Notre Dame

I like to tease my mom sometimes about Notre Dame's football team. However, given Notre Dame's stance towards the Catholic Church at times, I cannot in good conscience support the university and therefore the football team. Ironic that they would go against Church teaching, given that it's allegedly a Catholic university. But they continue to employ one of the biggest dissidents, and unfortunately, this dissident is a priest. He is Fr. McBrien.

However, in the past year, events at Notre Dame have made even the employment of Fr. McBrien a smaller issue. When President Obama spoke at the graduation and received an honorary degree, a group of 88 people, including a priest, were arrested for trespassing. While legally Notre Dame has the right to pursue charges, do they have the moral right or legal necessity to do that? In my opinion, no. However, they could've easily told the state of Indiana to drop the charges and let things die quietly.

Instead, the Notre Dame 88, as they are called, are still facing charges. Two things about this disturb me greatly. First, that Notre Dame refuses to drop the charges. Technically, it is really the state or a judge who dismisses the charges, but let's not pretend that the university doesn't have the influence to get the charges dismissed. If they wanted to make a point about making sure there were no undue security risks to the President, they could've dropped the charges awhile ago, or they could've also arrested the pro-Obama protesters (whom weren't arrested, by the way). It is bad enough that secular leaders have shown disdain for the Catholic Church, but even worse when a supposedly Catholic university is willing to clamp down on faithful Catholics. The second thing that disturbs me is the judge. Judge Manier is the wife of a retired pro-abortion Notre Dame professor. That alone should cause her to be disqualified from hearing the case, although she has agreed to let the appeals court decide the issue.

In today's age, the Church needs unity, not division. Yet it's almost impossible to achieve unity when members persecute other, more faithful members of the Church. As long as Notre Dame continues on its present course, I cannot in good conscience support Notre Dame.