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The University of Our Lady and the Welcoming Church
As Catholics, we dedicate June to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. As Catholics we venerate and hold in high regard the Blessed Virgin Mary. As a so-called Catholic University, and perhaps the most well-known one worldwide, one would think the University of Notre Dame would be one to promote this great month. Well, color one shocked:
Happy #PrideMonth! We celebrate all LGBTQ+ identities and reaffirm our commitment to being a welcoming, safe and supportive place for ALL members of the Notre Dame family.
We see you. We're glad you're here. You are an important member of our community. pic.twitter.com/b0ou28Iia8
— University of Notre Dame (@NotreDame) June 1, 2023
It is disgraceful that this Catholic University “celebrates” all LGBTQ+ identities. It seems they have bowed to the progressive Left as just about every other institution has.
The Church exists for the salvation of souls – on Christ’s terms.
Does UND even attempt to make disciples of Jesus Christ and to teach them to observe all that He has commanded? The use of the word “welcoming” has been co-opted by the lefties and turned into acceptance of the liberal culture without any of the message of “Repent and believe in the Gospel.”
Perhaps rather than pride, UND could look for humility and honor Our Lady by wishing us a Happy Sacred Heart of Jesus month.
It is almost like they are saying: “Hey, LA Dodgers, hold my beer.”
Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.
Published in Religion & Philosophy
Another “hold my beer” moment from the US Embassy in Vatican City.
Yeah, but check out the Twitter replies. They’re pretty devastating. Quite the ratio, at least 10-to-1.
Yes, I read them before posting. Makes it even more disgraceful that they leave the tweet up – apparently they don’t care.
There is a difference between tolerance and acceptance. ND has about 12,800 students, 8,900 undergrads and 3,900 grad students. There will be a number of those that make demands that ND publicly accept and endorse views that are contrary to the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
My advice to the Holy Cross priests and brothers is that you will never satisfy their demands to conform to the tyranny of popular opinion. When you surrender to one demand the following day will produce another demand, and then another from the perpetually aggrieved.
The simplest way to avoid this for ND is to ignore Twitter and advocacy groups when it comes to demanding such things as Pride Month appear on the ND calendar. The demands will cease with exercising one of most beautiful words in the English language; ‘No’. No and then refusing to discuss why the answer is no.
I have concluded that we live in a evil, wicked country, and we are a major source of evil in the world. This is the ideology that we export. It does seem like the Iranians have a point about us, doesn’t it?
Where I probably differ from most of you is that I view the perverted rainbow agenda as the natural conclusion of the principal American ideology that has existed since approximately WWII. The first generation raised in that ideology gave us the 1960s. It is the ideology of Liberty and Toleration. It leads to feminism, heterosexual immorality of all kinds including illegitimacy and abortion, family breakdown, declining birthrates, the denigration of Christian culture and traditions, and somewhat later, support for sexual perversion of escalating intensity.
The ideology of Liberty did exist before WWII, but seems to have had relatively little influence on the culture. It did set the stage for what came later. I think that we can see a substitution of this new ideology in the Civil War, with its substitution of freedom for holiness as the goal, and in the early so-called Progressive movement, women’s suffrage, and other changes in the law around 1920.
It is an alternative religion, contrary to Christianity, and expressly promoted as a religion in our Declaration of Independence. The Declaration asserts that government exists to protect “rights,” which are expressly said to come from God, so anyone who disagrees is on the side of Satan. This is not the Biblical purpose of government, as in both the Old and New Testament, government exists to punish the wicked.
The symbol of this religion of Liberty is something of an amalgam of the Greek pagan goddess Athena and the Roman pagan goddess Libertas. This image is used by the UK (Britannia), the US (Columbia), and France (Marianne).
It is strange that a pagan goddess appeared on the first American coinage under the current Constitution.
It is strange that a giant statue of a pagan goddess stands in the harbor of our greatest city. “Liberty Enlightening the World,” it’s called. It was a gift of the pagan, anti-Christian French Republic (the Third Republic). The First Republic in France actually turned Catholic cathedrals — including Notre Dame — into “Temples of Reason,” with a ceremony at Notre Dame using this female pagan image.
