Notre Dame Has Yet To Learn Its Lesson

Sat, 08 Oct 2011 00:01:00 -0400

Last week, Notre Dame’s president, Fr. John Jenkins, CSC, sent a letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius imploring her to enact more robust conscience protections in the forthcoming HHS regulations for preventive services coverage under the new health care law. It’s important that conscience protections be much broader than even what Fr. Jenkins calls for, but it is good that he spoke up on the issue.

Still, several aspects of Fr. Jenkins’ letter come off as decidedly bizarre.

First, it’s somewhat odd that Fr. Jenkins chose to associate the concerns and interests of Secretary Sebelius with the university’s mission: “Of course, Madam Secretary,” he wrote, “as the daughter of a distinguished Notre Dame alumnus and faculty member, you are no stranger to our mission.” That Sebelius is a longtime darling of the abortion industry is news to no one.

The point being, if Fr. Jenkins expects his notion of a Catholic university to find purchase with Kathleen Sebelius, he’s likely to be disappointed. If he thinks her staunch abortion advocacy jibes with her supposed familiarity with Notre Dame’s mission, there is cause for concern, especially given Notre Dame’s history of abetting politicians who find it convenient to exclude certain human beings from the law’s protection.

Which brings us to the second reason Fr. Jenkins’ letter is strange: he repeatedly cites President Obama’s 2009 endorsement of a “sensible conscience clause,” but now laments that HHS’s proposed conscience protections are “not the kind of ‘sensible’ approach the president had in mind.” Aren’t they though?

Despite the clear and unambiguous objections of his local bishop (and of many others), Fr. Jenkins lavished honors upon President Obama in the name of dialogue and exchange. And what was exchanged? William McGurn (himself a Notre Dame alum) wrote this at the time:

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Another Ordinary Summer

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 00:30:00 -0400

Founded in 1992 and run since 2000 by the Ethics and Public Policy Center, the Tertio Millennio Seminar on the Free Society brings two dozen young people from central and eastern Europe together with twelve or so of their American counterparts to explore the principles and prospects of building free and virtuous societies. Pope John Paul II’s social encyclical Centesimus Annus serves as the intellectual scaffolding for the seminar’s work. Late this June, less than two months after his beatification in Rome, we will gather once again in his city, Kraków, for the twentieth meeting of TMS.

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Notre Dame Has Yet To Learn Its Lesson

Another Ordinary Summer