Notre Dame alumni
Project Sycamore, a web site founded three years ago by Notre Dame alumni who were concerned about the state of the university’s Catholic identity, is also protesting the decision. A petition circulating on behalf of the organization notes Obama’s “unwavering and notorious support of the pro-abortion agenda.” In a letter to President Jenkins, the group identified Obama as “unremittingly hostile to the moral claims of the unborn and accordingly to a central teaching of the Catholic Church.” The president of Project Sycamore, William Dempsey, further pointed out that Notre Dame falls way below the standards of its mission statement. This requires that in order to maintain its Catholic identity, it must have “a predominant number of Catholic intellectuals on the faculty.” Presently, barely 53% of the faculty is Catholic, which number includes dissidents such as Fr. Richard Mc Brien and non-practising Catholics.

Political developments
To estimate the true importance of Fr. Jenkins’ defiance and that of Notre Dame’s board of trustees and governors, one more step is required. We have to place it in the political context of the last two elections and the clash between bishops and Catholic politicians.

It has been clear for a long time that on the issue of abortion and other family matters there is a discrepancy among faithful and clergy between what they say they believe, and what they do. As Archbishop Charles Chaput points out in his article Render unto Caesar (Catholic Insight April 2009, pages 14-18), “ the Church in the United States has done a poor job of forming the faith and conscience of Catholics for more than 40 years” (p.17).

This discrepancy has been illustrated among the laity first by politicians who identify themselves as Catholics, yet who vote for abortion, contraception, homosexual so-called marriage and other moral aberrations and secondly, by the large number of Catholic voters who do not take anti-Christian opinions seriously. Among bishops themselves the discrepancy between believing and doing is illustrated in the refusal of many to take action against politicians who publicly flout Catholic moral teaching while continuing to receive the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist.

Election of 2004
Resistance among bishops to this fairly new phenomenon of continued accommodation with renegade Catholics began to build during the 2004 presidential election under the leadership of Bishop, later Archbishop, Raymond Burke who announced that he would no longer give Holy Communion to Catholic politicians unwilling to listen to spiritual admonition. He based himself on Canon Law 915. He was supported by then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in Rome. By November 2004 some two dozen bishops had expressed themselves similarly.

Election of 2008
The 2008 election repeated the clash between publicly defiant Catholic politicians and unaccommodating bishops, with the latter doubling their ranks to about four dozen. Yet, that number was itself only 13 per cent of the 370 or so residential bishops in the United States. The other 320 bishops remained silent, with the exception of a few who openly resisted the idea that public dissenters should be cut off from the Sacraments. Their arguments, however, were extremely weak, such as the charge that this would be “politicizing the sacraments”. Their real failure, moreover, is their inability to explain what should be done about Catholics continuing to publicly ridicule the Church’s teaching in word and deed.

2009
President Barack Obama and his team have made use of the division in the ranks of the bishops, knowing that the vast majority have been silent about the challenge so far. He has appointed as many Catholic dissenting politicians as he could to his Cabinet ( five secretaries plus Vice-President Biden) and to his team in preparation for the struggle with the Catholic Church. From the Catholic point of view it is a further demonstration that authority in word not upheld by deeds, deteriorates rapidly.

Fr Jenkins and the Board of Trustees have upped the stake by taking the lead in defying Church authorities among Catholic dissenting colleges such as Georgetown, now for all practical purposes already secular in outlook and culture. As William Mc Gurn put it, their defiance “demoralizes those who support the cause of life while removing fears of even the slightest social sanction for those who do not. And it is an incoherence we see all across American Catholic life today.” (LifeSiteNews, 25 March 09). What should be done?

What should be done?
Fr. Jenkins invitation to President Obama is not the beginning of something new but the conclusion of 40 yeas of secularization. As Professor McInerney and others have said: “Notre Dame has forfeited its right to call itself a “Catholic University.”

Bishop D’Arcy, and other bishops who have similar colleges, should accept this. Remove them from the directory of Catholic colleges, and stop thinking of them as “Catholic” when, in fact, they are not. Parents who pay $40,000 tuition fees annually have known this for years. They send their sons and daughters there not to become better Catholics but to build powerful careers and make important connections for future material benefits.

If certain Catholic activities, including specialized Catholic studies, can be encouraged in these institutions, good and well. But the bishops’ own inaction over 40 years has allowed permanent changes which have legally and professionally alienated the universities from Catholic oversight, not to mention control.

As for Father Jenkins, he should be fired and if this is not legally possible, placed under an ecclesiastical penalty. Faithful Catholic students should stay away from the graduation ceremonies. And Catholic donors should direct their money elsewhere. Let it be, and let it be gone.

Fr. Alphonse de Valk, c.s.b., is a priest of the Congregation of St. Basil. He is the editor of Catholic Insight magazine.