Liberty is not the light of the world. Jesus Christ is the light of the world.
It seems to me that many Christians and Catholics have tried to harmonize this pagan faith in Liberty and Reason with Christian and Catholic teaching. I did this myself for many years. I don’t find this a viable position any more.
Amen, Doug – I think you’re spot on!
I really question, too, the premise that the alphabet community suffers “discrimination and other forms of persecution because of who they are and whom they love”, at least not in this country or in Western Europe. If anything, being a part of the alphabet community is a resume enhancer. So, what are they talking about here? I wonder if this is really about Catholic institutions – schools, churches, charities – being able to have oaths of fidelity, or requiring that employees conform themselves to the teachings of the Catholic Church. The LGBTQ community isn’t going to rest until it can force these institutions to reject Church teaching – giving them an inch is never enough.
It’s funny that they use the euphemism, “whom they love”, as if anyone would have any objection to love and affection. They’re pretending that this has nothing to do with the morality of various sexual behaviors.
You’re not Catholic, so you might not be familiar with the Catholic concept of the unity of Truth. Faith and Reason are not in conflict. Indeed, as St. John Paul 2 put it, “Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth”.
On this point (as on others), Protestants are normally on the same page as Catholics.
You are correct that I am not Catholic.
Historically, I think that this Catholic concept, and the “natural law” doctrine that it inspired, was a major source of the pagan ideas of the so-called Enlightenment, which gave rise to the pagan faith of Liberty and Reason that I identify.
What Pope John Paul wrote above is contrary to what the Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 1.
This is not unusual in Catholicism. Where their doctrines are contrary to the Bible, Catholics stick with their doctrines. This is the fundamental divide between Protestantism and Catholicism.
Do any of the institutions that are a surprise for doing this explain themselves to the traditional flock? I have no understanding at all why the Church would do this and I am talking about the celebrating of the behavioral lifestyle not whether the individuals themselves are important.
I’ve used this quote from Archbishop Chaput many times here on Ricochet:
In today’s woke world, tolerance and acceptance have become one and the same.
I’m pretty sure they ignore your advice – this isn’t a one-off from UND.
It is hard to understand their surrender when the official account proclaims that they “celebrate” all the identities of the LGBTQ+ crazies.
The simplest way for them to act and speak is to proclaim Jesus Christ crucified and His Gospel. Be Catholic – that is simple.
It depends entirely upon the flavor of Protestantism. I have not found that to be the case with most of the Protestants I deal with. But perhaps I have had more exposure to fundamentalist Baptists and liberal Episcopalians than you have!
I don’t agree that there is a conflict between what St. John Paul 2 expressed and what St. Paul expressed in Corinthians, and I object very adamantly to the claim that Catholic doctrines are contrary to the Bible, but this isn’t the place to hash out differences between Protestants and Catholics. Go elsewhere and start another thread if you want to pursue that.
I don’t know what sort of “fundamentalist Baptist” you may have in mind. But I do know there is such a thing as an anti-intellectual Protestant, as well as a flavor of Calvinism that doubts reason can do anything right because of sin.
Most people get these ideas wrong. Liberty as preached by St. Pope John Paul II is having the freedom to do what we ought. And tolerance is gravely misunderstood – see my comment above.
As @painterjean pointed out, it is faith and reason that are harmonized in Catholicism. I’ve never heard of harmonizing liberty and reason.
I have a number of friends who are Fundamentalist Baptist. They sound a lot like Jerry in his comment above, to be honest. For them, using logic and reason are suspect, because it’s faith and only faith that matters. In their minds, to use reason is contrary to faith because somehow it diminishes its importance – it’s pagan. Needless to say, we have had to agree to disagree on these matters. I also have a friend who is an Episcopalian, and I’m afraid she typifies what I read about the Episcopalian church these days – they’re on board with all of this gender-affirming garbage, which certainly is anti-reason, anti-reality. I have a few Lutheran friends as well, and how much they would or would not agree with JP2’s statement is dependant upon what synod they’re in (here in my little town, we have Missouri, Wisconsin, and ELCA synods).
