The American Spectator : The Salvaging of Notre Dame

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The Salvaging of Notre Dame

By Joseph Lawler from the June 2009 issue

If it's not a credible Catholic university, what's the point?

On March 20, the University of Notre Dame proudly announced that President Barack Obama would give this year’s commencement address and receive the customary honorary degree. The news generated a firestorm of controversy because of Obama’s record on life issues, as many alumni and other university affiliates took to any venue they could find to protest the school’s decision. Within weeks, well over 300,000 people had signed an online petition of protest to president Fr. John Jenkins, nearly 60 American bishops—an unprecedented response— had publicly rebuked him, and major news outlets from the New York Times to Fox News had reported on the uproar.

Many outsiders, seeing the swell of public reaction and politicos like the recent Catholic convert Newt Gingrich opining on the affair, interpreted the controversy as being political in nature. The larger story at Notre Dame, however, is not about left versus right, but about the role of religion in higher education and public life. Reports of conservative alumni throwing out school paraphernalia or turning their diplomas to face the wall ring true not because Notre Dame is significant in national politics—Domers defer to Harvard and Berkeley when it comes to political demonstration. Notre Dame’s affairs captivate because it is America’s only top-tier university with a meaningful religious affiliation. The sight of the school honoring a pro-abortion politician, in flagrant violation of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ 2004 statement “Catholics in Political Life,” suggests to orthodox observers that Notre Dame is in jeopardy of losing its defining Catholic character and replacing it with a saccharine imitation lacking any core principles.

Obama is not even the first pro-abortion politician the school has honored. In 1992 the school awarded the pro-abortion New York senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan the Laetare Medal, American Catholicism’s highest award. In 1984 it gave New York governor Mario Cuomo a podium to deliver his famous speech rationalizing pro-choice politics for Catholics.

In fact, Notre Dame’s Catholic credentials have been hanging by a thread since 1967, the year that president Fr. Theodore Hesburgh convened Catholic educators in Wisconsin to draw up the Land O’Lakes statement that declared Catholic universities’ autonomy from the Church. In the 42 years since, liberal Catholics and administrators enamored with the U.S. News & World Report rankings have led Notre Dame down the path to secularization that William F. Buckley condemned his own school for taking in God and Man at Yale.

Recent years have obscured this trend, as the school has often gestured toward orthodox changes and avoided outrageous speakers like Cuomo. Consequently, the invitation extended to Obama surprised everyone, even campus liberals, and forced an overdue reckoning. It is suddenly clear again that the school, which in many ways represents American Catholicism, is at a crossroads between religious authenticity and secular prestige, and that perhaps it has already chosen its direction.

No one expressed this realization more poignantly than the iconic Ralph McInerny, a prominent philosopher and novelist and a Notre Dame professor of 54 years. After hearing the news, McInerny despaired of the school to which he has dedicated his life’s efforts, writing that for Notre Dame to fete Obama is “an unequivocal abandonment of any pretense at being a Catholic university. And it is in sad continuity with decades of waffling that have led with seeming inevitability to it.”

ALMOST EVERY YEAR a controversy at Notre Dame makes national news. In the past few years liberal students dragged out Eve Ensler’s feminist play The Vagina Monologues to provoke conservatives. They succeeded each time, because whereas other student bodies might struggle over issues like war or immigration, for Notre Dame the underlying dispute is whether the school will be authentically Catholic. Even the New York Times has reported on this tension, even as The Vagina Monologues is considered trite and boring at most other schools.

Jenkins’s rise to president in 2005 suggested a willingness to defend orthodoxy. Jenkins, a Holy Cross priest, like all Notre Dame presidents, is a highly regarded scholar of Thomas Aquinas. He gave a stirring inaugural address reflecting on the role of faith in education, promising “a whole-hearted commitment to uniting and integrating these two indispensable and wholly compatible strands of higher learning: academic excellence and religious faith.” With his credentials and ambitious attitude, Jenkins reinvigorated Notre Dame’s orthodox contingent. In his first year, however, Jenkins flip-flopped: first he announced in a faculty address his intention to forbid The Vagina Monologues on campus, but then later he changed his tune and sanctioned the play contingent on a few toothless restrictions, claiming academic freedom as a rationale.

