we have to stand up and visually express our opposition. Please help us spread this peaceful protest. Please do the same for all Saint Mary's and Holy cross logos you own. There is a rumor that Michelle Obama may be asked to Saint Mary's or Holy Cross. Thank you.Also, here are links to petitions to sign if you wish: (unrelated to above grass roots protest info, but great sites and petitions)http://www.sycamoretrust.org/phpPetition/index.phphttp://notredamescandal.com/SignthePetitiontoFrJenkins/tabid/454/Default.aspx

A Catholic U Outing: Dinner at a Gay Bar, A Sexually Graphic Play and Mass with the Obama-Supporting Pastor Pfleger

A Catholic U Outing: Dinner at a Gay Bar, A Sexually Graphic Play and Mass with the Obama-Supporting Pastor Pfleger

By Thaddeus M. Baklinski

NOTRE DAME, Indiana, December 18, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Notre Dame University students participating in the Cultural Diversity Seminar, sponsored by the university's Center for Social Concerns, spent their Fall Break in Chicago in order to be "immersed in the subcultures of the city," a report by the university's student newspaper, The Irish Rover, states.

The goal of the outing was to "increase awareness of the variety of approaches and strategies employed by ethnic organizations, churches and others to improve social conditions."

To this end, the field trip opened with Mass at St. Sabina's Catholic Parish, known for its "unique restructuring of the Mass" as well as for its pastor, Father Michael Pfleger, who gained national notoriety for supporting Barack Obama's presidential candidacy and for his sermon mocking Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton at rival Barack Obama's former church.

Fr. Pfleger was temporarily removed from his parish by Chicago Archbishop Francis Cardinal George, and asked to "reflect on his recent statements and actions in the light of the church's regulations for all Catholic priests."

The Irish Rover reported that "although the students were able to take part in Father Pfleger's celebration of the Mass and hear his sermon, his early departure prior to the conclusion of the Mass prevented them from speaking to him afterwards."

Following a tour of the Board of Trade and a "Ghetto Bus Tour," the students were taken to dinner at a homosexual bar called Hamburger Mary's, where they attended a showing of "The Ville," described as "a weekly episodic performance that includes graphic scenes of homosexual activity."

The trip concluded with a session at the Chicago Centre in which "activist Prexy Nesbit" delivered "a political commentary against capitalism" and offered his support for Barack Obama.

To express your opinion and concern please contact:

Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C.
PresidentUniversity of Notre Dame
400 Main Building
Notre Dame, IN 46556
Phone: 574.631.3903
Email: president@nd.edu

Notre Dame Scholars Begin Lining Up Behind Efforts to Re-Catholicize Notre Dame

Notre Dame Scholars Begin Lining Up Behind Efforts to Re-Catholicize Notre Dame: Author and Prof. Ralph McInerny Calls Sycamore Trust a Model of the Restoration Efforts

8/24/2008 10:37:00 AM
By William H. Dempsey (ND Class of 1952) -Sycamore Trust

Alma mater, By Ralph McInerny
The University of Notre Dame has always been blessed by loyal and generous alumni. This has never been truer than in the case of Project Sycamore, whose president is Bill Dempsey '52, retired after a most distinguished legal career that began with a clerkship under Chief Justice Earl Warren. Dempsey has rallied fellow alumni to address current campus outrages, and thousands of alumni have subscribed to the Sycamore website (www.sycamoretrust.org). The extremes of alumni sentiment might be called unquestioning, on the one hand, and carping, on the other. Project Sycamore, as evidenced by Dempsey's letters to ND president Father John Jenkins and his analyses of university proposals, is a model of calm and reasonable yet unrelenting friendly questioning of recent events on the South Bend campus.

The trigger for the Project was the incredible waffling of Father Jenkins about, and ultimate allowing of, campus presentations of the infamous and pornographic play The Vagina Monologues. The very title is an affront. Imagine Penis Ponderings, Malice Aforeskin or Anal Analyses. That such a patent effort to corrupt the young and to trash common morality, to say nothing of the enforcement and enlargement of that morality by Catholic moral teaching, should not require five minutes of reflection before being dismissed. Yet the unthinkable has happened, again and again. If only Father Jenkins had simply sought his mother's advice, none of this would have happened.

A meeting of bishops, scheduled to be held at Notre Dame, was moved because the prelates were given no assurance that the Monologues would not be shown again. Bishop John D'Arcy had previously, and publicly, expressed his dismay to Father Jenkins, in firm but gentle pastoral terms. Jenkins' latest compromise has been to meet the Monologues with -- dialogue; that is, to schedule discussions of this monstrosity after it is enacted. The problem is that those who had not fled gagging beforehand did not stay around for the "academic" discussion that followed.

