Notre Dame University Develops a Spine

 This is surprising, coming from the formerly Catholic University....

The Fighting Irish have a bone to pick with Christopher Columbus.

Notre Dame students are calling for the removal of 12 iconic murals, which honor the famous explorer and have been on campus since 1884.

The students have reportedly teamed up with alumni, faculty and staff in an effort to get rid of the 19th Century paintings.

“In this era of political divisiveness and a renewed rise of dangerous nationalism, it is time for Notre Dame to remove its own version of a Confederate monument,” the group wrote in an open letter last week that was published in the school newspaper, the Observer.
“It is time for the murals to go.”

The letter was sent to university president John Jenkins and accompanied by more than 340 signatures. Many of those who signed it were Native American and chose to list their tribe.
“The 12 Luigi Gregori murals have adorned the main hall of Main Building for over 130 years, greeting millions of campus residents and visitors with a highly problematic vision of Western triumphalism, Catholic militarism and an overly romantic notion of American expansion,” the letter said, referencing the Italian artist and Notre Dame professor who painted the murals…

Despite the outrage, Notre Dame spokesman Dennis Brown insists that the murals aren’t going anywhere.

“No plans to remove them,” he told the IndyStar. “To try to remove them would in all likelihood destroy them.”

But the protestors seemed so REASONABLE!

Notre Dame Decides on a Name Change

 From now on, we shall call them the University of South Bend.

 

In a stunning reversal, the University of Notre Dame has retreated from its decision to stop providing contraception to students and faculty through the university health-care plan. This decision is just the latest evidence to suggest that the Notre Dame administration is less committed to its Catholic identity and mission than it is to conforming itself to the demands of popular culture and societal pressure. In 2013, the university brought one of the most high-profile lawsuits against the Obama administration in the wake of the Health & Human Services contraception mandate, which required all employers — regardless of religious or moral objections — to provide birth control and abortifacient drugs to employees free of charge.

In late October, Notre Dame announced that it would end contraceptive coverage for faculty and students after receiving this exemption. The reaction from most quarters of the media, and from small groups of left-leaning Notre Dame graduate students, was exactly what one might expect — general shock and horror over Notre Dame’s “War on Birth Control,” magnified by the university’s status as the largest employer (so far) to eliminate coverage. But these brave birth-control warriors needn’t have troubled themselves. If they had paid any attention to the controversies brewing at Notre Dame in recent years, they would’ve had plenty of evidence to reassure them that it’d only be a matter of time before the university managed to find a way to reconcile its Catholic convictions with its desire to blend in among its Ivy League peers. And critics wouldn’t even have had to wait very long. It took no more than week for Notre Dame to announce that it would, in fact, not be ending contraceptive and abortifacient coverage for its employees and students, after all. Very conveniently, the university’s insurance provider, Meritain Health, graciously agreed to continue funding contraception indefinitely.

Notre Dame alumni group Sycamore Trust perhaps put it best in a bulletin announcing this latest flip-flop: The decision to continue providing contraception and abortifacients is a “breathtaking repudiation of [the university’s] judicial representations” and a move that “has set the precedent for this sort of insurance system for surgical abortion, sterilization, and any other procedure that has a significant constituency in the university community.” We need not get into the ugly history of the recent controversies that have led many to believe that Notre Dame grows less committed to its Catholic mission by the year. It is enough to say simply: Notre Dame has once again shown itself to care more about the verdict of powerful cultural influencers than about upholding the convictions of the faith it purports to represent.

Notre Dame Imitates the Eye of the Tiber

A Catholic university is under fire this week after school administrators accidentally hired 37-year-old Todd Alguire, a practicing Catholic, to head their Department of Theology.

Diocesan bishop Kevin Sterling  has now demanded an investigation into the ‘offensive’ hiring after rumors spread that students would need to “brush up on the fundamentals of the Catholic  faith” before beginning this upcoming semester.

Ryan Gurley, a sophomore who described himself as ‘devoutly spiritual,’ told EOTT that his refusal to participate in any further religion classes might lead to his suspension.

“I understand that I’ll eventually either be suspended, or I won’t ever be able to graduate, but I have to stand my ground. I’ll never cave when it comes to my faith. I’m a spiritual zealot, which means I faithfully believe in every religion – so long as it isn’t Christianity, of course.  And that’s why I now stand on my rights as an American citizen and Catholic to not be forced to have to learn the tenets of Catholicism in a Catholic school. What next, having to learn the fundamentals of analytic geometry in Calculus class?”

