Notre Dame’s alumni magazine has a package of articles in its summer issue on the topic of homosexuality. The whole reflects the mindset of reluctant obedience to the Church’s teaching. Everywhere you look there’s a contrast between doctrine and so-called compassion. For instance, take this interview with Sr. Mary Louise Gude, the university’s liaison with gays and lesbians.
On the one hand, the University really strives to affirm church teachings on sexuality. On the other hand, we know by church doctrine that we are all loved by God.
See that? She places the two in opposition. In her mind, she has concluded that the Church’s doctrine is opposed to love for gays.
She also makes the claim that homosexuality is not just about sex, but about ... something more, although she doesn’t say what it is. That’s because there’s nothing for her to say, because that is what it’s all about. Just talk to any homosexual or former homosexual about the gay social scene. For that matter take a ride into any predominantly gay neighborhood. Everything about it is soaked in sex. It what gays themselves see as their identity. Of course, there’s a few academics who realize that in order to be taken seriously they need to appear to have deeper substance and so they invent all this baloney about homosexuality being about more than sex. Hey, it’s right in the name of the affliction.
In the whole coverage of the issue, there is only one article laying out the Church’s teachings on homosexuality. The rest of it is devoted to exposition of homosexuality in a completely non-judgmental (i.e., without calling a sin a sin) way.
Want to see how the rest of the Notre Dame community views this? Want to see the effectiveness of the Catholic education there? Just read the reader reactions.
However, I think the best reaction came from a priest-alumnus.
In the summer 2004 edition you published a collection of essays on the subject of homosexuality. In your introduction you said “we believe it is the kind of treatment readers would expect from a faith-filled and intellectually vigorous Catholic university.”
I have my doubts about this. Your essay on the Church’s teaching is very clear . But then you permit several people to make their plea for acceptance of their active [sinful] homosexuality. The teaching of the Church seems to be just another opinion that is “vigorous intellectual activity.”
St. Paul was one of the most vigorous intellectuals in the history of the Church.I cannot imagine St. Paul ever publishing a collection such as you have. When he heard of sinful immorality he was quick to identify and condemn it.“It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and of a kind that is not found even among the pagans. for a man is living with his father’s wife. And you are arrogant! Ought you not to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you.” I Cor.5:1-2.
You quote the late Archbishop Sheen in the article on the Church’s reaching to show that you do not have to hate the sinner to hate his sin, which is carrying him to eternal perdition.
I live in Japan where in 1973 the Blessed Mother appeared to a Japanese nun to give her messages meant for the whole world, similar to the messages she gave at Fatima. In one she said that if the Father sends a terrible punishment on mankind because opf its deep sinfulness the good will have to suffer with the bad. Didn’t Abraham gain a promise from God that He would spare even Gomorrah if he found just 10 innocent persons there? She gives the reason. It is because the good have not done the penance they are asked to do in order to obtain the conversion and salvation of the sinners. They have not prayed, fasted, or given alms as asked. But also have failed in the charity of correcting the sinner. This is a prime spiritual work of mercy. Not to do so is ,in effect, to leave the sinner in his sin and to “hate” him.
Here is where I think you fail. I think it is the Pauline Vigor that you should find in a “faith filled vigorous Catholic university.”
Paul says further in II Cor 13:2:“I warned those who sinned before and all the others, and I warn them now while absent, as I did when present on my second visit, that if I come again I will not spare them”.Paul is the “faith filled intellectual”.Your type of collection could be found in the publications of several secular universities who make the perennial claim that they are seeking the truth. And in the meantime the Ancient Serpent laughs.
Fr. Bede Fitzpatrick OFM, ‘43
Finally, I think the clearest expression of how Notre Dame views the gay issue is the bright orange T-shirts handed out to students that read, “Gay? Fine by me.” Evidently it’s fine by Notre Dame’s administration, too. Unfortunately, it’s not fine by God.
This is an unfair characterization of the Notre Dame community as a whole. The administration had nothing to do with the distribution of the orange t-shirts - that was the work of an underground student group to which the University annually refuses club status, amid much controversy. On the ground at Notre Dame, the homosexuality issue is one that obnoxiously asserts itself a few times each year, but which is by no means shoved down students’ throats by the University. What will do no good with regards to this issue, however, is the mentality among many in St. Blog’s that Notre Dame is lost to Catholicism, as far gone as a Georgetown. That is simply not true, and can only do harm to the school.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/11/04 at 01:54 PM
Is Notre Dame’s alumni magazine not part of the administration? Is Sr. Mary Louise not employed by the university?