The controversy brought to the surface the disturbing fact that a significant number of Notre Dame faculty are pleased as punch at the showing of the Monologues and characterize objections to it as an assault on - you guessed it - academic freedom. This led Project Sycamore to examine the alarming drop in the percentage of Catholics on the faculty, now hovering around 50 percent. To its credit, the administration too is concerned about this - a concern that would have been quickened by Pope Benedict XVI's remarks during his recent visit to the United States. The plan to remedy this that was proposed by the university revealed, upon analysis by Project Sycamore, that, far from meeting the problem, it would exacerbate it; the analysis is a model of the incisive comments one has learned to expect from Project Sycamore.

The administration would be less than human if they did not wish that Project Sycamore would just go away. What can one do with a group that does not accuse you of malice but rather exhibits the naivete and ineffectiveness of your actions? I doubt very much that Project Sycamore will become deciduous soon. They love Notre Dame too much for that. They are not trying to score points against Father Jenkins. They are appealing to his undoubted intelligence and good will. In the end, it is, in its way, a lovers' quarrel.

A few issues ago, The New Criterion ran a symposium on the parlous state of higher education. All of its exempla horribilia took place on secular campuses. Alas, many of them are what Notre Dame has come to refer to as peer institutions, a designation which is perhaps more wishful than factual. The New Criterion was only one of hundreds of lamentations about our colleges and universities that have appeared over the last decade or so, some of them written by former presidents of as well as by professors in those institutions.

Notre Dame is not a secular university. It is a Catholic university, as indeed were all the original universities. Universities arose, as John Paul II pointed out, ex corde ecclesiae. What the times require is not for Catholic universities to become more like their chaotic secular counterparts, but to recover and celebrate the great tradition in which they stand. The future of Catholic universities could be even more golden than their past, but only if they set aside an indecent respect for the opinions of mankind and celebrate the complementarity of faith and reason.

No one could imagine that Father Jenkins would take exception to this ideal. Only a churl would imagine that there is some plan to secularize Notre Dame. Our president is a good and holy priest, although a philosopher. Project Sycamore and Father Jenkins are children of the same mother, the lady atop the golden dome. She will bring them together in her historic roles as Advocata nostra and Sedes sapientiae.

#####

Notre Dame professor Ralph McInerny gave the inaugural Schall Lecture,"There was a man! On learning to be free" , at Georgetown University on April 10.

The pope and the universities

Published: Friday, May 23, 2008
The pope and the universities

Pope Benedict XVI had barely left the Catholic University of America on April 17 when the Catholic higher education establishment's spin machine shifted into high gear.

One university president said that what most impressed him about the papal address to Catholic educators was what it was not: a dressing-down. Still another president cooed that she felt "affirmed." An administrator at yet another institution said that, as the pope hadn't cited Ex Corde Ecclesia, John Paul II's concerns about Catholic identity were clearly old hat.

One got the distinct impression from the spin that a lot of people thought they'd dodged a bullet --- and were grateful they weren't going home to face irate alums and dubious donors. The "Benedict loves what we're doing" blah-blah has continued ever since.

The facts, to put it gently, suggest something rather more complicated. Consider these excerpts from the Holy Father's address:

"A university's or school's Catholic identity ... is a question of conviction --- do we really believe that only in the mystery of the Word made flesh does the mystery of man truly become clear? Are we ready to commit our entire self --- intellect and will, mind and heart --- to God? Do we accept the truth Christ reveals?"

[What percentage of this year's Catholic college and university graduates could honestly answer those questions with a convinced "Yes?" What percentage would even understand the first question?]

"While we have sought diligently to engage the intellect of our young, perhaps we have neglected the will. Subsequently we observe, with distress, the notion of freedom being distorted. Freedom is not an opting out. Freedom is an opting in --- a participation in Being itself. Hence authentic freedom can never be obtained by turning away from God."

[Might these sentences be printed, framed, and posted in co-ed dormitories on Catholic campuses?]

"We observe today a timidity in the face of the category of the good ... an assumption that every experience is of equal worth and a reluctance to admit imperfection and mistakes. And particularly disturbing is the reduction of the precious and delicate area of education in sexuality to management of 'risk,' bereft of any reference to the beauty of conjugal love."