MEANWHILE....

At the University of Notre Dame, students walked out on a commencement address by Vice-President Mike Pence.

Speaking on Sunday ahead of his graduation, Bryan Ricketts told CNN he would be walking out after learning solidarity during his time at Notre Dame.

"Personally, I know Mike Pence's policies from his time as governor, when he tried to implement RFPA (The Religious Freedom Restoration Act) without civil rights protections for LGBTQ people. As a gay man, this directly impacted me. However, many graduates here have been directly targeted by other policies -- for example, those students and their families who are undocumented and who risk deportation to celebrate this milestone in their lives," Ricketts said.

Fellow protester Jenn Cha said it there needed to be space for dialogue between people of different beliefs. "However, it is an egregious insult to invite Pence to speak at the celebration of the accomplishments of university graduates, many of whom are LGBTQ, first-generation, low-income, and people of color he has actively supported legislation against," she said.

Archbishop Chaput Speaks

The Archbishop of Philadelphia spoke to the Bishops Symposim at the formerly Catholic Notre Dame this week, and hit it out of the park. From Maggie Gallagher's article in the National Review:

To put it another way, quite a few of us American Catholics have worked our way into a leadership class that the rest of the country both envies and resents. And the price of our entry has been the transfer of our real loyalties and convictions from the old Church of our baptism to the new “Church” of our ambitions and appetites. People like Nancy Pelosi, Anthony Kennedy, Joe Biden and Tim Kaine are not anomalies. They’re part of a very large crowd that cuts across all professions and both major political parties.


You can read the whole speech here.

Formerly Catholic University Celebrates Diversity!

The Gay and Lesbian Alumni of Notre Dame and Saint Mary’s (GALA-ND/SMC) named Notre Dame junior Samuel Cho and Saint Mary’s junior Maranda Pennington the recipients of its 2016-2017 LGBTQ student scholarships.
Jack Bergen, the chair of GALA and a 1977 Notre Dame graduate, said the scholarship was instituted in spring of 2015, making this year its second consecutive year in what he hopes to be a continued tradition.

Leprechauns are ADORABLE!

“When we were starting this up, we talked … and decided creating this scholarship would be a great way to demonstrate our support and to help eligible and qualified students with their financial burden at Notre Dame and Saint Mary’s,” he said.
Bergen said like most alumni groups, GALA has two primary purposes — to continue to engage alumni of the University and the College and to stimulate interactions between alumni and current students.
“As a result of the University more actively recognizing the LGBTQ student population as part of the community, we felt that it was time to do more for the LGBTQ students on campus,” he said.

Indiana University UPDATE!

 From Eye of the Tiber:

Just a day after students at Indiana University mistook a Dominican for a member of the Ku Klux Klan, students and members of the faculty have been placed on high alert, with fears that the person in question could possibly be a devout Catholic praying on campus.
According to reports, Student Body President Allen Cheung wrote a post on Facebook saying, “There has been a person reported walking around campus in a Dominican outfit holding a rosary. Because the person is protected under first amendment rights, IUPD cannot remove this zealot from campus unless an act of violence is committed, like trying to convince students about the objective truths of Catholicism.”

“Please, PLEASE, PLEASE be careful out there tonight,” Cheung continued. “Always be with someone, and if you have no dire reason to be out of the building, I would recommend staying indoors lest you be indoctrinated.”
Other students also posted their own warnings on social media telling their roommates to keep safe and to remember that priests don’t approve of premarital sex or contraception, because of the “extreme hatred they have for anything fun or liberating.”
Indiana University officials put out a statement early this morning warning students to take proper precautions when going outdoors.

“We advise that students do not walk alone,” the statement read. “If you are confronted by the Dominican zealot, do not look him in the eyes, as this dangerous individual may attempt to convince you that you are a sinner, or worse, make you believe that not everything is acceptable just because it makes you feel good. Furthermore, should you run into this medieval time traveler, please remember atrocities he committed during the Spanish Inquisition, and that he has been trained in the art of manipulation and torture. If you are accused of being a witch or a Jew, admit nothing, and run to the nearest safe-space and call for help.”

