The Dark Cloud Over South Bend/Of As Well As In?

Good piece in this morning's WSJ by the ironically-named David Solomon about Notre Dame's recent weak-willed ways called A President's Retreat.

Solomon details how the new President of the University, Rev. John Jenkins, recently blew a great chance to get rid of explicity anti-Catholic garbage Notre Dame has been embracing such as the Vagina Monologues and the Queer Film Festival.

Most campus observers assumed that, given his stated concerns, Father Jenkins would place some restrictions on the play and the film festival. Both Providence College and the Catholic University of America had earlier this year banned "The Vagina Monologues."

Father Jenkins's superior in the Holy Cross religious order, to which he belongs, had banned performances of the play at the University of Portland. Bishop John D'Arcy, much respected in the South Bend, Ind., community and much loved by Notre Dame students, had also spoken out against both the play and the festival.

Thus there was a great deal of surprise when, in the days before Holy Week, Father Jenkins announced: "I see no reason to prohibit performances of 'The Vagina Monologues' on campus, and do not intend to do so." As for the film festival, that too will be allowed to continue. Those faculty members who, the week before, had been plotting Father Jenkins's removal from office for even discussing possible restrictions now congratulated him, and his former student critics praised him as a champion of personal freedom.

Go along to get along. Thank you sir may I have another. Who are we to judge?

Although Father Jenkins called his announcement the "Closing Statement," the debate is unlikely to go away. More is at stake than the fairly standard, indeed humdrum, questions about "censorship" and "free speech" on campus. To some of us -- and I speak as a Notre Dame professor -- Father Jenkins's decision is one more step in a long process of secularization: It has already radically changed the major Protestant universities in this country; it is now proceeding apace at the Catholic ones.

Pathetic. And sad. Notre Dame seems to be more interested in becoming just another secular corporate training ground for future consumerists than in inculcating the (long and noble) Catholic Tradition in students.

At Notre Dame, this secularization is most evident in the composition of the faculty. While roughly 85% of Notre Dame students are Catholic, the percentage of Catholic faculty has dropped precipitously in the past few decades, reaching its current number of barely 50%, and there is no sign that this trend will be reversed. More important, the debate initiated by Father Jenkins exposed a great deal of hostility among faculty members toward traditional Catholic teachings as well as a confusion about the nature of Catholic higher education itself.

Sounds like quite a mess. Notre Dame has decided what is important to their mission and it aint Catholicism. Time to reconsider where to send your Catholic child.

Solomon concludes: Father Jenkins's retreat on "The Vagina Monologues" and the Queer Film Festival raises questions about whether Notre Dame has the will to retain its Catholic distinctiveness in the face of a hostile culture and whether it can do so with a faculty that seems largely out of sympathy with Catholic tradition. It is a good time to contemplate such questions, the holiest week of the calendar, when Christians celebrate ultimate victory emerging from apparent defeat.

SP ADDS: Pope Benedict's presentation of the Statons of the Cross on this Holy Friday seems to have some insight into the dynamics at Notre Dame (imagine that!.)

Particularly this excerpt from the Third Station (as written by Archbishop Angelo Comastri):

Lord,
we have lost our sense of sin!
Today a slick campaign of propaganda
is spreading an inane apologia of evil,
a senseless cult of Satan,
a mindless desire for transgression,
a dishonest and frivolous freedom,
exalting impulsiveness, immorality and selfishness
as if they were new heights of sophistication.

Lord Jesus,
open our eyes:
let us see the filth around us
and recognize it for what it is,
so that a single tear of sorrow
can restore us to purity of heart
and the breadth of true freedom.
Open our eyes,
Lord, Jesus!

BTW, healing tears of sorrow and opened eyes available this Sunday at your local Catholic Church.