[How many freshman orientation programs and student life offices on Catholic campuses would have to examine consciences here?]

"....I wish to affirm the great value of academic freedom.... Yet ... any appeal to the principle of academic freedom in order to justify positions that contradict the faith and the teaching of the Church would obstruct or even betray the university's identity and mission; a mission at the heart of the Church's [teaching mission] and not somehow ... independent of it."

[Will the theologians at prestige Catholic universities who affirm Humanae Vitae's teaching on the morally appropriate means of regulating fertility, the Catechism's teaching on the disordered character of homosexual acts, and the teaching of Ordinatio Sacerdotalis on the inadmissability of women to Holy Orders please raise their hands?]

The spin machine notwithstanding, Benedict XVI put serious challenges before the nation's leading Catholic educators. To resolve any doubts that the pope has a different idea of what befits a Catholic college or university than a lot of the Catholic higher education establishment, however, I propose a simple test.

Whether or not to produce Eve Ensler's "Vagina Monologues" --- a "play" that mocks the settled teaching of the Catholic Church --- has become a tedious annual ritual on many Catholic campuses. Prominent among them is Notre Dame: to the public mind, the flagship among U.S. Catholic institutions of higher education. There, the university's president, Father John Jenkins, CSC, has allowed Ensler's "play" on campus, acquiescing to the demands of some Notre Dame faculty while rejecting the counsel of other distinguished faculty members and the arguments of the local bishop.

In the patristic period, disputes within and among local churches were submitted to the Bishop of Rome for adjudication. So here's my proposal and my test-case: let Father Jenkins send Pope Benedict XVI a copy of Ensler's "play," asking the pope whether he considers this material appropriate for production or useful for discussion on a Catholic campus.

The answer, I predict, will not please the spin machine.

George Weigel is a senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.

Campus Alcoholics Clubs to be Established at Catholic Colleges

Should Drinking Clubs be Allowed on Catholic College Campuses?

A new national group - College Drinkers/Drunk Very Drunk (CD/DVD) recently announced their intention to establish Campus Alcoholics chapters on leading Catholic college campuses. And with that, Campus Alcoholics was formed.

"We think it's time that drunks come out of the closet and fully participate in Catholic higher education," stated the group's founder. "For too long drunks have been looked down upon by other non-drinking members of the college community. At CA meeting you'll meet other drunks in a completely non-judgemental environment."

Immediately, large well-known Catholic colleges jumped on board. One in Washington D.C. at first resisted but under pressure from on-campus drunks announced the full funding of a center for alcoholics. "I never realized how many drunks we already had here!" said the college president. "There may be something about our college that attracts a lot of drunks." The facility will be built using a donation from a foreign prince.

A Catholic college president in the Midwest at first stated that drunkenness is "incompatible with Catholic teaching" but later said the group could operate on campus as long as they "get faculty sponsorship and have a panel discussion" after they get drunk. Another Midwestern College immediately established a chair for alcoholic studies. Finding an alcoholic professor was not a problem.

The smaller Catholic colleges immediately established chapters not wanting to be left behind or considered anachronistic.

A right-wing Catholic group protested that alcoholism is unhealthy, leads to loss of employment, breakup of families, depression, disease, higher suicide rates and early death. They also pointed out that many Catholic priests had problems with alcohol, problems that Bishops covered up, sometimes causing scandal.

"Nonsense" said the group's founder. "That's just old-fashioned anti-drunk intolerance and we're going to fight the haters all the way."

Another Catholic organization suggested that it would be better to treat drunks with compassion and to help them avoid alcohol and bring them to Christ through active ministry. They indicated that it would be un-Catholic to encourage drinking in any way and that establishing clubs on campus could lead to behavior contrary to the Catholic Church's values.

"Another outdated form of bigotry!" claimed the head of Campus Alcoholics. "But not to worry, we have plenty of allies on our side."

Note: There are plenty of organizations, religious and secular, that will help people with alcoholism to get off alcohol and lead healthy and productive lives. Alcoholics need to be treated with compassion but also with the truth about their physical, psychological and spiritual condition.

Next week we'll have a guest columnist from the Fat-Thin Alliance write about wiping out teasing in American high schools.

HLI Calls for Ouster of Notre Dame President

FRONT ROYAL, VA (MARCH 13, 2008) - The Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer, STL, president of Human Life International, (HLI) today called for the firing of University of Notre Dame President Father John Jenkins, C.S.C., for his approval of the presentation of the play The Vagina Monologues on campus. Father Euteneuer is a Notre Dame alumnus, Class of '84.

