Notre Dame must decide very soon whether it wants to be Catholic, and a center of higher education, or a center of higher education and catholic. Georgetown has chosen the latter path; let us hope that Notre Dame does not follow.
Notre Dame cannot follow. It began the formal rejection of Catholicism by most "Catholic" coleges in 1967 when then-Notre Dame President Fr. Theodore Hesburgh, a professional leftist if ever there was one, called all of the Catholic colleges toa conference at Land o' Lakes, Wisconsin, wher the leaders of all but six of them agreed to abandon Catholicism as a ruling guideline for their schools. After all, whined the termites, how CAN our colleges EVER be respected as scholarly institutions (by the various enemies of the Catholic faith running other colleges) when we are presenting an image of being mired in medieval Catholicism (aka the Truth)? Hesburgh's successor at Notre Dame, Monk Molloy, has taken Notre Dame further from Catholicism. E. Michael Jones, a former Notre Dame faculty member, has chronicled the destruction of Notre Dame as a Catholic institution. Are you offended by the "V" Monologues being presented at Notre Dame, Holy Cross and other pseudo-Catholic institutions? That's nothing. How about the death by gunshot wound of a Danish Dominican priest/faculty member at Notre Dame in the 1980s slain by a .44 caliber chest wound, ruled a suicide (about as likely as Vince Foster) who had taken an off-campus house of his own when he was supposed to live in the discipline of the Dominican community and was an active participant in the "leather" subculture of the lavender lifestyle. He had dished out two dishes of ice cream, one for himself and one for his "guest" before the shooting.
How about Boston College referring co-eds for abortion? How about Notre Dame's execrable excuse for an oft-time Theology Department Chairman and priest, Richard McBrien who wrote Mario Cuomo's Notre Dame speech on why "Catholic" politicians MUST be support systems for baby killers? Please! There are about ten genuinely Catholic colleges in the United States, almost all of them new (20 yrs or so young) and run by laity.
If your bishop will not meaningfully implement Ex Corde Ecclesiae (Pope JP II's document requiring orthodoxy of faculty at "Catholic" colleges here, drop the bishop a note saying that all your Church contributions will be sent directly to the Vatican until the bishop performs his duty and purges the Catholic faculties within his jurisdiction. The courts will not interfere with such actions because they concede that internal decisions as to doctrine are beyond the competence of the courts, especially in light of the First Amendment.
Notre Dame can be cleaned up easily by replacing the quisling bishop of South Bend, Indiana, who runs interference for the heretics and heathens and lifestyle flora and fauna of Notre Dame with the National Conference of Bishops. A new bishop determined to empty out Notre Dame's faculty septic tank has the authority to do so. Only the Jesuits are immune from local bishops. The Holy Office (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) can deal with the Jebbies and ought to.
It is long since time to stop thinking of Notre Dame as: "Let's win one for the Gipper" or as the "Catholic Yale of the Plains" or as an even vaguely Catholic institution.