Actually, he does not have that authority. Really, really, really. The university is incorporated under a board of trustees. The Holy Cross order, over which a bishop at best has only a very indirect authority, has no, none, nada, authority over the university. They ceded that to the lay board of trustees, with the proviso that the board have a certain number of Holy Cross members—but not a controlling number.
The only authority the bishop has is to deny the university the right to call itself Catholic. The bishop has authority over the use of the name Catholic, over parishes, over institutions directly under his authority. But religious order universities never, never were DIRECTLY under bishops, only indirectly. And Notre Dame is no longer a religious order university, legally speaking.
Bishop D’Arcy has fired the first shot in a game of chicken. He’s putting the ball in Notre Dame’s court. He has publicly stated that it has chosen prestige over Catholic faith. He has done what other bishops have done with the “excommunicate Catholic pro-abort politicians” issue: the first step is to tell them they ought not receive Communion and that they should not present themselves. If they stop coming up for Communion, they have effectively been maneuvered into self-excommunication without the bishop having formally to excommunicate them and become the villains in the eyes of the media. Of course, most of them do not refrain but continue to present themselves. At that point, if the bishops do not move to formal excommunication the bishops become paper tigers and the Catholic politicians win and continue to thumb their noses.
Up to now, Catholic universities have cultivated enough of a “Catholic” image with the local Ordinary so as to evade being point-blank denounced as uncatholic by the bishops.
D’Arcy has point-blank stated that Notre Dame is unCatholic. But he’s not used the formal canonical language forbidding themselves to call themselves Catholic. He’s stated it but in a circumlocution.
Now the ball is in Notre Dame’s court. If they just wave him off, continue the Obama honorary degree, the ball is back in his court—does he fire the last weapon in his arsenal or not? It is his last weapon (formal, canonical denial of the title Catholic). One wants to have figured out each future chess move before one makes the first gambit. Let’s hope the good bishop has done that.
Frankly, even if D’Arcy formally and canonically declares ND non-Catholic, I think ND will sidestep it. The market they operate in is such that they will go on calling themselves some sort of “historically Catholic” university, which will satisfy most of their market while at the same time technically avoiding what the bishop would have forbidden—the formal use of the title “Catholic University.” Some donors and alumni would stop giving, but enough of them would rationalize it in their minds and say, “historically Catholic,” that’s good enough for me. The bishop’s a doddering old anal-retentive fussbudget about what constitutes a Catholic university.
But in the name of Truth, he probably will be faced with fired the last weapon or otherwise becoming a total paper tiger.
Thank you for your excellent reply.
Does ND come under any Diocese?
Excellent explanation of the way things are.
I long for things the way they ought to be.
The bishop has a couple or so additional powers by which he can put pressure on the university.
First, the president of the university is a priest. He has faculties only with the permission of the ordinary of the local diocese. As do all the other priests at Notre Dame. Without faculties, they cannot licitly offer Mass, nor VALIDLY hear confessions and give absolution, nor VALIDLY marry persons.
As well, Mass cannot be offered publicly at Notre Dame without permission of the local ordinary.
Then there is the capacity to put part or all of the university community under interdict, including part or all of any boards of trustees, faculty senates, etc.
I suspect that this bishop doesn't have the guts to use any of these tools that are at his disposal, but the fact is, the bishop has more of them than just declaring the university to be no longer Catholic.
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