The Notre Dame Scandal

A Defining Moment For The Catholic Church

By Patrick Hurley

President Obama is only incidental to the Notre Dame controversy. When Catholics went to the polls in November 2008, they knew what they were getting. His extremist "infanticide" philosophy is no secret. Mr. Obama does not believe in an unborn child's right to life. He has consistently opposed efforts to restrict partial birth abortion and has voted against "born alive" bills that would ensure life sustaining assistance for a post partum baby that has survived an attempted abortion. Mr. Obama merely received the invitation and showed up. When the Notre Dame president, Fr. John Jenkins, decided to honor Mr. Obama as commencement speaker and to enhance that recognition with an honorary law degree, he was fully cognizant that the latter's philosophy was in stark contradiction to Church teaching.

However, such is the deficit of strong, resolute leadership in the U.S. Catholic Church, and such is the resulting pervasive ill-discipline, that the president of what was once the preeminent American Catholic university felt that that his defiance of the U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference would brook no serious sanction. Fr. Jenkins has brazenly disobeyed the Bishops' 2004 statement forbidding "the Catholic community and Catholic institutions ... from giving awards, honors, or platforms to those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles." His act is rightly viewed by the faithful as a betrayal of Roman Catholicism.

Fr. Jenkins's feeble response to the anger that his action provoked included the bizarre assertion that inviting Mr. Obama was somehow advancing the university's mission to promote "intellectual inquiry" by fostering "dialogue." We are all for promoting the same, but, as has been correctly emphasized, a commencement address is not a "dialogue" but a monologue in which one side does the talking.

There was no opportunity to challenge Mr. Obama's philosophy. If it's "intellectual inquiry" that Fr. Jenkins wanted, then the invitation should have been to a campus debate in which Mr. Obama's pro-abortion philosophy could have been challenged and its moral vacuity exposed. No matter how Fr. Jenkins squirms, the truth is that he sacrificed Catholic principle on the altar of an ephemeral, shallow popularity.

Perhaps Fr. Jenkins's lack of concern for hierarchical sanction is justified. Of the 250 plus diocesan bishops in the U.S., only about 70 made public declarations on the scandal. And how many of those put their words into action, traveled to the campus, protested, and were arrested? If the Catholic Church were really "One", the campus police would have been confronted by a sea of clerical red leading demonstrators in a grand act of civil disobedience.

Ostensibly, bishops wear red to signify their readiness to martyr themselves.

However, over the weekend, the potential martyrs were conspicuous by their absence. In the words of one demonstrator: "Where are our bishops? Where are our shepherds? They're supposed to be leading the flock, and where are they? You don't see anyone out here." As usual, it was the priests and nuns - far down the Church's hierarchical structure - and the activist laity in the trenches.

The silence from the pulpit on this, as on many other challenges, has been deafening. In just two months, 370,000 people signed the online Cardinal Newman Society petition to protest the invitation. However, if strong, resolute hierarchical leadership had been exercised, the clergy should have been using the pulpit to work the faithful into a frenzy. Indeed, the number of signatories had the potential to be 10 times greater.

When was the last time you heard a clear, concise, matter of fact sermon on the many contemporary challenges to Catholic principles? A colleague of mine, a retired U.S. Army officer - troubled by the lack of strong, unambiguous leadership from the pulpit - recently asked his priest why the local clergy never sermonize on issues like abortion, the Notre Dame scandal, etc. The priest answered that they did not wish to "offend" people. Did not wish to "offend"? We thought that Catholics were supposed to assert their religious principles at the expense of fickle, shallow popularity. Careful! That cock is about to crow a third time.

Now, we don't mean to be critical of the dedicated pastors and priests in the parishes. They must obey the diktats from the diocesan palaces and we suspect that not a few of them are frustrated by their muzzling. With rare exception, when was the last time you saw the Church hierarchy walk the walk and not just talk the talk? To quench Fr. Jenkins's thirst for dialogue, can we anticipate from the Conference of Bishops an "intellectual" refutation of Mr. Obama's address? The hierarchy seemingly exists in an ivory tower, far removed from the perspectives of the parish priest and parishioner. To the hierarchy, the storm outside the Church door is to be handled as some aloof, intricate, academic exercise and not with principled, resolute action. As a result, the faithful are confused, cynical, and demoralized, tiring of duplicity and hypocrisy.

In reality, the majority of Catholics do not fully comply with Church teaching. On matters like contraception and family planning, there's probably a significant gap between ecclesiastical diktats and what the laity practices. Those on the right might also support philosophies that are not fully reconcilable with Church teaching.

However, the Vatican has made it clear that it considers abortion "intrinsically evil" and as such, infinitely more intolerable than the death penalty. It is one thing to quietly err, as in the case of we the imperfect. It is quite another to directly challenge Catholic principles and flaunt one's deviancy. Though complete adherence remains an aspiration for most, Catholic teaching provides a constant, absolute, objective standard by which to take a moral compass bearing. Fr. Jenkins's brazen defiance of the Bishops Conference and the hierarchy's feeble response threaten to upset this delicate equilibrium.

The Notre Dame scandal is a defining moment for the Catholic Church. If the commensurate sanctions are not applied to Fr. Jenkins and, if necessary, the university, the faithful will throw up their hands in despair, concluding that the Church stands for nothing and vote with their feet. Fr. Jenkins must be defrocked and excommunicated, and, if Notre Dame refuses to sever itself from him, the Church must remove its imprimatur.

Mr. Hurley blogs at irish-american-news-opinion.blogspot.com