Jenkins’s waffling on the issue disappointed conservatives but also inspired them to take matters into their own hands. Female students attempting to foster a better (or less depraved) notion of femininity than that of The Vagina Monologues organized the Edith Stein Conference, named after the Catholic feminist, saint, and martyr. This conference began to attract prominent academics and drew crowds that dwarfed those attending the Monologues. Concerned alumni founded Project Sycamore, a watchdog group named after a tree growing above the Grotto in the heart of the campus.

Some Holy Cross priests have hinted that, after announcing a decision he thought would energize the Catholic base, Jenkins in fact did not receive much support from the same alumni and students who had criticized the play in years past. Meanwhile, the faculty, knowing that the mere appearance of religiosity besting academic freedom can doom a school’s rankings, spoke loudly in favor of the play.

This obscures the nature of religious life at Notre Dame. It is dominated by what one administrator called “the John Paul II” generation—youth who pack the Sacred Heart Basilica on holy days, organize a large and activist right-to-life committee, and even lobby for a traditional Latin Mass on campus. They also are joining the Holy Cross brothers in healthy numbers—nine were consecrated as priests in the past three years. This generation has minted traditions that are distinctively Catholic, such as yearly, campus-wide Stations of the Cross and Eucharistic processions that draw hundreds of students across the quads.

Of the 80 percent of students who identify as Catholic, a majority care more about football than faith. The minority of students who are engaged in the religious life of the school, though, are activist and compose an organic movement. For example, there was much less of a top-down movement promoting the Edith Stein Conference than The Vagina Monologues, which was sponsored in its last run by three of the departments with the fewest Catholic faculty.

THAT THE FACULTY WOULD SIDE with liberalism and secularism in the debates over The Vagina Monologues and Obama’s invitation is no accident. Faculty members do not necessarily believe they have a stake in Notre Dame’s religious tradition, nor should they, given that the university explicitly disavowed any influence the Church might have on its faculty in the 1967 Land O’Lakes conference. Hesburgh intended the resulting Land O’Lakes statement as a response to the observations of Fr. John Tracy Ellis and others starting in the mid-’50s that Catholic schools were not competing on the top tiers of higher education, and that the Catholic curriculum might be the obstacle.

Accordingly, Land O’Lakes asserted that “to perform its teaching and research functions effectively the Catholic university must have a true autonomy and academic freedom in the face of authority of whatever kind, lay or clerical, external to the academic community itself.” In other words, the religious academy was now bound to the Church only to the extent that the academics thought it should be.

Certainly Hesburgh was right that Notre Dame could achieve more. Thanks to him, it is ranked among the top 25 universities and boasts a multibillion dollar endowment. The unintended consequences of Land O’Lakes, however, have ravaged Catholic education. Hesburgh’s own school did not suffer the most—despite the uproar over Obama’s visit, Notre Dame is still far more authentically Catholic than other large universities. St. Louis University, for example, is no longer religious in any meaningful sense. Boston College and Georgetown, the next two most prestigious schools, struggle just to maintain the pretense of faith—earlier this year B.C. was roundly denounced by its own faculty merely for placing crucifixes in the classrooms. William Dempsey, the president of Project Sycamore, said it best: “As you look back on the Land O’Lakes statement and the subsequent desolation of Catholic education…that [conference] didn’t seem like a bright idea.”