Euteneuer said today, "This is really getting tiresome. For forty years Catholic university presidents have been intimidated and afraid of 'offending' ideological feminists and others who have undisguised contempt for the Catholic Church. These groups have been welcomed to Catholic campuses and have been spitting in the eye of the Church ever since. They cannot be pleased or placated."

Euteneuer continued, "Father Jenkins has been given several chances to take a truly Catholic position on this heinous piece of ideological propaganda and has consistently voted against the pleas and well-reasoned arguments of students, faculty and alumni alike. He needs to step down from his position or the ND Board of Directors needs to dismiss him. A Catholic priest just does not endorse this screed."

In the March 10 statement, Father Jenkins said: "Notre Dame's policy on controversial events rests on the conviction that truth will emerge from reasoned consideration of issues in dialogue with faith.... [I]t is, in my judgment, the action that best serves the distinctive mission of Notre Dame."

Father Euteneuer responded, "The distinctive mission of Notre Dame is to communicate the Catholic Faith. There is nothing inherently truth-producing about 'dialogue' or controversy, especially on immoral issues. "Catholics deserve better from a university named for Our Lady."

Contact:
Human Life International
http://www.hli.org
OK, US
John Mallon - PR Director,
johnmallon@cox.net
405 - 720-2575

Statement by Bishop John M. D'Arcy Regarding Dirty Play at Notre Dame

Note: After reading this and realizing that Fr. Jenkins rebuffed the good bishop, one can only conclude that Jenkins is a man with a heart hardened against all natural reason. He is so committed in his sin he cannot move off his position. He has fixed himself in opposition to the institution that ordained him and placed him in a position of authority over young people. The bishop has few arrows in his quiver. He does not want to declare the preeminent Catholic university in the US "not Catholic". But he has no other authority over it.

The decision to allow performances of 'The Vagina Monologues' at the University of Notre Dame

March 2008

Reverend John Jenkins, CSC, and I have been in communication about his decision to allow performances of "The Vagina Monologues" at Notre Dame. I am grateful to Father Jenkins for the extensive time he has put into our conversation and correspondence on these matters over the last two months, and I have taken care in this statement to present his position accurately in order to make a fair response. Father Jenkins has informed me that, while he thinks that this play is a bad play, he believes that permitting its performance under certain conditions, namely, in an academic building without fundraising and with a panel discussion afterwards in which the Catholic perspective is represented, is consistent with the identity of a Catholic university. In particular, Father Jenkins believes that reading the works of authors such as Nietzsche, Gibbon, Luther and Joyce, who in various ways espouse ideas that are contrary to Catholic teaching, in classes at Notre Dame, is comparable to permitting performances of "The Vagina Monologues" under the conditions specified.

As bishop of this historic diocese, entrusted with the spiritual welfare of all those who live within its borders, including the students at our beloved Notre Dame, I believe that, once again, I must publicly and respectfully disagree with Father Jenkins' decision. I am convinced that permitting performances of "The Vagina Monologues" is not consistent with the identity of a Catholic university and not comparable to the long accepted academic tradition through which a wide variety of authors are read and discussed in classes at Notre Dame and in all institutions of higher learning.

In the first place, the difference between the works of authors such as Nietzsche, Gibbon, Luther and Joyce, and "The Vagina Monologues" is a difference, not of degree, but of kind. The former have written serious philosophical, theological and literary works, which have influenced Western thought. As such, their work has academic merit and is worthy of serious discussion and critique in a classroom setting. Father Jenkins believes that Eve Ensler's play was written to shock and offend. How can one put such a play, which many consider pornographic, on the level of serious works such as the writings of Gibbon and Luther?

Even if one could make a case that this play has academic merit, it could be read in class. When a book or play is read in class, the student expects it to be discussed and critiqued; indeed, this is an essential part of the classroom experience. This is not so when one attends the performance of a play. One generally goes to a play and leaves; staying afterwards to listen to a panel discussion about the play is not inherent in the activity of attending a play. No one who comes to the play is required to stay for the panel discussion, and Father Jenkins' attempt to give the performances of this play an academic quality seems deficient.

