Posted on 05/19/2009 7:34:45 PM PDT by Salvation
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A House Divided By Ralph McInerny Monday, May 18, 2009 There were two commencement ceremonies at Notre Dame on Sunday. One was the media event in which alleged prestige trumped the truth that you cannot honor a man, president or not, whose policies are unabashedly pro-abortion without honoring abortion. The other took place at the grotto and on the west mall, untelevised, in the shadow of Rockne Memorial, at which the Mass and prayers, principally the rosary, were offered in reparation for the administration’s unconscionable sleeping with the enemy. And speeches were made, most notably by Father Wilson Miscamble, CSC; Professor David Solomon, director of the Center for Ethics and Culture; Chris Godfrey; and Father John Raphael. The Orestes Brownson Society gave their Bishop D’Arcy award in absentia to Mary Ann Glendon. Of course the administration has tried to call black white and portray its betrayal as somehow a statement of its largely muted pro-life outlook. The fallacious defenses on the part of a once stellar philosopher, Father John Jenkins, continued in his introduction of the president, exhibit how corruptive of clear thinking holding high office can be. Not since the local lands were wrested from the Indians has a white father spoken with such forked tongue. It is the students who have stood tall, retained clarity of mind, and refused to accept that their Catholicism could be switched off in order to sup with the devil. Among those at the alternative commencement, the one in fundamental continuity with the noble tradition of a great Catholic university, were some graduating seniors. It might be thought that it would require something far less momentous than this moral crisis to make absence from a commencement ceremony, even one’s own, unattractive. Nonetheless, most seniors, many with misgivings, attended the equivocal occasion under the dome of the Joyce Athletic and Convocation Center. There, smooth talk reigned and listeners were invited to view this shameful occasion as fulfilling the wishes of John Paul II and Benedict XVI. (In a later column, I will discuss the notion of "dialogue" that was invoked in the Joyce Center.) The senior class was divided by this unfortunate invitation; so was the university, so were the alumni and so were Catholics throughout the nation. This division among Catholics has been widening for more than forty years. How did it come about that so many Catholics have such a mushy notion of what it means to be a Catholic? The teaching of the faith since the close of Vatican II in 1965 has been scandalously inadequate. In many cases it has been the deliberate substituting of stones for bread. It began with waffling on contraception when theologians, real or self-proclaimed, impudently rejected Humanae Vitae, one of the great encyclicals of modern times. The scandal of the encyclical was that it placed Catholics on one side of a line and the zeitgeist on the other. Yet dissent from it was allowed to flourish. Moral theology went into steep decline and the official body of Catholic theologians issued Human Sexual Morality in which doubt was cast on the long tradition of teaching on pre-marital and extra-marital sex, abortion, masturbation, homosexuality, divorce – a systematic dismantling of Catholic moral teaching. All that is an old and oft-told story, still largely ignored officially. There grew up the notion that dissent from clear Church teaching was okay. With time, the difference between the moral teaching of dissenters and what was dismissively called "official" teaching blurred. Generations have been given a distorted notion of the faith. It is no wonder that Catholic politicians undertook to support policies in flat contradiction to what they purportedly believed privately. And so it was that on Sunday at Notre Dame faithful Catholics were regarded as dissenters. To such disfavor we have come. If the Obama invitation has stirred such passionately prayerful reaction from an heroic band of students, from alumni and Catholics across the country, and – mirabile dictu – from more than seventy bishops, it may prove to have been providential, an opportunity for Catholics to recognize that their house is indeed divided. Anathemas have been called for. Some long to have Notre Dame declared non-Catholic. Perhaps it will come to that, but the awakening of the laity, simple priests, a large number of the bishops, suggests that this is a possible epiphany. The sad fact is that people act contrary to the faith without realizing that that is what they are doing. A heretic chooses the opposite of the faith, but when in the present confusion as to what is in and what is out, heresy is not the appropriate word. And so, on Sunday, surrounded by priests and all the panoply of Notre Dame, the smiling Caesar, thumb turned down on life, was engulfed in allegedly Catholic applause. Elsewhere on campus, faithful Catholics gathered and sent up prayers of reparation. Ralph McInerny is a writer of philosophy, fiction, and cultural criticism, who has taught at Notre Dame since 1955. |
Good summary in my opinion.
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Archbishop Burke Slams Obama's Appearance at Notre Dame
Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI to Catholic University Educators, April 17, 2008
The Pope should have stood with the students who defended their faith. Live and in person if possible and by electronics if not. It would have bneen a great teaching moment and a strong message to the two thirds of American Bishops who stayed safely ensconced in their hidey holes.
That he didn't is a great disappointment to me. And it makes me question my 57 years of Catholicism.
I know there will be some, if not most, who disagree with me here. But that's how I see it.
The Laurel and Hardy of this Kabuki dance.
Jenkins' litany of praises to Obama was loaded up with code.
This was the Berkeley and Jonathan Livingston Seagull version
of Gaudium et Spes as mediated through Erich Fromm and Stuart Smalley.
The "those who think or act differently" has a special meaning here.
Notre Dame's Kabuki Dance with Obama and the Culture of Death
The Pope had already addressed the matter. It was Fr. Jenkins, Fr. Tyson, his boss and the Board of Trustees who disobeyd the Pope and the U. S. bishops.
You need not question your OWN Catholic faith. I see that it is strong.
Another thing — please remember that the Pope had just returned from the mid east.
You do need to question your faith if it depends on what any man does.
Our faith never depends on the weakness, waffling, compromises, or indifferentism of others.
Amen to that! Our faith is based in God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
The Creed. Not in any individual!
"And I say unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."
Jenkins acted like a silly little schoolboy. Makes me want to hurl.
Separating the wheat from the chafe.
"And so, on Sunday, surrounded by priests and all the panoply of Notre Dame, the smiling Caesar, thumb turned down on life, was engulfed in allegedly Catholic applause."
You might be right if my faith was in the Pope or any man. Since it’s not you are utterly wrong.
St. Michael, the Archangel, defend us in battle
Be our protection against the wickedness
and snares of the devil;
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray,
and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host,
by the power of God,
Cast into hell Satan and all evil spirits
who prowl through the world seeking the ruin of souls.
Amen
+
My faith is not in any man. There have been good men and bad men running the Catholic Church. My faith is what it always was. My trust in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church isn't what it once was.
Since I haven't changed something else has and that something is pretty evident when we take a tally of the Bishops who spoke up versus those who didn't.
I see things as they are, not as I want them to be and what I see these past years is a Catholic Church with deep problems in it's hierarchy. You may see things differently but I won't question your faith because you either have it or not. That's between you and the Big Guy.
The authority and credibility of the Church are on the line here, yes.
*8what I see these past years is a Catholic Church with deep problems in it’s hierarchy.**
And this is exactly what Pope Benedict is working on by replacing Bernardin’s boys (bishops) with orthodox and strong bishops who aren’t afraid to speak up. It’s going to get interesting that’s for sure.
Keep the faith!
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