The only thing that does harm to the school is the administration continuing to allow dissent and heterodoxy to fester on the campus.
What is your opinion on Notre Dame hiring a reputed Islamic Jew-hater and mysogynist to come to South Bend and teach a course on the “religion of peace”?
I’m sorry if the fine reputation of Notre Dame has been sullied by accusations that it’s not doing everything it can to promote the right practice of Roman Catholicism…
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/11/04 at 02:17 PM
Notre Dame hasn’t been Catholic in years. I’m about 50 miles away as the crow flies.
The bookstore is full of junk, the Masses can make you cry. It’s pathetic. I no longer frequent the place. There are far better places to get books and go to Mass.
It’s definitely not the place to get a Catholic education either. Not anymore.
Notre Dame Magazine, while an arm of the university, is not as such a mouthpiece of the administration, and in this case is being openly critical of the University’s position on homosexuality. Again, the University consistently refuses club status and funding to the promotion of homosexuality on campus. Sr. Mary Louise serves as part of a task force working to help students struggling with these issues, and that task force includes, among others, a good and holy priest. Thus, all is not lost, even in an area of the University which is in need of some shoring up.
The general issue that irks me with ranting about Notre Dame on St. Blog’s is the underlying idea that Notre Dame would not be a wise place for an orthodox Catholic to send their children to school. That is simply not the case, to which I and my fellow Whapsters would attest. While the homosexuality issue erupts from time to time and ideologues such as the one to whom tm30 refers do appear on campus from time to time (but do not by any means represent the faculty as a whole), someone with a good Catholic upbringing is not going to have a big problem discerning right from wrong and getting a very good education. Catholic life at Notre Dame is growing and getting better every year, and it is better to work for the solution than to curse the darkness and make the “loss” of Notre Dame a self-fulfilling prophecy. Let the well-catechized spread the Gospel and storm “mainstream” schools like Notre Dame that have life in them - they will not have a problem staying true to their ideals, and will gain much from the experience that would not be available in an enclave of like minds.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/11/04 at 05:40 PM
MichiganCatholic,
Have you attended the Sunday 10:00 a.m. Mass in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, which is televised on the Hallmark Channel? That is a wonderful Mass, celebrated according to the rubrics and with beautiful music. Notre Dame has its problems, including the dormitory Masses, but the good slowly displaces the bad. Again, I would be the first to point it out if things were as bad as people say, but they simply are not.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/11/04 at 05:43 PM
It is the case that the magazine as a whole is a scandal—even-handedness between right and wrong from a Church institution—and that only one article lays out the Church’s teaching in philosophical-doctrinal language.
Still, one other article, though anecdotal-personal in form, seems sound to me. It is a personal account of a Courage member coming to the Church and embracing chastity and valuing friendship.
While some might think it a bit sappy or treacley (lying on the grass, plane-watching, discussing the meaning of life, having a head on the chest while watching a Meryl Streep movie), there is nothing sexual about it or in it, nor is it any sort of apologia for the gay lifestyle. Rather it’s about its rejection.
I think the title “My Alternative Lifestyle” was meant to be ironic. But the fact remains that refusing to be defined by a temptation is the most radically countercultural thing one can do in this day and age.
Dan…I hate to burst your bubble…but the Mass on the Hallmark channel is a borderline episcopal mass….maybe high episcopal…...it really should be axed…..
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/11/04 at 11:44 PM
Peter,
Borderline Episcopal? Every Catholic parish should have a Mass so “borderline episcopal.” Again, the music is beautiful and well-prepared, and I know for a fact that the people coordinating the liturgy work extremely hard to follow the rubrics. I don’t see why such a liturgy “should be axed,” or what you would intend to replace it with. While there may not be enough Latin or chant to please some, it’s certainly among the most beautiful liturgies you’ll find in any college campus or parish in the entire country.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/12/04 at 10:29 AM
Dan, face it, you just like Notre Dame. I’ve lived in this area for years, and I’ve watched as it’s gone downhill.
