The president of Notre Dame, Fr. Jenkins, is receiving an award tonight here in New York—from the American Irish Historical Society dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria.
The society’s reasons for honoring him include things of which the Irish and Catholic—and honor-worthiness—character is not all that apparent. “Father Jenkins has appointed five new deans during his tenure as president,” for instance.
Still, there is this: “Father Jenkins repeatedly has vowed to maintain Notre Dame’s identity as a Catholic university, perhaps most notably at the 2009 commencement ceremony when, in the face of criticism of his invitation to President Barack Obama to receive an honorary degree, he said: ‘Tapping the full potential of human reason to seek God and serve humanity is a central mission of the Catholic Church. The natural place for the Church to pursue this mission is at a Catholic university.’”
Yes, well, he did do that.
November 5th, 2009 | 6:13 pm
Mr. Bottum: Fr. Jenkins is a good man. Anyone who has had Jenkins as a philosophy professor will tell you he is an excellent teacher who conducts the class in a truly prayerful way. Also, if you read the acknowledgments of his book, you will see that one of the persons to whom he gives the most thanks is Alasdair MacIntyre–hardly a liberal! Media attention has focused on a few decisions Jenkins has made–his firing of Tyrone Willingham, his decision about the Vagina Monologues, the invitation to Obama. But there is more to Fr. Jenkins and to his presidency than these three events. If you take a closer look, I think you will find that you and Fr. Jenkins have more in common than you think.
November 5th, 2009 | 6:53 pm
ND sees itself as Catholic in the same way so-called Catholic liberals do: the Church institution is an obstacle to be ignored or overcome. ND became less Catholic when it replaced its traditional dedication to Catholic philosophy and theology with ecumenism and brought in many good Protestant scholars as deans to show it was serious. On its current course ND will never be more than a “me too” crasher of the secularist party, forever trying to square the circle.
November 5th, 2009 | 9:24 pm
The nomination of Obama for a Nobel peace prize says more about the Nobel committee than it says about Obama–that they are confirmed as a silly organization offering empty gestures into emptiness.
One could say the same about the American Irish Historical Society. “They won’t be missed.”
November 6th, 2009 | 7:35 am
In addition to honoring the Church’s most powerful adversary on abortion and embryonic stem cell research, Father Jenkins’s pro-life credentials include serving on the board of an important organization with a pro-abortion and pro-contraception policy, Millennium Promise; conferring an honorary degree in 2008 upon one of California’s most prominent embryonic stem cell research advocates, Dr. Marye Anne Fox; refusing to suggest dropping of the prosecutions of those pro-life demonstrators charged with trespass on Commencement Day; and presiding over a university in which, according to the most recent survey, the proportion of students falling away from the Church’s teaching on abortion increases from 31% to 42% over four years. But it is true that he has said good things.
November 7th, 2009 | 9:23 am
Pete,
Jesus told us to judge a tree by its fruit.
The fact that Jenkins can talk the talk does not mean he walks the walk.
The fruit I see is simply that he:
1. HONORED a man who is in favor of killing kids before they’re born.
2. Insisted that charges be pressed against the 88 persons who were exercising their right to protest this.
3. Washed his hands, a la Pontius Pilate, of their fate by claiming its out of his hands & now the government’s business.
4. Manipulated the whole day of May 17, 2009 into place before I consulted his bishop.
So, by this fruit, I know this is not a Catholic priest who I can trust to do his job…i.e., to “pass on what I have received” in fullness from the Catholic Church.
I am sorry that you’ve obviously spent alot of money on a degree from NDU but,if you’ve drunk that koolaid, you’ve wasted it.
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