Project Sycamore

Help protect the Catholic identity of Notre Dame: sign the petition.

David Solomon, a member of the department of philosophy, writes in the Wall Street Journal:

To some of us--and I speak as a Notre Dame professor--Father Jenkins's decision is one more step in a long process of secularization: It has already radically changed the major Protestant universities in this country; it is now proceeding apace at the Catholic ones.

He refers to Fr. Jenkins's decision to allow that silliness known as The Vagina Monologues to continue its annual performance on campus. (And it truly is a piece of silliness; meant to shock, it merely amuses, and even makes one pity Eve Ensler for authoring such popular drivel. The premise is that violence against women must cease, ergo perform a play celebrating women by addressing one's vagina directly. Er...hm. Exactly. Even if Ensler's not a master of deductive reasoning, the poor girl's got hubris; she's called the VM "the bible for a new generation of women." Oh dear. I think this parenthetical is long enough, don't you?)

Fr. John Coughlin, a Franciscan priest who studied law at Harvard and canon law at the Pontifical Gregorian University (ah, and just look at the eyes, bless him!), writes:

My impression is that secular speech of all types is alive and well at Notre Dame. Rather, it is the Catholic intellectual life that needs to be fostered and nourished.... The Catholic tradition respects individual conscience, and not every individual who is a member of a Catholic university community needs to embrace Catholic faith. However, all members of a Catholic university community are asked to respect faith and the truth claims that flow from it.

And respected and beloved Professor Emeritus Charles Rice writes:

Why do the "Monologues" and the Queer Film Festival get an easy pass at Notre Dame? In our politically correct culture, it is open season on Catholic sexual morality. That teaching can be advanced only as one "perspective" without any serious claim to objective validity. Jenkins, playing that game, confirms that political correctness is the operative official religion of Notre Dame.

Anyway, get to it, my dears; sign the petition.