I don’t know the answer to that.
Notre Dame University went ahead with both the honorary degree and the commencement speech for pro-abortion President Barack Obama despite a multiplicity of protests. Seventy Catholic bishops sharply criticized the decision, 360,000 persons signed a petition opposing the invitation, and 1,400 Notre Dame supporters even indicated their intent to cease donating a combined $14 million to the school. Many outraged Catholics have called for the resignation of Father John I. Jenkins, the school's president. They blame him for soiling the school’s supposedly unsullied commitment to Catholic beliefs. The truth, however, is that Notre Dame went off course long ago, taken there by its famous former and longtime president, Father Theodore Hesburgh. . .
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"The question, then, is how do we work through these conflicts? Is it possible for us to join hands in common effort? As citizens of a vibrant and varied democracy, how do we engage in vigorous debate? How does each of us remain firm in our principles, and fight for what we consider right, without demonizing those with just as strongly held convictions on the other side?" President Barack Obama, Commencement Address at the University (formerly) of Notre Dame.
As sad a sight as it is, having a pro-abort socialist honored at a school built to honor Our Lady, we must realize that the crime committed today is not the arrogant speech of Obama, nor even the heinous duplicity of Fr. Jenkins, the current president of ND. No. As great men recognize that they stand on the shoulders of their predecessors, we must look deeper to see that Obama and Jenkins are but the tip of the iceburg—or rather, of the Hesburgh, in this case. For the "honor" of the destruction of Our Lady's school rests squarely on the shoulders of one man, Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, the president of ND from 1952 to 1987. . .
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Forty years ago the major Catholic universities in the U.S. decided that the Catholic Church needed to reform her teachings, especially that of sexual morality, to conform to the times, and that they should lead that reform. In 1967, at Land O'Lakes, Wisconsin, they declared their independence from the Church, exchanged the faith of their founders for an evolutionary heresy, proclaimed themselves to be an alternate magisterium, and transferred control from their founding religious orders to secular boards of trustees. Not coincidentally, by these actions they qualified themselves for lucrative financial grants from foundations controlled by leaders of the Culture of Death.
For forty years the true nature and intent of this revolution has been disguised. As a result, generations of Catholic students and graduates have been and are being ill formed and misled in their faith, or have lost it altogether. . .