Notre Dame Our Mother, Pray for US..We are ND

When Mario Cuomo came to speak at Notre Dame, "official" people and political fans of the man went into logistical moral pretzels to assuage critics who felt the university was betraying its Catholic identity in the process. The University opted to host him, saying a university must be open to all ideas and that it was important to hear dissenting views of prominent Catholics. His arguments that one could “not impose” one’s morality on others allowed countless Catholics to check themselves out of the abortion issue entirely. They “washed their hands” of this moral issue. He set the stage for John Kerry and others on how to parse the abortion question such that if no one paid too close attention, they could have their virtuous Catholic faith and the endorsement of NARAL too. They felt Solomon like, but in actual reality, they split the baby.

Our current President used the votes of those who embraced the Cuomo argument, to help him to get elected. People who were Catholics for Obama argued that we can’t be one issue voters and thus the public good offered to the poor of the world in health care and social programs outweighed any good that might be gained for the unborn, as abortion would still continue. This type of thinking drove me nuts before the election, because it wasn’t like poverty and sickness and suffering for the living would vanish because this guy became president! But the election happened, and for those who think all souls have meaning and specifically for those who hold Catholicism to be authentically true, it’s hard not to be fighting mad with how things have thus far turned out. Eight weeks in, we have embryonic stem cell research, funded abortions overseas, talk of FOCA being signed, and a repeal of the Mexico City policy that banned federal funding to all organizations that either promoted or provided abortions.

Based on all these policies and using statistics the way the global warming crowd does, the unborn of our nation are the most endangered life form on earth; for all practical purposes, it is open season on all stages of neonatal development. 50 million and counting have been served by Planned Parenthood and similar minded institutions, and there is no sign that the fiendish beast that loves abortion desire’s to devour those not yet born is in any way abated. Shouldn’t we be jumping up and down or something? Holding a concert? The devil salivates at all the souls scarred and potentially lost through this procedure: the mother, the father, the nurses, the advocates, the doctors and the politicians and the duped.

Over and over again this past year, we have seen Catholic public officials and Catholic citizen alike, check their moral compass at the Election booth or behind the policy making door. Those who advocated for President Obama amongst the Catholic community, specifically, Biden, Pelosi, Sebelius, Douglas Kmiec and all who joined Catholics for Obama, who felt that one could vote for the most pro-abortion candidate in the United States history in good conscience, have now found a strange and to my thinking, terribly sad ally in the University of Notre Dame.

Now it is a big deal to have a sitting President come and speak at a University. Having the sitting president speak at commencement is many things, heady, impressive, and publically good for the institution as whole. It is a draw to future applicants of the school. We’re important; we get the President of the United States. It will look good for both the President and the University.

What it won’t be, is Catholic, because it is also the obligation of every Catholic to speak out and provide correction when people of good character go wrong, and to refuse those who knowingly engage in wrong moral behavior, the cover of tacit approval by association. Here was the opportunity to speak truth to power as was once popular, to be a clear moral voice in the world of relativism that seeks to dismiss all debate as partisan and symbolic rather than necessary and substantive. To my thinking, the University failed in its core mission, again.

One hopes when the cock finally crows and the University has denied Christ in disguise a third time, that those in positions of leadership will weep and become the rocks they always could be. I love this place. I met my husband here. My father and mother began their great romance story here. My sister and her husband went here. My grandfather went here. My Aunt, my Uncle, cousins I care about deeply, people I call and write and love went to this place or just across the street at Saint Mary’s. I know the University of Notre Dame is still Catholic and that perhaps those in positions of authority see the situation differently. But they should know that we don’t just want the Irish to win on the football field, we want them to be scholars and gentlemen. We want them to be good sports and kind souls. We want the whole package, undefeated, perfect in all things, shining like the Dome itself, humble, virtuous, good. We’re THAT Catholic, we want all.

And so we worry that Notre Dame will become like Georgetown, which once took down the crucifixes in its classrooms rather than offend those who did not know Christ crucified, or Boston College, which considered back 1989, selling condoms in the bookstore might somehow not a betrayal of Catholic values. If Notre Dame wants to return to its once former glory which did not rest on the football field, but on the steeped Faith and Beating Catholic heart of the University and its people, it needs to reassert its Catholic identity.

I’d say, it’s time for the sacrament of Reconciliation….and maybe it’s sister school, Saint Mary’s College should invite Sarah Palin.