This is the "Catholic" university which hallucinates that it is the Catholic Yale of the Midwest (in alleged academic quality which says more negative about Yale than positive about Notre Shame). Yale which was founded as a school for Congregationalist teaching and has degenerated into a largely agnostic and atheist institution (see Bill Buckley's 60-year ago book God and Man at Yale and it has gotten far worse since then) is probably marginally more Catholic than Notre Shame. My wife found her Catholic Faith because she attended and graduated Yale and met up with the actually Catholic resistance there.
Harvard and Columbia and Dartmouth (Laura Ingraham and Dinesh D'Souza) and probably Princeton and maybe even Brown (Bobby Jindal) have similar Catholic undergrounds. Serious, disciplined Catholicism including many conversions, some priestly vocations, Catholic writers, etc. Even Texas A. and M. (see The Aggie Catholic online newsletter).
Most of Notre Shame's actually Catholic faculty members: Charles Rice, Ralph McInerney, Dean Clarence Mannion, are dead or retired and appear ever more distantly only in the rear view mirror of the university.
For me, the last straw was the despicable hospitality shown Obozo a couple of years ago when he was honored (despite being enemy in chief of the Catholic Church in the US) by an honorary law degree (as if his actual Harvard Law degree were not enough of a farce) and with the opportunity to give a commencement address in the football stadium otherwise dominated by the giant mosaic known as "Touchdown Jesus."
A previous client of mine, good and holy elderly priest from Colorado, afflicted with Parkinson's in his old age made the trip to Notre Shame to protest Obozo's appearance by carrying a cross on the sidewalks on campus. Jenkins, the sorry excuse for a priest who is to Notre Shame (its president) what Robespierre was to the French Revolution, gave orders to Notre Shame security and/or South Bend cops that resulted in the manhandling and arrest of the faithful priest, Fr. Norman Weslin, among many others. Each and every presiding bishop of each and every Illinois diocese (from Francis Cardinal George on down) publicly condemned Notre Shame for inviting and honoring Obozo as did our Illinois State Knights of Columbus convention. My bishop urged parents NOT to send their kids to Notre Shame.
May Notre Shame be consigned to the dustbin of history.
When are you going to publish your memoirs, BlackElk? I’m sure everyone in our homeschool association would buy a copy!
The one thing I am very happy is that my University of Connecticut women Huskies beat the women of ND for the Big East college basketball championship. If they have to meet again, my UConn women beat ND again to get to the NCAA’s championship.