A few days ago Hunter Baker asked
why the Bishop couldn’t just force Notre Dame president Father Jenkins to
rescind the invitation. I thought it was
a great question. He could…but he
didn’t. In this case, it appears as though president Jenkins and
the Board held up the values of precedent (inviting U.S.
freedom instead of acting out of their well-trained, Catholic-informed worldview
instincts which says that caring for others human persons is a sacred trust from cradle to
grave, and that that conviction must be modeled in all aspects of a university education, including commencement ceremonies. Yes, I understand that Father
Jenkins has said repeatedly that he disagrees with President Obama’s stance on
abortion. Still, you can’t take people
in slices, especially with the conferral of a doctorate from an institution
like Notre Dame. The conferral of that
award is upon the WHOLE person…not just the parts of the person with which we
happen to agree. The young Notre Dame
alums understand this well, which is why we heard the echoes of their outcry
for ecclesiastical and institutional mission consistency. They knew that the Board and administration
were, at their core, being utterly inconsistent with the university’s
ecclesiastical authority on a mission-critical principle.
Many evangelical colleges and
universities suffer from this kind of confusion even more, I think, because
unlike Catholics whose church teachings and traditions remain unified worldwide,
the various evangelical Protestant traditions are all over the map with respect
to what constitutes a properly formed worldview. As a Presbyterian who has worked alongside
Catholics, I get it that just because you’re Catholic it doesn’t follow that
you adhere to all the Church’s doctrine’s or that you agree with all that is
contained in the encyclicals. A few of
my co-presbyters take exception to a few of the points in the Westminster
Confession of Faith, so I understand that disagreement is part of what it means
to live in the body together. My point is that at least there are undisputed universal Church standards in
the Catholic tradition, unlike the splintering of doctrines and values we find
across Protestantism and evangelicalism.
E.g., Notre Dame’s president
Jenkins at least had a papal document to which he could refer, Ex Corde Ecclesia (1990), which asserts
that presidents of Catholic universities "should take an oath of fidelity
to the Catholic Church and that teachers should be faithful to and respect
Catholic doctrine and morals in their research and teaching." One would
expect that the Church’s clarity on this point would translate to a heavy
emphasis placed on faculty and administrators embodying those values to
students. And, indeed, many do just
that.
President Obama knows how to talk to millennials. This generation wants what’s “real,” or at
least they say they do. He didn’t try to
hide from the tension in the crowd that day—he addressed it head-on. Even though I wish Fr. Jenkins had rescinded
the invitation (or had never issued it in the first place), this aspect of
President Obama’s address was somewhat refreshing to me. He acknowledged the deep divide instead of
trying to hide from it or pretend it wasn’t there. Colleges and universities who have long been
on a slippery slope to some kind of Christian-but-we-don’t-to-offend-anyone
type ethos would do well to take notes on this part of Obama’s playbook. The millennials want straight talk, so give
it to them.
Back to the main point. If Christian colleges and universities are
serious about educating Christianly for the sake of God’s redemption over all
of creation, we must model the right values for these millennial students. Let’s get real—institutional renewal is
needed in far too many colleges that dare claim the name “Christian.” But what is institutional renewal
anyway? Wake Forest
of the State University of New York and United
States Commissioner of Education, once said that there is no such thing as
institutional renewal; there is only people renewal. I suspect President Obama would agree with me
on that. But then we would have to have
a lengthy discussion about the ends towards which renewal is actually
aimed. How many students at evangelical
colleges feel the same way about how their institutions’ missions are being carried
out? To be sure, I am personally aware
of evangelical colleges and universities who are doing a stellar job of doing what they say
they will do with respect to modeling character, teaching the Christian
intellectual tradition, casting a compelling faith, learning, & living-type vision for the future, etc. In fact I am honored to work under the
auspices of a degree-granting institution of that sort. But I am also
certain that there are far too few who are serious about it.
What tension? I listened to all of Our President’s speech on YouTube. Aside from the occasional heckler, whose words were drowned out by audience chanting or the PA system, all I noticed was (loud) cheering and, when a joke was told, (loud) laughter. Especially during the “abortion” part of the speech (well, obviously no jokes then). Hardly Daniel in the lion’s den: this Daniel was invited by an approving community, all “lions” were quickly removed by ushers, and in lieu of an angel the SS was there to protect him from any threats. What bravery?
What straight talk? As is the wont of commencement speakers, Our President flattered his audience and the modern academic culture of “openness” and dialogue in which they have participated in for 4+ years — and they loved it. Few want straight talk at a commencement speech, which is supposed to be a “gimme” for the speaker, and this is no doubt why ND and the White House agreed upon this speaking opportunity for Our President.
