Father Wilson Miscamble, a priest of the Congregation of the Holy Cross and a history professor at Notre Dame defends Bishop Jenky from the attacks of members of the Notre Dame faculty:

Do you know Bishop Jenky?

I do, indeed. He’s, of course, a member of the Congregation of Holy Cross,  and I’ve known him since I came to the order as a seminarian 30 years ago. He’s  a terrific priest and a great bishop.

Have you worked with him closely?

He was the rector of Sacred Heart Basilica in my younger days as a priest  here on campus and was the superior of the Holy Cross community here during my  early days on campus. That was in the late ’80s and early ’90s, when I was part  of the community of which he was local superior.

But then he was taken away from us and made auxiliary bishop here in Fort  Wayne-South Bend, and then was made bishop of Peoria about 10 years ago. So, for  the last 15 years or so, I’ve seen him periodically. He comes back to visit, and  so on.

What do you think of this brouhaha over his remarks?

I have found the reaction of my faculty colleagues quite embarrassing — embarrassing because these academics disgracefully misused Bishop Jenky’s words  by taking them out of context. It has been a little disappointing, to say least.  Bishop Jenky was making remarks about the religious-liberty issue, and some of  my colleagues implied that Bishop Jenky was suggesting that President Obama was  on his way to adopting the entire Hitler-Stalin agenda. It’s a  mischaracterization that is unworthy of supposedly serious scholars.

You’re a historian, albeit your specialty is American history.

I am a historian, and I challenge the signatories to this letter criticizing  Bishop Jenky to point to one part of his homily that is historically  inaccurate.

Is he historically accurate?

Absolutely. By the way, Bishop Jenky was a history major when he was an  undergraduate here at Notre Dame. He’s read quite a bit of history in his day.  And he is a good student of it.

Why do you think they would take his remarks out of context?

Well, this is to engage in speculation, and I probably shouldn’t go down  this path myself; one should be cautious. But I think this very poorly crafted letter says  more about the rather predictable and ideological bias of the signatories than  it does about Bishop Jenky’s courageous homily.

But do you feel that he might have overstepped any kind of line?

No. His homily was a courageous homily which pointed to a pattern of  behavior of a number of regimes to limit religious freedom and to attack  religious institutions. Continue reading →

I have a long weekend and very busy next-week ahead of me, so I won’t be here posting and commenting for a few days. Until then, enjoy this music! Amadeus is one of my favorite films, and Mozart one of my favorite composers. Here is the full finale of the opera that had “too many notes.”

Have a wonderful weekend TAC!