Yes, the Cathedral is lovely. But as Catholics have found out, real estate is not everything. Orthodoxy at Notre Dame is a rare thing. It’s McBrien territory.
MichiganCatholic,
I don’t write what I do out of blind loyalty to Notre Dame, but rather as someone on the ground, as a student seeing what really goes on. First of all, the Basilica is not just a lovely piece of real estate, but the home of a beautiful liturgy that packs the pews throughout the year. Labeling Notre Dame “McBrien territory” is simply unfair, as the most recent hires in the theology department tend to be much more orthodox than the older ones. The same is true in campus ministry, which is now expanding Eucharistic Adoration and actively promoting the Rosary. The fact is, things are turning around and have been for several years, and I and other Notre Dame students would appreciate it if people in St. Blog’s would give us more support rather than write screeds condemning Notre Dame as a hotbed of all that is wrong with the Church. This is not the Notre Dame of twenty years ago; it is a much better place, and that ought to be acknowleged rather than denied.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/12/04 at 09:10 PM
I don’t visit Notre Dame anymore much, and when I do, I’m on my guard. There’s really not much to go there for anymore.
Dan, there are other places, other people, who’ve stood up to the culture much better than Notre Dame has, and that’s just a fact. St. Mary’s (Land of the Vagina Monologues and liturgical dancing) and Holy Cross have gone down the tubes too.
One of my children went to Holy Cross for a year and it took me two years after that to get him to step foot in a Catholic church again. It seems that some mighty odd things went on at old Holy Cross for a while. Holy Cross had a reciprocal relationship with Notre Dame at the time. I don’t know how it works now and frankly, I don’t care anymore. My son finished up in a public university and it turned out much better than Notre Dame anyway.
Notre Dame is a once-Catholic university with a now-famous football team. For the cultural catholic, it’s a brand-name education, if you like that sort of thing, and that’s ultimately about it..
I’m with Dan here. As a recent graduate of Notre Dame, with a major in Philosophy and theology, I do not think all hope is lost for Notre Dame. I think it is well on the road to becoming just a secular university from a Catholic tradition, but I don’t think it’s there yet.
Something tells me it wasn’t Holy Cross that caused your son to almost lose his faith. I went to Notre Dame a secular Catholic with little religious instruction, lax moral character, and little interest in the Church’s teachings or truth for that matter. It was at Notre Dame that I had a personal conversion, discovered my vocation, and became an ardent and articulate defender of the teachings of Christ and the Church.
My story is not unique, and quite frankly, it annoys me to hear people suggest that Notre Dame is a waste for faithful Catholics. Next time you’re in South Bend why don’t you stop by 905 Notre Dame Avenue. It’s the Padre Pio House that I founded my Senior year at Notre Dame. It is still operating and will show you the type of courageous men (and women, though not at Padre Pio House) are fighting for the faith at Notre Dame.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/16/04 at 03:00 PM
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Notre Dame’s paean to homosexuality
Notre Dame’s alumni magazine has a package of articles in its summer issue on the topic of homosexuality. The whole reflects the mindset of reluctant obedience to the Church’s teaching. Everywhere you look there’s a contrast between doctrine and so-called compassion. For instance, take this interview with Sr. Mary Louise Gude, the university’s liaison with gays and lesbians.
See that? She places the two in opposition. In her mind, she has concluded that the Church’s doctrine is opposed to love for gays.
She also makes the claim that homosexuality is not just about sex, but about ... something more, although she doesn’t say what it is. That’s because there’s nothing for her to say, because that is what it’s all about. Just talk to any homosexual or former homosexual about the gay social scene. For that matter take a ride into any predominantly gay neighborhood. Everything about it is soaked in sex. It what gays themselves see as their identity. Of course, there’s a few academics who realize that in order to be taken seriously they need to appear to have deeper substance and so they invent all this baloney about homosexuality being about more than sex. Hey, it’s right in the name of the affliction.
In the whole coverage of the issue, there is only one article laying out the Church’s teachings on homosexuality. The rest of it is devoted to exposition of homosexuality in a completely non-judgmental (i.e., without calling a sin a sin) way.
Want to see how the rest of the Notre Dame community views this? Want to see the effectiveness of the Catholic education there? Just read the reader reactions.
However, I think the best reaction came from a priest-alumnus.