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About the Author

Joseph Lawler was formerly managing editor of The American Spectator. Follow him on twitter: @josephlawler.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (19) | Leave a comment

Face Cream| 6.3.09 @ 6:55AM

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Doorgunner| 6.3.09 @ 7:25AM

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Melvin| 6.3.09 @ 7:39AM

Instead of getting into the minutia of whether or not Notre Dame is exhibiting good Catholic practices, it should be asked is Notre Dame even Catholic anymore?
I guess it kind of boils down to traditions. Americans are casting off traditions that have sustained us through our history. Christmas for example has been completely rendered into something we don't even recognize anymore.
Christmas has been marketed and re-marketed to the point that family tradition to it has been broken and Americans don't know what it is or what to do with it.
Catholic religion in my opinion is suffering a similar fate. Many of the traditions that drew the faithful have been changed to reflect a more modern, cool religion.
Growing up I used to see nuns wearing their habits all the time and even though I wasn't Catholic I respected them immensely. Now, I can't even count on one hand in the last twenty years how many times I have seen a nun period.
I miss the old Catholic Church that had mass in Latin and all the Catholic traditions that went with midnight mass and the old ancient white haired padre who could rattle off history like an ancient version of Wikipedia.
I guess as a person gets older, we tend to miss allot of things don't we?

JP| 6.3.09 @ 7:58AM

"Certainly Hesburgh was right that Notre Dame could achieve more. Thanks to him, it is ranked among the top 25 universities and boasts a multibillion dollar endowment."

I'm not sure what Notre Dame has done to rank in the top 25. In state, both Indiana Univ and Purdue have much better business schools and engineering schools, respectively. Just north of Notre Dame in Ann Arbor, the Univ of Michigan has ranked in the top 10 nationally for its science, engineering, liberal arts and business schools. Despite charging over $40,000 a year tuition, Notre Dame is outclassed by 3 Big Ten schools just a few hours away.

Fr Hessburgh and his followers did one thing right: like Pepsi, GE, and GM they carefully created and protected a brand. The ND brand, and the mystique that followed it, is one of the main reasons ND has a $6 billion dollar endowement.

And no, Notre Dame has not gotten as bad as St Louis or Boston College in stripping its Catholic cirriculumn, but it is close. If one truely wants an authentic Catholic education, he/she must travel to St. Thomas Aquainis College in California, or St Johns in Annapolis.

Fr Hessburgh and Fr Jenkins got what they wanted -a photo op with the 1st black American President -who just so happens to be the most pro-abortion politician of our times. To do it, they had acted in direct disobedience to the local ordinary, not to mention the Magesterium. Thus begins the final process of removing the "Catholic" from Notre Dame. It isn't the faculty or administration that continues to give the university its Catholic identity- the students do that. What will happen if those kind of students stop arriving every year? And from the looks of the graduation ceremony (an emotional standing ovation for the President, followed by a strong endoresemnt from ND's top graduate), I would say that even the student body overall is not all that orthodox.

What people think of Notre Dame is mainly the result of carefully orchestrated PR, and market branding. Don't let the grotto and basilica fool you.

KMB| 6.3.09 @ 8:58AM

During this entire Notre Dame mess, I re-read C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters. How prophetic- I’m sure Screwtape,Slubgob, and all the other Disgraces and Gentledevils are rejoicing over this and probably giving great speeches and toasts at the Annual “Tempters’ Training College” dinner over their victories!

Kevin| 6.3.09 @ 9:11AM

Here is a great blog on the Notre Dame controversy, from a black conservative http://theblacksphere.blogspot.com/2009/05/notre-dang-angels-and-demons.html

Jeannine| 6.3.09 @ 9:30AM

JP: St John's College in Annapolis, MD & it's other campus in NM or AZ is not Catholic but Episcopalian. Nevertheless, an excellent liberal arts program!

KB| 6.3.09 @ 10:19AM

It appears that Notre Dame may pay for their decision to honor Obama.
The local ordinary- Bishop D’Arcy stated in an interview on EWTN with Raymond Arroyo on May 22:

“…I have written a note to Cardinal George in the hope that when the U.S. Bishops meet in June in San Antonio, Texas that the matter will be discussed, and I’ve asked to speak there. We want to be careful, we want to be gentle, but we want to be firm.