In addition, unlike reading the play as a classroom assignment, the performances are themselves an endorsement of the international V-Day campaign, even if this is done without fundraising. Is this not the motivation of the departments that have asked to sponsor the play and the young women who will be acting in it? Did they not propose to have multiple performances of the play again this year because they believe it conveys an important message, and they want as many people to see it as possible? In short, people push to have this play performed year after year because they endorse the message it conveys, and they want to be part of the international campaign to promote this message. In allowing performances of the play on campus again this year, whether or not they are officially considered part of the V-Day campaign, Notre Dame continues to cooperate in advancing the campaign's agenda, an agenda which, as I have repeatedly reflected in my several statements over the years, is directly opposed to the dignity of the human person and is antithetical to Catholic teaching.

According to their Web site, the international V-Day campaign has extended the time when this play can be performed to March 30. But if this play is performed on the dates scheduled, it will be held during Easter week, the holiest time of the church year. Notre Dame has a long and blessed tradition of liturgical excellence, a tradition both theoretical and practical and eminently pastoral and prayerful. Easter week is liturgically considered as Easter Day. Surely Notre Dame will not prefer or even seem to prefer the requirements of the V-Day campaign to the proper observance of Easter.

Perhaps an analogy might illustrate how critical the context is when making decisions about what is appropriate to allow. Suppose that Notre Dame was a Catholic University in Nazi Germany in 1938, and a portion of the faculty and student body were Nazi sympathizers. Suppose further that there was a national movement to show a prominent Nazi propaganda film on college campuses. Would not the showing of such a film at Notre Dame involve the university in providing a platform for Nazi propaganda and entail some level of cooperation with the evil of Nazism? Would providing a panel in which the Catholic attitude towards Nazism was included as one among several viewpoints, in any way mitigate the evil involved in showing such a film? Would not the university bear moral responsibility for the fact that some students who viewed the film on campus might be persuaded by the propaganda and became Nazi supporters?

I chose this analogy because Father Jenkins, in our correspondence, made mention of a series of documentary films shown recently on campus concerning the early days of Nazism, which he believes would also have to be banned if "The Vagina Monologues" were banned. But there is an enormous difference between showing a Nazi propaganda film in 2008 and showing it in 1938. One is a matter of historic and scholarly interest in a long-past event, and the other constitutes active cooperation in promoting a current and threatening evil ideology.

I am convinced that, in the current cultural context, allowing performances of "The Vagina Monologues" at Notre Dame is analogous to the situation described above. The play is little more than a propaganda piece for the sexual revolution and secular feminism. While claiming to deplore violence against women, the play at the same time violates the standards of decency and morality that safeguard a woman's dignity and protect her, body and soul, from sexual predators. The human community has generally refrained from exposing and discussing the hidden parts of a woman's body, preferring to consider them private and even sacred. Most importantly, the sexual sin, which the play depicts in several scenes, desecrates women just as much as, if not more deeply than, sexual violence does. The play depicts, exalts, and endorses female masturbation, which is a sin. It depicts, exalts, and endorses a sexual relationship between an adult woman and a child, a minor, which is a sin and also a crime. It depicts and exalts the most base form of sexual relationship between a man and a woman. These illicit sexual actions are portrayed as paths to healing, and the implication is that the historic, positive understanding of heterosexual marriage as the norm is what we must recover from.

Father Jenkins has informed me that after each evening performance there will be a panel discussion, which will include someone who will give an informed and sympathetic presentation of Catholic teaching. In so doing, he notes that Notre Dame "has taken stronger steps than many other Catholic institutions to put limits on the performance of this play." While this may well be true, there are a growing number of Catholic institutions of higher learning that have permanently banned the play.

The overriding issue here is moral. The play is an affront to human dignity, as Catholic teaching understands it. If it is performed, it should be denounced. Otherwise, the university appears to endorse it as in some way good and the impression is given that Catholic teaching is one option competing among many. This method places faith in a defensive position and on the margin and is unacceptable at a Catholic university.

"A faith that places itself on the margin of what is human, of what is therefore culture, would be a faith unfaithful to the fullness of what the Word of God manifests and reveals, a decapitated faith, worse still, a faith in the process of self-annihilation." - John Paul II, Address to Intellectuals, to Students and to University Personnel at Medellin, Columbia, 5 July, 1986. Cited in "Ex Corde Ecclesiae" 44.