Finally, I think the clearest expression of how Notre Dame views the gay issue is the bright orange T-shirts handed out to students that read, “Gay? Fine by me.” Evidently it’s fine by Notre Dame’s administration, too. Unfortunately, it’s not fine by God.
COMMENTS
This is an unfair characterization of the Notre Dame community as a whole. The administration had nothing to do with the distribution of the orange t-shirts - that was the work of an underground student group to which the University annually refuses club status, amid much controversy. On the ground at Notre Dame, the homosexuality issue is one that obnoxiously asserts itself a few times each year, but which is by no means shoved down students’ throats by the University. What will do no good with regards to this issue, however, is the mentality among many in St. Blog’s that Notre Dame is lost to Catholicism, as far gone as a Georgetown. That is simply not true, and can only do harm to the school.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/11/04 at 01:54 PM
Is Notre Dame’s alumni magazine not part of the administration? Is Sr. Mary Louise not employed by the university?
The only thing that does harm to the school is the administration continuing to allow dissent and heterodoxy to fester on the campus.
Posted by Domenico Bettinelli on 08/11/04 at 02:10 PM
Dan,
What is your opinion on Notre Dame hiring a reputed Islamic Jew-hater and mysogynist to come to South Bend and teach a course on the “religion of peace”?
I’m sorry if the fine reputation of Notre Dame has been sullied by accusations that it’s not doing everything it can to promote the right practice of Roman Catholicism…
http://www.crosswalk.com/news/1276289.html
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/11/04 at 02:17 PM
Notre Dame hasn’t been Catholic in years. I’m about 50 miles away as the crow flies.
The bookstore is full of junk, the Masses can make you cry. It’s pathetic. I no longer frequent the place. There are far better places to get books and go to Mass.
It’s definitely not the place to get a Catholic education either. Not anymore.
Posted by michigancatholic on 08/11/04 at 05:36 PM
Notre Dame Magazine, while an arm of the university, is not as such a mouthpiece of the administration, and in this case is being openly critical of the University’s position on homosexuality. Again, the University consistently refuses club status and funding to the promotion of homosexuality on campus. Sr. Mary Louise serves as part of a task force working to help students struggling with these issues, and that task force includes, among others, a good and holy priest. Thus, all is not lost, even in an area of the University which is in need of some shoring up.
The general issue that irks me with ranting about Notre Dame on St. Blog’s is the underlying idea that Notre Dame would not be a wise place for an orthodox Catholic to send their children to school. That is simply not the case, to which I and my fellow Whapsters would attest. While the homosexuality issue erupts from time to time and ideologues such as the one to whom tm30 refers do appear on campus from time to time (but do not by any means represent the faculty as a whole), someone with a good Catholic upbringing is not going to have a big problem discerning right from wrong and getting a very good education. Catholic life at Notre Dame is growing and getting better every year, and it is better to work for the solution than to curse the darkness and make the “loss” of Notre Dame a self-fulfilling prophecy. Let the well-catechized spread the Gospel and storm “mainstream” schools like Notre Dame that have life in them - they will not have a problem staying true to their ideals, and will gain much from the experience that would not be available in an enclave of like minds.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/11/04 at 05:40 PM
MichiganCatholic,
Have you attended the Sunday 10:00 a.m. Mass in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, which is televised on the Hallmark Channel? That is a wonderful Mass, celebrated according to the rubrics and with beautiful music. Notre Dame has its problems, including the dormitory Masses, but the good slowly displaces the bad. Again, I would be the first to point it out if things were as bad as people say, but they simply are not.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/11/04 at 05:43 PM
It is the case that the magazine as a whole is a scandal—even-handedness between right and wrong from a Church institution—and that only one article lays out the Church’s teaching in philosophical-doctrinal language.
Still, one other article, though anecdotal-personal in form, seems sound to me. It is a personal account of a Courage member coming to the Church and embracing chastity and valuing friendship.
While some might think it a bit sappy or treacley (lying on the grass, plane-watching, discussing the meaning of life, having a head on the chest while watching a Meryl Streep movie), there is nothing sexual about it or in it, nor is it any sort of apologia for the gay lifestyle. Rather it’s about its rejection.
I think the title “My Alternative Lifestyle” was meant to be ironic. But the fact remains that refusing to be defined by a temptation is the most radically countercultural thing one can do in this day and age.