I imagine evangelical colleges and universities have their work cut out for them. May they have great successes!
John Basie: “The millennials want straight talk, so give it to them.”
Benighted Savage: “What straight talk?”
I must concur with both Benighted Savage and with Dr. Albert Mohler here:
“President Obama merely talked about talking about abortion.
This was a moral evasion and an insult to the importance of the issue. If the President had actually addressed the issue of abortion — if he had actually even offered a defense or rationale for his own position — he would have dignified the issue. Instead, Mr. Obama issued what amounted to a call for civility.
If President Obama had actually spoken of abortion itself, rather than addressing abortion only as an issue of controversy, he would have found himself defending the indefensible, which explains why he avoids this discussion at all costs.
It is embarrassing to see some evangelicals who claim to be pro-life running public relations for the Obama Administration’s policies and positions. It is not uncivil to protest the President’s positions as subversive of human dignity and the sanctity of human life.”
President Obama’s talk was straight enough. He said he understood his position on abortion to be “unreconcilable” with the faithful Catholic position. He has proven that he will act accordingly and we should have no reason to expect his to change unless God changes his heart. That is what I’m praying for. I thought some things were impossible until I saw the Berlin wall come down.
A call for a respectful dialogue can be understood two ways. If it means “respect for other people,” then of course I agree. If it means “respect for other people’s closely held beliefs,” I say it depends on the belief.
If the belief held is that it was right to oppose the Born Alive Protection Act, then I cannot summon up any respect for it.
A call for “respectful dialogue” in this case would be tantamount to a call for me to keep my mouth shut.
“A few days ago Hunter Baker asked why the Bishop couldn’t just force Notre Dame president Father Jenkins to rescind the invitation. I thought it was a great question. He could . . . but he didn’t.”
Actually the bishop has no authority in canon or civil law to force the university president to rescind an invitation or the granting of an honorary degree. After 1967 universities like Notre Dame handed authority from the sponsoring religious order to a board of trustees. Even religious orders have some degree of autonomy vis-a-vis the local bishop. Those of pontifical right can be asked to leave the diocese entirely but he can’t interfere in the day-to-day running of their institutions. He does have more direct say in how the sacraments and catechetics are carried out on campus, but Ex corde ecclesiae says that universities have autonomy and that the responsibility for maintaining a true Catholic ethos, integration of faith and reason etc. rests with the university. It also says the bishop is not purely external to the university but belongs within it. But he does not have authority over the running of the university itself. In the case of diocesan universities (University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn.) and pontifical institutions (Catholic University of America, the Josephinum in Ohio) the bishop does have more direct authority, but such pontifical and diocesan schools are a tiny minority of all Catholic colleges and universities in the US.
The bishops of the US collectively asked universities not to do what Notre Dame did and Bishop D’Arcy could appeal to that and ask ND to desist, but he could not order ND to desist.
One of the relevant verses would seem to be, “If the trumpet blows an uncertain sound, who will prepare for battle?” (I Cor 14: 8) The Catholic trumpet is uncertain, and thus the responses are all over the map. I understand that there is core doctrine, but if there is no penalty for departing from it, there is no real teaching, only “good advice,” which we can take or leave as we see fit. Poor teaching on “following your conscience” has contributed to this, as too many have never been told that conscience must be informed by dogma, and think they have a right to do whatever seems right to them. Scripture has something to say about that, too.
If “God disciplines those He loves,” and you are not a son unless you are disciplined, what does it say about the church that it will not discipline those who say they belong to it?
Benighted Savage, Truth Unites, and Houghton G,
Thanks for your comments. Houghton G., good clarifications regarding Catholic polity in your comments…I appreciate that. I suppose what I’m getting at is (and correct me if I’m missing something here) the fact that, in the spirit of Ex Corde, there appeared to be little or no top-down pressure to follow it in this instance. Why was this the case? As to Savage’s and Truth Unites comments, I suppose I could have been more clear in saying Obama was straighter in his talk than I expected him to be. I didn’t ding him on his failure to address the morality of abortion simply because my own expectations of what he WOULD say regarding morality in any sense were pretty low.
I think Mohler is right; we didn’t hear a head-on defense of elective abortion at ND. Instead, what we got was meta-commentary on “the abortion controversy” and an admonition to “play nice” (while you ignore what’s going on off-stage).
If you know well Pres. Obama’s past and continuing support for elective abortion, the ND speech comes across as ironic, almost to the point of self-satire. You’re forced to read between the lines, as no doubt readers of _Pravda_ and _Izvestia_ did in the old Soviet Union. The speech is akin to Lucian’s “Phalaris I,” at least in spirit: however, our modern-day Phalaris addresses the men of Delphi directly while accepting the gift THEY give HIM.