Repercussions over the Notre Dame University graduation continue. Father Richard McBrien, former head of the university’s theology department, wrote in his syndicated column on June 1 that the negative protests of a minority of bishops was an “ill wind that blows nobody any good.” It showed, according to him, the poor quality of bishops who were appointed during the long pontificate of Pope John Paul II, bishops who place a higher premium on their obligation of loyalty to the Holy See than on their ministry to their own people. Such bishops, he said, were the kind which believe that abortion “trumps” all other moral issues and that confrontation is “the only sure path to missionary success.”
What blather! Bishops need to be loyal to the vicar of Christ as well as to their people. Peter’s office is what holds the church together. Abortion is certainly not the only moral issue of our day but it is the primary one, as the last popes have pointed out repeatedly. Are all bishops great leaders and administrators? No. But to cast aspersions on a whole class of bishops — upon most of those appointed by the previous pope — is myopic and cynical, to say the least.
Father Thomas Reese, SJ, former editor of America magazine, expressed his view of the Notre Dame affair in an article in the National Catholic Reporter at the end of May. He chided the presidents of Catholic colleges and universities for not coming to the defense of Father John Jenkins, CSC, president of Notre Dame, and of his university. “Whatever the cause of this presidential silence,” he wrote, “it was shameful. They stood silent while another educational institution was unfairly and viciously attacked. (They did not defend) academic freedom and autonomy.”
That too is blather. It reveals Father Reese’s espousal of the “Land O’Lakes Statement” of 1961, which claimed “To perform its teaching and research function effectively, the Catholic university must have true autonomy and academic freedom (from) authority of any kind, lay or clerical, external to the academic community itself.” Father Reese ought to meditate again on the document Ex Corde Ecclesiae (From the Heart of the Church), Pope John Paul II’s great statement on the role of Catholic universities in the church and in the world. From the church came the universities; within the church they stand. Church and academe mutually support one another — or should. And it is the right of parents who send their children to Catholic institutions and the right of students who attend that they receive knowledge of the true meaning of Catholic teaching and an opportunity to be formed by that teaching and not, in the name of independence from church authority, by something else.
Another voice in the clamor was that of the president of Trinity Washington University, Patricia McGuire, who spoke at the commencement services of her school on the same day as those of Notre Dame. She expressed her anger at the circus atmosphere surrounding the protests at Notre Dame. I have to agree with her that some of the protests were misguided and counter-productive. However, her diatribe against the pro-life people was overly reactive. She spoke of them as “self-appointed ‘watchdogs’ of Catholic higher education, who appear to want nothing more than to drive all Catholics away from public office.” And she added: “They have established themselves as uber-guardians of a belief system we can hardly recognize. Theirs is a narrow faith devoted almost exclusively to one issue. They defend the rights of the unborn but have no charity toward the living.” To paint all pro-life protestors with such a wide brush of invective is unjust.
The Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities in their latest newsletter reported that the institution’s Board of Directors is recommending that the American bishops withdraw their 2004 policy about speakers at Catholic universities. And Father Charles Currie, SJ, president of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities, said that the Jesuit association, too, is lobbying for such a policy change.
I am sure that the bishops’ meeting in San Antonio in mid-June talked about the Notre Dame affair (even though it was not on the agenda). A recommendation is being made by one of the bishops’ committees for a revisiting of the 2004 statement concerning invitations by universities to speakers who oppose Catholic teaching. I would hope that the revisiting leads to continued recognition of the obligation of Catholic universities to be united with their bishops and to be truly Catholic in their outlook and decision-making.
Father John A. Leies, SM, STD, is president emeritus of St. Mary’s University in San Antonio and was formerly head of the Theology Department there.