Some claim that a performance of the play followed by a panel will "engage the culture" and that out of such a discussion the "truth will emerge." Sadly, "Ex Corde Ecclesiae" is even cited in defense of this position. But what makes a Catholic university distinctive is the conviction that in the search for truth, we do not start from scratch; we start from the truth that has been revealed to us in the Word of God, the person of Jesus Christ, and the teaching of his church. The notion that truth will emerge from a discussion in which many points of view are represented both disrespects revealed truth and separates the search for truth from the certainty of faith; instead, as Pope John Paul II stated in "Ex Corde Ecclesiae": "A Catholic university's privileged task is 'to unite existentially by intellectual effort two orders of reality that too frequently tend to be placed in opposition as though they were antithetical: the search for truth, and the certainty of already knowing the fount of truth.'" - John Paul II, Discourse to the Institut Catholique de Paris, June, 1, 1980, cited in "Ex Corde Ecclesiae," 1.

For these reasons, I believe that the performing of this play, even with one or more persons willing to present Catholic teaching, is in direct opposition to both the spirit and letter of "Ex Corde Ecclesiae." Also, because it depicts and endorses sinful sexual acts in direct opposition to church teaching, I believe its performance to be pornographic and spiritually harmful. This judgment is made after prayer, reflection and dialogue and after preparing several statements over many years.

Because of this pastoral finding, of which I am convinced, and keeping in mind primarily the spiritual welfare of our young students, the good name of Notre Dame and her well-earned position of academic and Catholic leadership, and the blessed Easter week - I remain hopeful that Father Jenkins will reconsider his decision for this year and future years. A decision not to sponsor the play is not only consistent with academic freedom but is a right use of such freedom for it shows respect for the truth, for the common good and the rights of others. (ef. "Ex Corde Ecclesiae," 12)

Bishop of Fort Wayne: Notre Dame President is Wrong to Allow Vagina Monologues

Note: The Bishop presents a detailed argument against the play, one that is rooted in both faith and reason as opposed to the weak defense offered by Jenkins based on emotion and pressure from groups opposed to the Church's mission. Jenkins clearly argues from a fixed position that cannot fathom the possibility that he is just plain wrong. His decision abandons young people to the evils of the age. Jenkins has abdicated his responsibility and failed in his mission as an educator and Catholic priest. As I stated before, he should resign or be removed and laicized.

"I believe its performance to be pornographic and spiritually harmful" and "If it is performed, it should be denounced."

By John Jalsevac

FORT WAYNE, March 12, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The bishop of Fort Wayne, Bishop John D'Arcy, has released a public statement berating the president of Notre Dame University, Fr. John Jenkins, for deciding to allow a performance of The Vagina Monologues at the university.

LifeSiteNews.com reported yesterday that Fr. Jenkins released a statement on Mar. 10 in which he announced his decision to allow the performance of the play to go ahead on Mar. 24-26. "My decision on this matter," wrote the president, "arises from a conviction that it is an indispensable part of the mission of a Catholic university to provide a forum in which multiple viewpoints are debated in reasoned and respectful exchange - always in dialogue with faith and the Catholic tradition - even around highly controversial topics."

Jenkins also said, "It is particularly painful for me that Bishop John D'Arcy - for whom I have great respect and affection - disapproves of my decision."

Bishop D'Arcy begins his statement, released today, by thanking Fr. Jenkins for engaging in an ongoing dialogue with the bishop about the advisability of allowing the scheduled performance of the play to continue. Immediately after, however, the bishop launches into a detailed critique of Fr. Jenkins' position, taking taking him to task for his belief that allowing The Vagina Monologues is in any way comparable to reading in class the works of anti-Christian and anti-Catholic authors such as Nietzsche, Gibbon and Luther, saying that between such works and the play, there is a "difference, not of degree, but of kind."

Nietzsche, Gibbon and Luther, writes the Bishop "have written serious philosophical, theological and literary works, which have influenced Western thought. As such, their work has academic merit and is worthy of serious discussion and critique in a classroom setting. Father Jenkins believes that Eve Ensler's play was written to shock and offend. How can one put such a play, which many consider pornographic, on the level of serious works such as the writings of Gibbon and Luther?"

D'Arcy also points out that it is clear that the students and teachers who are pushing to have the play performed at the university, are doing so not simply for the purpose of an academic discussion, but rather because they passionately believe in the message of the play, which promotes sexual license and immorality in a way that deeply contravenes Catholic teaching. "Is this not the motivation of the departments that have asked to sponsor the play and the young women who will be acting in it?" asks the bishop rhetorically. "Did they not propose to have multiple performances of the play again this year because they believe it conveys an important message, and they want as many people to see it as possible? In short, people push to have this play performed year after year because they endorse the message it conveys, and they want to be part of the international campaign to promote this message. In allowing performances of the play on campus again this year, whether or not they are officially considered part of the V-Day campaign, Notre Dame continues to cooperate in advancing the campaign's agenda, an agenda which, as I have repeatedly reflected in my several statements over the years, is directly opposed to the dignity of the human person and is antithetical to Catholic teaching.