From the comments:
 
Watch out, there's a Dominican zealot at Purdue, also. Now, if they could only infiltrate Notre Dame ;-)

 There were actually about 14 Jesuits on campus, too, but no one recognized them in their typical street clothes. And not one person caught them praying either.

Formerly Catholic Schools Celebrate Life!

First Up...Notre Dame!


Catholics celebrated the Feast of the Annunciation on Monday, when the Virgin Mary said “yes” to God and Christ was conceived in her womb through the power of the Holy Spirit. But at the University of Notre Dame, a number of students spent Monday night on campus listening to former Texas State Senator Wendy Davis describe the benefits for women of choosing abortion or using contraception. 

She was sponsored by Notre Dame University's Department of Gender Studies:

 Gender Studies is an interdisciplinary academic program in the College of Arts and Letters at Notre Dame. Gender Studies analyzes the significance of gender—and the cognate subjects of sex, sexuality, race, ethnicity, class, religion, and nationality—in all areas of human life, especially in the social formation of human identities, practices, and institutions.

 Next up...Villanova!


Villanova's first national championship in three decades led to multiple arrests, hospitalizations and a horse assault as celebrations spilled out into the streets late Monday night and early Tuesday morning.

Horse Assault

The University was founded by the Order of St. Augustine. I assume it was the Hippo Augustine, not the Canterbury one.

The 224,000 Children Aborted in the United States This Year Could Not Be Reached for Comment

The University of Notre Dame says it is making a statement against a "toxic political environment" by honoring Democratic Vice President Joe Biden and Republican former House Speaker John Boehner with its coveted 2016 Laetare Medal.

HOW DID YOU GET HERE???

"It is a good time to remind ourselves what lives dedicated to genuine public service in politics look like," Rev. John I. Jenkins, president of Notre Dame, said in revealing the award Saturday, Catholic News Service.

Honoring Biden, who holds a pro-choice political position even though he says he personally believes life begins at conception, is being seen by some as Notre Dame's public rejection of the U.S. Conference of Catholic bishops' 2004 statement on "Catholics in Political Life" which stressed that "Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions."

The Trouble With the Congregation of the Holy Cross

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT RESPECTING NDCATHOLIC.COM

NOTRE DAME, IN — We are obliged to inform our subscribers that Rev. Wilson D. Miscamble, C.S.C., is no longer associated with the website NDCatholic.com, which we established to house Father's recommendations of Notre Dame faculty whom students could count on for an authentic Catholic education.  The radical reduction of Catholic presence on the Notre Dame faculty makes such information essential. Nevertheless, two days after the inauguration of the website Father sent us this message: "I regret that I can say only that I am required to end my involvement with the NDCatholic site and am not at liberty to say why." 

 In more detail, the facts are these:

On November 9, 2015, we unveiled the NDCatholic.com website, which is designed to assist students seeking a Catholic education at Notre Dame.  They need this sort of help because of the alarming reduction over recent decades in Catholic representation on the faculty.  The faculty no longer comes close to meeting the University's own Mission Statement test of Catholic identity: a majority of committed Catholics on the faculty.  Perhaps 25% to 30% of the faculty fit this description, as we will show again in a coming bulletin using the most recent data available.

The consequences of this steep decline in Catholic faculty have been described in concrete terms by Professor Emeritus Walter Nicgorski, who retired recently after more than forty years as one of Notre Dame's most highly regarded teachers and scholars:

It is increasingly the case today that a young person going through the critical and formative years of a Catholic education at Notre Dame might not encounter a practicing Catholic informed and engaged by the Catholic intellectual tradition.

Father Wilson D. Miscamble, C.S.C., prepared the instructive recommendations of faculty and courses that appear on this website to assist students in making the choices necessary to insure that they receive an authentic Catholic education.  As a long time Notre Dame professor and  a nationally recognized historian who has served as chairman of the History Department and rector of Moreau Seminary, Father Miscamble was admirably suited to this task.  

Father Miscamble

So why did Father Miscamble give for his disassociation? 

Father responded: "Dear Bill, I regret that I can say only that I am required to end my involvement with the NDCatholic site and am not at liberty to say why. 

 In summary:

UND administrators and CSC superiors determined that Fr. Miscamble was engendering dissension within the UND and CSC communities by agitating for a more demonstrably Catholic UND.