took and mixed in with three measures of flour until
all of it was leavened." Matthew 13:33
Notre Dame and the Bishops
Originally published in E-Leaven, May 7, 2009, Issue 7
by John F. Kane
I’m assuming that most readers of Leaven have at least some sense of the big flap about Notre Dame inviting Obama to speak at its upcoming commencement -- and awarding him an honorary doctorate.
In brief, various right wing Catholic groups are making it a cause célèbre accusing Notre Dame of failing to be Catholic because of Obama’s staunch support for abortion rights and his policy allowing embryonic stem cell research. A fair number of Bishops have weighed in, using a 2004 USCC text which prohibits Catholic institutions from honoring folks who directly oppose Catholic teachings. (Yet there is some debate about whether that text applies only to Catholics who oppose Catholic teachings, which would exclude Obama.) Among them are both Bishop John D’Arcy of the Fort Wayne diocese which includes Notre Dame -- he will not attend the commencement ceremony – and the present head of the USCC, Cardinal George of Chicagoland, part of “Notre Dame’s home turf.” Some fairly big and somewhat moderate Catholic intellectuals have also condemned ND for its invitation. Harvard Law’s Mary Ann Glendon who was to be honored at the commencement withdrew from the ceremony, and Helen Alvare, former spokesperson for the USCC on life issues and now also a law professor, wrote a thoughtful essay criticizing Notre Dame.
Other bishops have cautioned against again reducing Catholic teachings about political affairs to one or two life issues, and about risking a similar reduction in Catholic relations to the Obama administration. And I believe there was some sort of Vatican statement which urged moderation in such church-state affairs, though at this writing I am unable to confirm that. (It’s certainly possible that the Vatican is more concerned than some US Bishops about maintaining good relations with the Obama administration.)
Not surprisingly groups like Catholic Democrats are urging folks to write to Notre Dame’s president in support of Notre Dame’s decision to invite Obama.
I suspect, were I a university president – something no one has to worry about – I would invite Obama to speak if I thought he might accept the invitation. Partly because, as seems to be the position of Notre Dame’s president, I’d want the President to speak about all the areas of social policy – especially about poverty and working people – where presidential policy and Catholic social thought find deep agreement. But also because, as again seems Fr. Jenkins’ position, keeping open relations with the president is a way of perhaps having some influence on issues, like abortion, where the Church and the president clearly disagree – especially in light of the president’s announced plans for programs to significantly reduce the incidence of abortion in this country.
For me, though, what is most at issue here is not the question of how Catholics might work politically to oppose abortion. That was the central issue debated by Catholics during the campaign. It is certainly possible to interpret the results of the election as a broad acceptance of the position of those who opposed single-issue voting and who also argued that, even on the issue of abortion, the better strategy was proposed by the Democrats – that we reduce abortions above all by reducing poverty.
Rather the central issue in the present flap goes back to an earlier debate, mainly in the 1990s, around Ex Corde Ecclesiae and the nature of the Catholic University in this country – its relationship to the hierarchy and its properly “university way” of being Catholic. Here, too, the Catholic hardliners lost, yet the real issues have never been satisfactorily resolved.
I will surprise no Leaven readers by opining that it is a very good thing that the Bishops (and Rome) have no direct control over most Catholic universities. Nor when I further assert that Catholic universities, while officially and seriously supporting Catholic teachings on a range of controversial issues (from abortion to capital punishment to government intervention in the economy), nonetheless have a different function in both Church and society than the hierarchy. They should be the place that is open to serious debate and difference – the place where Church and world not only meet, but can differ and debate; the place where the world (including the state) experiences an invitational form of Catholicism. Such university Catholicism is not indifferent to or wishy-washy about Catholic teaching, but is inclusive and academic enough to invite serious consideration of such teaching in its public and academic forum. As one wag has put it, “if universities don’t seriously entertain ideas, we might as well shut them down.”
Indirectly, then, among the goods that may be accomplished by the present flap are that it will, on the one hand, force the Obama administration to realize that Catholics are serious about opposing abortion even as, on the other hand, it simultaneously says to Obama and to the country that Catholics generally (especially through institutions like Catholic universities) are the kind of people with whom one can work towards shared goals even amidst serious differences about means towards those goals.