Posted by CourageMan on 08/11/04 at 06:08 PM
Dan…I hate to burst your bubble…but the Mass on the Hallmark channel is a borderline episcopal mass….maybe high episcopal…...it really should be axed…..
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/11/04 at 11:44 PM
Peter,
Borderline Episcopal? Every Catholic parish should have a Mass so “borderline episcopal.” Again, the music is beautiful and well-prepared, and I know for a fact that the people coordinating the liturgy work extremely hard to follow the rubrics. I don’t see why such a liturgy “should be axed,” or what you would intend to replace it with. While there may not be enough Latin or chant to please some, it’s certainly among the most beautiful liturgies you’ll find in any college campus or parish in the entire country.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/12/04 at 10:29 AM
Dan, face it, you just like Notre Dame. I’ve lived in this area for years, and I’ve watched as it’s gone downhill.
Yes, the Cathedral is lovely. But as Catholics have found out, real estate is not everything. Orthodoxy at Notre Dame is a rare thing. It’s McBrien territory.
Posted by michigancatholic on 08/12/04 at 08:45 PM
MichiganCatholic,
I don’t write what I do out of blind loyalty to Notre Dame, but rather as someone on the ground, as a student seeing what really goes on. First of all, the Basilica is not just a lovely piece of real estate, but the home of a beautiful liturgy that packs the pews throughout the year. Labeling Notre Dame “McBrien territory” is simply unfair, as the most recent hires in the theology department tend to be much more orthodox than the older ones. The same is true in campus ministry, which is now expanding Eucharistic Adoration and actively promoting the Rosary. The fact is, things are turning around and have been for several years, and I and other Notre Dame students would appreciate it if people in St. Blog’s would give us more support rather than write screeds condemning Notre Dame as a hotbed of all that is wrong with the Church. This is not the Notre Dame of twenty years ago; it is a much better place, and that ought to be acknowleged rather than denied.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/12/04 at 09:10 PM
I don’t visit Notre Dame anymore much, and when I do, I’m on my guard. There’s really not much to go there for anymore.
Dan, there are other places, other people, who’ve stood up to the culture much better than Notre Dame has, and that’s just a fact. St. Mary’s (Land of the Vagina Monologues and liturgical dancing) and Holy Cross have gone down the tubes too.
One of my children went to Holy Cross for a year and it took me two years after that to get him to step foot in a Catholic church again. It seems that some mighty odd things went on at old Holy Cross for a while. Holy Cross had a reciprocal relationship with Notre Dame at the time. I don’t know how it works now and frankly, I don’t care anymore. My son finished up in a public university and it turned out much better than Notre Dame anyway.
Notre Dame is a once-Catholic university with a now-famous football team. For the cultural catholic, it’s a brand-name education, if you like that sort of thing, and that’s ultimately about it..
Posted by michigancatholic on 08/13/04 at 06:47 PM
BTW, what’s the deal with Notre Dame (Holy Cross, St. Mary’s) not being willing to enforce Ex Corde Ecclesia? You want to explain that one, Dan?
Posted by michigancatholic on 08/13/04 at 06:51 PM
I’m with Dan here. As a recent graduate of Notre Dame, with a major in Philosophy and theology, I do not think all hope is lost for Notre Dame. I think it is well on the road to becoming just a secular university from a Catholic tradition, but I don’t think it’s there yet.
Something tells me it wasn’t Holy Cross that caused your son to almost lose his faith. I went to Notre Dame a secular Catholic with little religious instruction, lax moral character, and little interest in the Church’s teachings or truth for that matter. It was at Notre Dame that I had a personal conversion, discovered my vocation, and became an ardent and articulate defender of the teachings of Christ and the Church.
My story is not unique, and quite frankly, it annoys me to hear people suggest that Notre Dame is a waste for faithful Catholics. Next time you’re in South Bend why don’t you stop by 905 Notre Dame Avenue. It’s the Padre Pio House that I founded my Senior year at Notre Dame. It is still operating and will show you the type of courageous men (and women, though not at Padre Pio House) are fighting for the faith at Notre Dame.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/16/04 at 03:00 PM
Comments are being moderated. After you submit your comment it could take up to a couple hours, but usually only a few minutes, before it will appear. Thank you for your patience. If you have any questions, you may contact Domenico Bettinelli.