Go here to read the story. Notre Dame is a sad anti-Catholic joke.
Anti-Catholic University
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
Back when the University of Notre Dame gave Obama a degree, I remember hearing a representative defending this on a radio show aimed at more faithful Catholics. It went something like this:
Representative: The university may be giving President Obama an honorary degree, but this is purely out of respect for the office of the President of the United States of America. This should be in no way seen as an endorsement of President Obama’s position on abortion, or any of his other legal beliefs.
Host: But then why did the university decide to give him an honorary degree specifically in the area of law?
Representative: Well again, it’s just a tradition to honor the president. It doesn’t suggest that it is honoring his legal accomplishments.
Host: But other press releases specifically say that it is for his legal accomplishments. Which ones is it honoring in particular.
Representative: Hmm… I’ll have to get back to you on that.
It was such a transparent attempt to pretend to be neutral when they really did support Obama all the way. And of course they refused to give President Trump the honor, which fully exposed the lie that this was only about being president.
During the Obama controversy they also tried to deflect criticism by saying that they were giving their Laetare medal to Mary Ann Glendon, and her pro-life views balanced things out. (Glendon very wisely declined the medal. If she had accepted and not mentioned Obama, Notre Dame would have used that as “proof” that the controversy was no big deal. If she had accepted and attacked Obama, they would have blamed her for “bringing politics into graduation.”) But they would even given the Laetare medal to Biden later. And then they invited Biden to receive an honorary degree.
They ceased being Catholic in 1967 with the drafting of the Land O’Lakes Statement and haven’t looked back.
I had a professor who was a ND alum from the mid-70’s and he was complaining even in the late-90’s and early aughts that ND had long lost its way regarding being Catholic – that the hints were already there when he was an undergrad circa 1973, which would confirm Bill’s contention about the Land O’Lakes Statement.
Their Ordinary must be handsomely compensated to remain silent throughout all the scandal this university generates.
All so the teaches and administrators can go to their cocktail parties without being embarrassed by Catholic teaching. “You see, we’re hip, not into that Catholic stuff.”
Rant warning.
I have to concur with the comments about ND’s having given up its Catholic identity with the Land O’ Lakes nonsense. (Heh. LOL fits really well here, though it’s no laughing matter.) When an institution calling itself Catholic publicly disclaims the authority of the Church, it ought to be legally stripped of the right to call itself Catholic. The refusal to impose that penalty on every signatory institution to the LOL Statement was yet another pathetic failure by the spineless Paul VI.
Rant over.
I think Notre Dame is a cash cow; hireling shepherds won’t bite the hand that feeds them. That’s the reason McCarrick and Bransfield got away with all their crimes for so long. Maybe Rupnik and Maciel too.
The local bishops of that place through the years will be in some serious trouble for any poor souls damaged by ND that might have been saved by their lack of silence.
Words matter. So does silence. Authority is given for the benefit of the other.
The excuse of the institution’s board is what? Of the Holy Cross fathers is what?
Is there anything left remaining orthodox that the Conciliar Church of Vatican II has touched? Notre Dame is typical of the modernist Institutional Church.