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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
Notre Dame is owned fully (as far as I’m aware) by the Congregation of the Holy Cross, an order sanctioned by the Catholic Church and whose mission is education. It’s been a long time, so maybe I’m slightly off, but that’s the gist.
Notre Dame is led by a priest, but let’s admit that priests are hard to come by nowadays, and there are smart and capable ones, but not so many. I’m pretty sure that the guy there now is not as strong in force of personality as Fr. Hesburgh was when he was still in charge. And I’m also pretty sure that he is almost as radically
communistsocialist as the Pope.There is a board that does day to day stuff, I don’t pay much attention to it. The school is privately owned, sanctioned by the church and very religious. Now, whether it’s the religon you or you might agree with is a different question.
Every building has a chapel (never used to be “every” building but I suspect they found a tax benefit!) and the students by and large attend mass regularly, and faithfully.
This is one of the problems with religion. What you think is sacred and unchangeable, others don’t. And you don’t get to decide for them. Once you get into the realm of magic, there are no real bounds. Kind of like dungeons and dragons. It might work for a while as a game but eventually someone changes the rules and others don’t like it.
You are dead on in the financial and moral areas. We have wreaked havoc on the world by establishing the dollar as the world currency, then rigging the banking system to exercise a veto on global banking payments. My favorite was the US Deep State forcing Pope Benedict XVI out with an induced banking crisis (not that the Vatican wasn’t a ripe target for same), giving us a pope that uses Peter’s Pence charity donations to fund Rocketman, the Elton John hagiography.
I was surprised your currency ruminations skipped over the Masonic eye hovering over the topless pyramid. Masonry is very anti-Christian, and pro anything that is not scriptural, including paganism. One thing the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod agree on is automatic excommunication for membership in a Masonic Lodge. I once had a Muslim proselytizer try to scandalize me with the Founders anti-Christian Masonry. I had been through JFK, LBJ, RFK, MLK jr, RMN, and Jimmy “The Rabbit” Carter, an alcoholic family member, and he was trying to scandalize me by raising my consciousness about the role Prince of this world. He gave me my copy of the Protocols of Zion, which still has a place of ignominy on my Enemies Shelf along with Mein Kampf, Das Kapital, Mao’s Little Red Book, and that Howard Zinn history of the United States Moscow paid three million dollars for. That was also the year I met a demon at a seance. Living in the DC area, the only plus was Joe Gibbs.
I’m sure that the conversion of our media, on all sides, from journalism lite to the 24/7 angst-inducing propaganda psyops will straighten things out nicely.
don’t miss the last one…
God decides what is sacred and unchangeable, not men. Notre Dame is a University created by men and is as changeable as men. God never promised that Notre Dame University would be eternal, or eternally faithful. Or that it would be run by faithful men.
People tend to generalize from their particular experience of the Catholic Church to universal conclusions about the Church. But the Church has a 2,000 year history, spread out across the world. The current flaccid faith, weak Pope, and flirtations with heresy are nothing new, just a recurring phenomenon in Church history.
It’s a good bet that 100 years from now, Notre Dame may be gone, the United States may be gone, BLM and “woke” politics will be long forgotten movements only remembered by historians – and the Catholic Church will still be proclaiming the Nicene Creed and traditional natural law morality like it always has.
Unless this time is different. Maybe it is.
Natural Law doctrine was widespread by Hammurabi’s time and the basis for the great commercial ages of the Mediterranean. Discussions of it arise in diplomatic correspondence between great trading partners in Akkadian. It is preserved in Catholic and some Protestant thought, not always well. Natural Law philosophy has been damaged and violated in modern jurisprudence, a natural consequence of transferring Authority from Him to the philosophical flavor of the week.
But I wanted to circle back especially on your use of Liberty and Reason. These terms have very different meanings in Catholic dogma and the Deposit of Faith than they do in Enlightenment traditions. As happens so often, the words are the same but the meanings are contrary. As pointed out elsewhere, Christian Liberty is the right to do what is good in God’s eyes.