"The play is an affront to human dignity, as Catholic teaching understands it. If it is performed, it should be denounced. Otherwise, the university appears to endorse it as in some way good and the impression is given that Catholic teaching is one option competing among many. This method places faith in a defensive position and on the margin and is unacceptable at a Catholic university."

The bishop concluded, saying, "I believe that the performing of this play, even with one or more persons willing to present Catholic teaching, is in direct opposition to both the spirit and letter of 'Ex Corde Ecclesiae.' Also, because it depicts and endorses sinful sexual acts in direct opposition to church teaching, I believe its performance to be pornographic and spiritually harmful. This judgment is made after prayer, reflection and dialogue and after preparing several statements over many years."

If Notre Dame goes ahead and allows the performance of the play on campus, it will be the sixth year in a row that it has done so.

To contact Fr. Jenkins:

University of Notre Dame President
Fr. John Jenkins, C.S.C.,
jenkins.1@nd.edu

Priest President of Notre Dame Approves Pornographic Homosexual Play on Campus

Note: Other activists struggle to define what this issue is all about so I changed the headline. In the age of homosexual abuse by priests that cost the faithful Catholics half a billion dollars, we here have a priest running a nominally Catholic college openly supporting a play that glorifies homosexuality in the most pornographic terms. He's not only unfit to be a Catholic college president, he should be laicized from the priesthood as well as a real and present danger to the souls of the young people in his charge. How can a formed conscience allow this type of news to come out during the season of Lent and just prior to the arrival of the Holy Father? Fr. Jenkins has lost both his mind and his soul. Let's pray he doesn't take many with him.

Notre Dame President Approves Vagina Monologues

University of Notre Dame President, Father John Jenkins, C.S.C., announced yesterday, March 10, that he has approved campus performances of the lurid play The Vagina Monologues on March 24-26. It will be the sixth year since 2002 that Notre Dame has hosted the play.

The Vagina Monologues is a sexually explicit and offensive play that favorably describes lesbian activity, group masturbation, and the reduction of sexuality to selfish pleasure. In one scene, the lesbian seduction of a teenage girl is described as the girl's "salvation" that "raised her into a kind of heaven."

"The announcement comes as a grave disappointment given the status Notre Dame holds as America's most prominent Catholic university-albeit not the most consistent in its Catholic identity," said Patrick Reilly, President of The Cardinal Newman Society. "This play is a scandal in every sense of the term."

For seven years, The Cardinal Newman Society and its more than 20,000 members have urged Catholic colleges to ban The Vagina Monologues, resulting in a significant decline from 32 Catholic campus performances in 2003 to just 19 this year.

Father Jenkins released the statement only weeks prior to the much-anticipated visit of Pope Benedict XVI to the United States, including an address to the presidents of America's 213 Catholic colleges and universities on April 17. The statement also comes after the U.S. bishops' doctrine committee snubbed Notre Dame by moving a February 11 meeting off campus, because Father Jenkins would not assure Bishop John D'Arcy of Fort Wayne-South Bend that plans for The Vagina Monologues would be canceled.

"By approving performances of the Monologues, Notre Dame is in blatant defiance of Catholic morals and basic civility," Reilly said. "Given the imminent arrival of Pope Benedict next month, the refusal of the U.S. bishops' doctrine committee to meet at Notre Dame, and Bishop D'Arcy's repeated condemnation of this play at a Catholic institution, this decision amounts to a public thumbing of the nose to our Catholic leaders."

A Notre Dame policy, "The Common Proposal of the Chairs of Arts and Letters and Fr. Jenkins," makes allowances for almost any event on campus, so long as "a knowledgeable presentation of Catholic teaching is included."

In the March 10 statement, Father Jenkins said: "Notre Dame's policy on controversial events rests on the conviction that truth will emerge from reasoned consideration of issues in dialogue with faith. ...[I]t is, in my judgment, the action that best serves the distinctive mission of Notre Dame."

Reilly countered: "Reasonable consideration of issues-even of perversity-can hardly mean that a Catholic university should put perversity on display and scandalize its students. Catholics have been discussing and lamenting this play for seven years. It's time to move on to both a new discussion and much better campus entertainment."