In addition, D’Arcy states: “There’s a lot of beautiful things at Notre Dame: the sacramental life of the children, the young people; the theology department so strengthened in recent years; you go into that basilica and so many (students) going to confession. But truth is truth, and I think something precious was lost.”

At the conclusion of the interview D’Arcy says: “If some good comes from it, I’m all for it…The price paid is too great…I love Notre Dame with my whole heart. It’s been a privilege to be associated with it, but they paid too great a price.”

Let’s see what happens in San Antonio this month.

Douglas| 6.3.09 @ 10:26AM

As a Notre Dame dad, I decry this otherwise fine university's straying from Catholic principles. Nothing unusual there, except that I'm not even Catholic. As long as they do not shun nice protestant lads like myself, I'd like to work with them to preserve and advance the cause of Christian higher education in this country. The awarding of an honoris causa law degree on a supporter of partial birth abortion was a tough one for me.

Jack Hughes| 6.3.09 @ 10:37AM

I will be skipping my 50th class reunion at Notre Dame this weekend - as will many others....
Jack Hughes ND '59

Gill O’Teen ✝✡| 6.3.09 @ 11:38AM

It is my understanding that the religious order running Notre Dame is directly under the authority of The Pope, and so, like the Jesuits, are not answerable to local Bishops. If so, Benedict needs to upbraid his subordinates in the sternest manner possible. But I don’t expect much from a religion that tolerates ‘good’ Catholics such as nancy pelosi, joe biden, ted kennedy, kathleen sebelius and claire mccaskill giving daily scandal to its teaching. Even the Holy Father must eventually answer to God.

Tony in Central PA| 6.3.09 @ 12:23PM

The decline and dissolution of Catholic universities in America is pervasive. My Mom graduated many years ago from a small Catholic college in northeastern PA. When she didn't send the school her usual contribution this spring, they contacted her. She informed them that their decision to host a speaker who was the president of a same - sex marriage lobbying organization cost them her support, at least for that year. She got a sniffy, self - justifying follow - up from the college about " diversity ", " tolerance " and " engagement ". Now she's considering cutting them off for good.
There was an aspect of utter absurdity to Obama's apperance at Notre Dame ; a university President who obviously doesn't believe in his own faith, and a large segment of the graduating seniors who apparently don't know theirs. It would seem to many at Notre Dame that one's faith has nothing to do with any claims of truth, its simply a personal preference like a favorite color or a place you like to eat.
Lost in all of this was a very clever ploy by this Administration to expose divisions on the issue of abortion in what appears to be its strongest foe - - the Catholic Church. I'm sure there are hopes in the White House that this may shift much of the abortion debate from the public square to behind church walls, paving the way for FOCA. I wonder how many of the ND students who cheered as Obama received his honor will look back twenty years from now and realize what fools they were ?

Schneider| 6.3.09 @ 4:13PM

Jeannine writes: "St John's College in Annapolis, MD & it's other campus in NM or AZ is not Catholic but Episcopalian."

Well, no:

"Despite its name, St. John's College has no religious affiliation."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._John's_College,_U.S.

M. Schneider, B.A., St. John's College (Santa Fe, New Mexico), '01

Bob McGrath| 6.3.09 @ 11:12PM

Notre Dame like the majority of so called Catholic Universitiesl are better at recruiting rather then converting. Say your penance and go in peace.

resveratrolpills| 6.4.09 @ 6:49AM

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Richard Baker| 6.4.09 @ 5:43PM

As a 1992 St. Louis University grad, I agree with the idea that SLU is no longer a meaningful religious school. Father Biondi, who runs the university, has done a great job maintaining the physical plant but as a Catholic I found that the only religious aspect of the school was the beautiful Cathedral on Grand Avenue. Sadly, Father Hesburgh, Land O' Lakes, and Vatican II were the death knell of "Catholic" education in the US. When it comes to serving God or Mammon, the Catholic schools chose Mammon.