As I understand Catholic teaching, sexual orientations per se are not sinful. Sexual acts outside of marriage (and inside, too, depending) may be sinful. So no one’s “identity” is a sin or in any way an affront. So saying that people with these orientations are welcome and valued is not anti-Catholic.
That said, jumping on the identity parade bandwagon shows that a whole lot of other Christian values (like not paying attention so much to earthly status, not putting the self at the center, etc.) have been forgotten. Notre Dame should just say that we abhor the mistreatment of any person because of their race, sexual orientation, political opinions, and the like and let it go at that. But that wouldn’t feel so groovy now, would it?
What are you talking about Jerry? Have you read the book of Romans where Paul talks about the natural law?
Yes, you are correct. But the “welcome” that is preached is without any of the “repent and believe in the Gospel”, as I said in the OP. And that is not in keeping with the faith.
The “all are welcome” mantra is what apostates/heretics like Fr. James Martin preach.
You are now seeing the same downgrading of the Catholic faith by their own leaders that we have already seen for a long period among Protestant sects
Amen and Amen!
Yes, but the difference is that the Catholic Faith has a foundation that can’t be changed or destroyed, despite the best efforts of the heretics within her. Protestants simply divide and go elsewhere, and I can see some denominations disappearing entirely as they make themselves more and more irrelevant. I’m not so sure that the Anglican church, for example, will survive the apostasy within its ranks. The Catholic Church will, though obviously there’s no guarantee it will survive everywhere (Germany comes to mind…).
[Sigh.]
All the same, is it really that simple? Do they reject macro-evolution? If so, do they tend to agree with the Institute for Creation Research that the evidence–the actual reasoned evidence–is all against macro-evolution?
Yes, one of my Baptist friends does reject macro-evolution and believes that the earth is only 6,000 years old. I don’t know what my other Baptist friends think on that subject as we haven’t discussed it. But one believes in the “Trail of Blood” nonsense, which contends that the Baptist church is the real ancient church, and that it was persecuted and driven underground by the Catholic Church, which was only formed in the 300s (my young-earth friend also believes that the Catholic church was formed in the 300s).
As for the Institute for Creation Research, I’ve never heard it mentioned, but if it rejects a 6,000 year old world, then these Baptists would contend that the Institute had been corrupted by pagan thought.
I think there is a lot of valid analysis and conclusions in @arizonapatriot Jerry’s theory and I also think it started around the Civil War and intensified in the early 20th Century, then going full bore in the sixties. I do think he then carries it to an extreme in trying to eliminate individual free agency from the process.
You left out the most important question! Does this person think the evidence is against macro-evolution and an old earth? (That’s the sort of thing the ICR thinks.)
I don’t know. She’s never mentioned the ICR, and to be honest, I’ve never heard of it either.
Jerry , is the passage in 1 Corinthians 1 you refer to:
For it is written:
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”[c]
Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.
Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.31 Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”[d
From what I have read and heard, St. Paul was frustrated by the Athenians and their pursuit of reason above all else – hence the writing:“Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” To the Athenians and people like them Wisdom and Reason was their deity. But that ideology, which is anti-religious, should not be conflated to disregard Reason altogether, for from my point of view, Christ taught us to seek the truth, which requires us I would think to use all the reason we can to ascertain the truth. So Pope Paul II ‘s “Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth” does not contradict what I think St. Paul was saying in Corinthians, which was the condemnation of the glorification of reason above all else.
Yes, the statement could seem to accept LGBetc. sexual activity. But read closely, it simply says what it says: all identities are welcomed. Nothing about accepting any sins. Maybe the sinners, but that is par for the course, no? And “Repent and believe” was not addressed to any specific group of people (it is Christ’s UNIVERSAL message), so it ought not to be applied to any specific group.
I don’t know who James Martin is, but luckily it is not my job to judge who is and who is not an apostate. From what little I know of internal Church doings, I would bet a lot there is plenty of division on the question. And on such a question, not even the Pope could claim infallability.
And why not? And why don’t you think is important to never miss the opportunity to separate and distinguish the sin from the sinner? I cannot tell the difference in most pronouncements today.