Seminar moved because of Anti-Catholic Play at Notre Dame

Note: It is absolutely pathetic that this weak college president can't admit the obvious error and apostasy of his decision not to ban this gross and disgusting anti-Catholic activity. He should be removed by the decent and pius alumni and trustees and replaced with a Catholic who cares enough about young women and the entire student body to present decent activities that edify rtather than poison their faith. If you go to Notre Dame and are expecting a Catholic education you should know that Jenkins is trying to prevent that. He's an imposter.

Catholic bishops seminar won't meet at Notre Dame

Seminar moved because of 'Vagina Monologues.'

By MARGARET FOSMOE and CLAUDIA BAYLISS
Tribune Staff Writers

SOUTH BEND - A theological seminar for Roman Catholic bishops that had been scheduled for the University of Notre Dame will be moved off campus because of a planned performance of the play "The Vagina Monologues."

The Catholic bishops made the decision because they disagree with the university administration's decision to allow a student performance of the controversial play.

"Because of the likelihood of the presentation of the play 'The Vagina Monologues' at Notre Dame this year, the bishops made a collective decision to move the seminar off campus," the Most Rev. John M. D'Arcy, bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, said today in a written statement. The bishop declined a request for an interview.

The seminar, which includes Notre Dame faculty speakers and is co-sponsored by the university's Institute for Church Life, had been scheduled for Monday through Wednesday on campus. Instead, it will be at the convent of the Sisters of St. Francis in Mishawaka.

Notre Dame spokesman Dennis Brown confirmed that the bishops moved the gathering off campus and that the decision was related to "The Vagina Monologues."

The university issued the following written statement:

"We understand that not all are in full agreement about the propriety of allowing performances of this play on a Catholic campus. Because of concerns about the play and its potential performance, we have worked collaboratively with the bishops to move the conference out of respect for everyone involved."

Notre Dame and the U.S. bishops have worked together constructively in the past, they are working together on this current meeting, and we are sure that our partnerships will continue in the future."

Brown said the Rev. John I. Jenkins, Notre Dame's president, is not available for an interview on this issue.

Notre Dame students are planning a March 26-28 production of "The Vagina Monologues" in a campus classroom. All such student events require an academic sponsor.

The departments of sociology and anthropology have tentatively agreed to co-sponsor the production.

The departments are awaiting a formal proposal from the student planners about academic panel discussions to coincide with the performances, said Mark Schurr, chair of the anthropology department. Once the proposal is presented and approved by the sponsoring departments, it also must be approved by the College of Arts & Letters.

The student planners could not be reached for comment."The Vagina Monologues," by playwright Eve Ensler, is a theater production that deals frankly with women's views on their bodies and sexuality. It is performed annually on hundreds of college campuses with the goal of raising awareness about sexual assault and domestic violence.

Notre Dame student productions of the play were performed annually on campus from 2002 to 2006, and an off-campus version was presented last year.

Jenkins two years ago considered banning "The Vagina Monologues" because he was troubled that the play's portrayal of sexuality opposes Catholic teachings. That prompted an extensive debate about Notre Dame's Catholic identity.

After listening to widespread campus discussion, Jenkins announced that a Catholic university has nothing to fear from engaging in topics of the wider culture.

He did not ban the play. However, performances must be in a classroom setting (not a theater), the production cannot be used to raise money for community groups and each show much include an academic panel discussion.

The Notre Dame board of trustees passed a resolution in 2006 expressing confidence in Jenkins and agreeing in principle with the policies he developed for evaluating campus events that touch on the university's Catholic identity.

D'Arcy has publicly criticized Notre Dame and Jenkins for allowing the play. In 2006, the bishop issued a nine-page pastoral response critiquing Jenkins' decision and his reasons for not banning the play.

The Committee on Doctrine has seven members: the Most Rev. William E. Lori, bishop of Bridgeport, chairman; the Most Rev. Leonard P. Blair, bishop of Toledo; the Most Rev. Jose H. Gomez, archbishop of San Antonio; the Most Rev. Robert J. McManus, bishop of Worcester; the Most Rev. Arthur J. Serratelli, bishop of Paterson, N.J.; the Most Rev. Allen H. Vigneron, bishop of Oakland, Calif.; and the Most Rev. David A. Zubik, bishop of Pittsburgh.

The committee has several consultants, including John C. Cavadini, professor and chair of Notre Dame's theology department; and Cardinal Francis George, archbishop of Chicago. Cavadini could not be reached today for comment.Staff writer Margaret Fosmoe:mfosmoe@sbtinfo.com(574) 235-6329