The Enlightenment version is Rousseau’s hellscape of libertine horrors. He pushed for orphanages where a third or more of children died and consigned several of his own children to them rather than raise them himself. Under Clinton, I was friends with a State Department official with a corner office with a massive portrait of Rousseau on the wall, helpfully with his name written on it for the uninformed. Into the early Twentieth Century the Catholic Church actively campaigned for Monarchy over Democracy on the theory that a virtuous Monarch can accomplish some good, while a Democracy will always have a sinful electorate ready to trade votes for the legislation and subsidizing of their sins.
Reason for Catholicism is tied to Faith and Virtue. Pursuing the Good in light of Revealed Truth. For the Enlightenment, Kant clues us in with his title Critique of Pure Reason. The Enlightenment saw the problem as all of that Revelation and the Deposit of Faith. Obviously we had advanced beyond such supernatural claptrap (it is Pride Month, remember) and now, by modern, rational philosophy we could erect a true and transcendent teaching of morals that would not be saddled with all of this superstitious baggage. I found Kant very interesting in my survey class, the deluge of idiots that followed made me regret taking the course. They and their ideas were repellent to a man. That journey made me appreciate the accomplishments of Thomas Aquinas, the Angelic Doctor, even more than I had before.
That does not mean that the Catholic points I have raised are universally proclaimed by the public faces of the Church. The Vatican has seen good popes and bad popes, but has always been mired in subversion and corruption. The Prince of this World and our own fallen nature see to it. Fr. James Martin is much better known to the world Archbishop Vigano.
It’s the dependence on federal funding.
New? Paul was fighting it in the Church in Romans and I Corinthians. (Check out the rich Corinthian letters.)
Luther was utterly against the opposition’s reason and quite proud of his own.
Every generation has seen this heresy, the visibility has been better suppressed where and when the Church had more clout. Today the teachers unions have more clout, so you never here of the pandemic of statutory rape under way in our schools. Our children are much safe in church than in school, where the oversight is so often overlooked.
How long before the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are invited to set up a convent at Notre Dame?
The folks running Notre Dame would love for Mayor Pete to get elected US President.
My point was, it has never been deemed as normal until now. Even the pagans, though tolerant, never sanctioned it as a marriage. Certainty in Judeo-Christian morals it was seen as sinful. The heresy I’m referring to is that it’s no longer seen as sinful.
Thank you to all who liked this post and allowed it to get to the Main Feed. I have 3 brothers-in-law who attended UND and got this email response back from one of them who is currently walking the Camino. I asked them what went wrong at UND and got this:
For those of you who are not Catholic the Camino de Santiago is a pilgrimage. My brother Don has walked the Camino de Santiago.
The Scallop Shell is a symbol for St. James the Apostle. If you look closely at the center of the photo I took of San Xavier del Bac, 10 miles south of Tucson you can see the scallop shell above the center balcony. The scallop shell marks the Camino de Santiago trails in Spain.
Fr. Miscamble wrote an excellent book on Fr Theodore Hesburgh-who made ND what it is today. A good review:
https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2019/05/ever-devotedly-in-notre-dame
a talk about it:
https://www.firstthings.com/media/american-priest
and a review by the incomparable Fr. Paul Mankowski (who died way too early):
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2019/04/his-excellency
Theodore Hesburgh “made ND what it is today.” I hope God is merciful.
My family has been friends with Father Miscamble. I’ve met him several times, he’s a good friend of my brother’s and my parents as well.
Because freedom of speech is ultimately freedom of conscience.
I am pleased to see these words related to the ultimate importance of freedom of speech. Our Founders were not perfect but their recognition of the importance of each individual’s right to freedom of speech stands out. It is not the same thing as a concept of freedom of action.
Typical Jerry. He makes a claim against the Catholic Church, never backs it up, and when challenged never comes back. He hits and runs. Come back and defend your claim Jerry.
It’s funny when Protestants quote scripture to attack Catholics, when they aren’t even working with the full Bible. :)