Notre Dame: Does anyone go to heaven or hell, or is it all just "academic?"

The Priestly Pugilist ^ | May 21, 2009 | Priestly Pugilist & George Weigel

[Balt]

Your PP didn't weigh in on the Obama/Notre Dame issue for two reasons: (1) I like to wait until everyone else is finished shooting from the hip, and (2) because the whole thing made me so mad that I couldn't organize my thoughts into any coherent form.

Bishops have been bending over backward to denounce the President being invited and receiving an honorary degree; but if you're expecting your PP to praise them for it, think again. Let's take the local bishop, Bishop D’Arcy, as an example. He's been very outspoken in his opposition to Obama speaking at Notre Dame; so, you may ask, why isn't the PP praising him? Because it's just another example of the Bishops' Disease: a lot of talk but no action.

Now, I know exactly what the casuistic Canon Lawyers will say: The Holy Cross Fathers are a religious society of Pontifical Rite; they don't depend on the local bishop for their faculties; so, Bishop D'Arcy wasn't really in a position to order Father Jenkins, President of Notre Dame, to do anything. From a strictly canonical point of view, this is true, but lacks imagination. The fact is, there was a lot that Bishop D'Arcy could have done. He could have issued a decree informing the priests of the Holy Cross that they are not able to fuction as priests outside the boundries of the university—most of them, including Father Jenkins, probably have weekend assignments in local parishes, which are all under the direct authority of the bishop. As bishop, he has absolute and immediate jurisdiction over the sacrament of matrimony everywhere in his diocese, including the campus of Notre Dame; and I'm certain that graduating seniors at Notre Dame—like at all other big universities—like to get married there; he could have forbidden all marriages. Ultimately, he could have slaped a liturgical interdict on the university, forbidding the celebration of the Eucharist on campus, basically shutting down campus ministry. Pontifical Rite or no, these are all things the bishop could have done, but didn't. As to the argument that such actions would have punished the wrong people—we're talking about a Catholic institution being perceived as fuzzy on the issue of murdering innocent people! How far is too far to go? If there's even the remotest possibility that someone could come away with the idea that abortion is an issue on which faithful Catholics can dialog, can there be such a thing a colateral damage?

A lot has been made of the US Bishops instruction which "asks" Catholic universities not to give honors to those who manifestly oppose Catholic moral teaching, specifically about abortion; but no one seems to have referenced the Holy See's decree that they may not do so. Bishop D'Arcy could have informed the Superior General of the Holy Cross Fathers that, if he didn't excersise his authority to order Father Jenkins to withdraw the invitation or transfer Father Jenkins to a new assignment, then the Holy Cross Fathers would be expelled from the territorial boundries of his diocese—both the bishop and Father General have this authority. When the board of directors of the university expressed their support for Father Jenkins, the bishop could have instructed his own priests to deny them Holy Communion in their respective parishes. Indeed, Pope Benedict could have stopped Obama's speech with a phone call, since his authority over everyone concerned is absolute; but he didn't.

It's too easy to say that some of these possible solutions would constitute overkill. The real reason for all these things that could have happened but didn't stem from the general queeziness that Catholic churchmen seem to have when confronting problems within the realm of high academia. Besides, when it comes to saving the lives of unborn children, is there such a thing as overkill? Can there ever be an excuse for treading lightly—or respecting "academic freedom", or "agreeing to disagree"—when over one million people are being murdered every year in clinics and hospitals across this country?

George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., whose columns are distributed by the Denver Catholic Register, the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of Denver, among other places. He is also a member of your PP's native parish, which is why your PP gets a signed copy of every new book he writes. He was very kind to my father before he died, and took time out to attend the funeral. While he doesn't offer the kind of solutions your PP just did, he is the first major Catholic thinker to actually address the issue of Notre Dame's relationship to the local Church in which it finds itself, which is why I reproduce his column below. The original text can be found on the Archiocese of Denver's web site.

We have become so accustomed to pluralism in our soceity, that we actually have fooled ourselves into believing that you actually have to do something to commit a sin. Doesn't it occur to anyone that by simply holding an incorrect opinion on a crucial moral issue, you can exclude yourself from the Kingdom of Heaven? Does Father Jenkins actually believe that, simply because he's never actually helped someone to have an abortion, he can go to heaven when he dies? Does Bishop D'Arcy believe that, because he said all the right things with righteous indignation, Christ is pleased with him? Indeed, does anyone in the Church believe in heaven and hell anymore?

by Priestly Pugilist

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Of all the commentary I’ve read on Notre Dame’s decision to invite President Obama to receive an honorary doctorate of laws as the university’s 2009 commencement speaker, the most disturbing came from Father Kenneth Himes of the Boston College theology department. In a Boston Globe story about Professor Mary Ann Glendon’s courageous (and correct) decision to decline Notre Dame’s Laetare Medal because the university had defied the U.S. bishops’ policy barring honors for pro-abortion politicians at Catholic events, Father Himes said this:

There are some well-meaning people who think Notre Dame has given away its Catholic identity, because they have been caught up in the gamesmanship of American higher education, bringing in a star commencement speaker even if that means sacrificing their values, and that accounts for some of this.... But one also has to say that there is a political game going on here, and part of that is that you demonize the people who disagree with you, you question their integrity, you challenge their character, and you brand these people as moral poison. Some people have simply reduced Catholicism to the abortion issue, and consequently, they have simply launched a crusade to bar anything from Catholic institutions that smacks of any sort of open conversation.

I trust Father Himes is not referring here to Professor Glendon, or William McGurn of the Wall Street Journal, or Father Wilson Miscamble, CSC, of the Notre Dame faculty, or me, or other serious critics of Notre Dame’s decision. For if Father Himes is suggesting that any of us has demonized the president, branded him “moral poison,” reduced Catholicism to the abortion issue, or summoned a crusade to eliminate debate at Catholic colleges and universities, he is perilously close to committing calumny. Yes, there are self-serving nuts in the forest, some of whom have seized the Obama/Notre Dame issue for their own purposes. By why does Father Himes waste time bashing fringe crazies? Why not engage the arguments of the serious critics? Why not attempt a theologically coherent defense of what seems an incomprehensible decision—awarding an honorary doctorate of laws to a man determined to enshrine in law something the Catholic Church regards as a gross violation of justice?

Another colleague (and Notre Dame grad), Professor Russell Hittinger, who holds the William K. Warren Chair in Catholic Studies at the University of Tulsa, clarified one key facet of this controversy in an e-mail. Notre Dame, he suggested, has adopted a “purely American low-church position of [institutional] autonomy,” by acting as if the local bishop, John D’Arcy, has nothing to say to which the university must pay serious attention—although Bishop D’Arcy, a longtime Notre Dame booster, was speaking for the settled position of the American episcopate in asking the university’s president, Father John Jenkins, CSC, to reconsider his decision to honor Obama. As Professor Hittinger continued, this fracas “has nothing to do with academic freedom nor with ecclesiastical supervision of routine academic procedures and judgments. It is ecclesiological all the way down—what Church is Notre Dame ‘in,’ if any? ... Notre Dame is speaking and acting as though it were not a member of the local Church, let alone Rome.”

That’s exactly right. There’s also a high-stakes “political game” here, though not the one Father Himes suggests. The Obama administration is full of very smart political operators. Reading last November’s electoral entrails, they’ve sensed the possibility of driving a wedge through the Catholic community in America, dividing Catholics from their bishops and thus securing the majority Catholic vote Obama received in 2008. And they’ve shrewdly judged that the soft underbelly of Catholic resistance to the Obama administration’s radical agenda on the life issues is composed of Catholic intellectuals, their prestige institutions (like Notre Dame and Georgetown), and their opinion journals—the very people and opinion centers who claimed last year that Obama was the true pro-life candidate. It’s a clever move on the political chessboard, and barring extraordinary actions from the bishops, it will likely meet with considerable success.

Politics aside, though, the crucial question remains this: just what Church are Notre Dame and its supporters “in,” anyway?

by George Weigel

[m4629]

Let's take the local bishop, Bishop D’Arcy, as an example. He's been very outspoken in his opposition to Obama speaking at Notre Dame; so, you may ask, why isn't the PP praising him? Because it's just another example of the Bishops' Disease: a lot of talk but no action.

EXACTLY my sentiment all along.

[m4629]

Ping

Finally, someone spoke the practical truth.

[STE=Q]

I like this ‘Priestly Pugilist’ guy!

Apparently he hasn’t chosen to sacrifice his stones at the alter of “can’t we all just get along” political correctness.

STE=Q

[STE=Q]

typo: alter=altar

[Balt]

typo: alter=altar

Well, if you "sacrifice your stones," I'd say you've been altered. :)

[Balt]

typo: alter=altar

Well, if you "sacrifice your stones," I'd say you've been altered. :)

[diamond6]

Check it out!!!!

www.the13thday.com

[cthemfly25]

Agree—PP is a man’s priest. What I didn’t understand until reading the fighting padre’s post is how and by whom authority to stop this travesty could have been exercised.