A Catholic Looks At Veteran's Day

(hat tip to The Wanderer Forum Foundation, wandererforum.org)

Veteran's Day Address to Notre Dame ROTC Tri-Military Veteran’s Day Ceremony

Prof. Emeritus Charles E. Rice, Notre Dame Law School, University of Notre Dame

Nov. 11, 2010


This commemoration used to be called Armistice Day, in observance of the end of World War One. That was supposed to be “the war to end all wars.” It didn’t work out that way, as your presence here in uniform confirms.

You are volunteers. One price you pay for that decision is misunderstanding by others as to who you are and what you are doing. In an environment of “political correctness,” especially on college campuses, we can understand how sincere but misinformed critics disparage your choice and the military vocation as contrary to the Christian tradition. But those critics are wrong. Let’s try to set the record straight.

When “soldiers” asked John the Baptist, “And we—what are we to do?,” John did not tell them to find another line of work. “[H]e said to them, ‘Plunder no one, accuse no one falsely, and [perhaps most important] be content with your pay.” St. Paul did not demand that newly converted Christians who were soldiers must leave that profession. Instead he said, “Let every man remain in the calling in which he was called….[I]n the state in which he was called, let every man remain with God.” In the early Church, Christian pacifists drew support from Tertullian, Origen, Lactantius, and other theologians, but they reflected neither the dominant Christian view nor the teaching of the Church.

Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J., dealt with this issue: “What was the attitude of the early Church toward the bearing of arms? More truly citizens of the earthly fatherland than has sometimes been thought, Christians similarly did not hesitate to become soldiers, charged with their country’s defense and perhaps extension. Accordingly, we find numbers of them in the Roman armies at a time when military service was obligatory only for the sons of veterans or in the infrequent cases of extraordinary levies. The fact that Emperor Galerius on the threshold of the fourth century had to ‘purge’ the armed forces because they had too many Christians is the best proof that, from the end of the second century to the beginning of the fourth, ‘conscientious objection’ was not felt by the majority.”

One reason for the rejection of military service by some early Christians was not an intrinsic objection to military service as such, but rather the potential of that service to require immoral conduct and idolatry. An example from the third century illustrates the duty of the Christian citizen both to participate in the common defense and to recognize that his ultimate loyalty is to God rather than to the State. The Theban Legion, composed entirely of Egyptian Christians and stationed at Thebes in Egypt, was ordered by the Emperor Maximian to march to Gaul to suppress a rebellion. Under the command of Mauritius (Maurice), the Legion marched through the Alps into Gaul. Maximian then ordered, in 287, that the whole army must offer sacrifice to the pagan gods and must take an oath to assist in the extermination of Christians in Gaul. The members of the Theban Legion unanimously refused. Their number is commonly placed at 6,600, although that number has been disputed. In reaction to the Legion’s refusal, Maximian ordered the legion to be decimated, with every tenth man selected to be killed. A second decimation followed, but the survivors remained resolute. Following the lead of Maurice and their other officers, they sent Maximian a reply which capsulizes the vocation and duty of the Christian soldier:

We are your soldiers, but are also servants of the true God. We owe you military service and obedience; but we cannot renounce Him who is our Creator and Master, and also yours even though you reject Him. In all things which are not against His law we most willingly obey you, as we have done hitherto. We readily oppose all your enemies, whoever they are; but we cannot dip our hands into the blood of innocent persons. We have taken an oath to God before we took one to you: you can place no confidence in our second oath if we violate the first. You command us to punish the Christians; behold, we are such. We confess God the Father, author of all things, and His Son, Jesus Christ. We have seen our companions slain without lamenting them, and we rejoice at their honour. Neither this nor any other provocation has tempted us to revolt. We have arms in our hands, but we do not resist because we would rather die innocent than live by any sin.

Maximian proceeded to execute every member of the Legion, none of whom offered any resistance. The massacre occurred at Agaunum, now St. Maurice-en-Valais, Switzerland.

So don’t let anyone, on this campus or elsewhere, tell you that your commitment to military service is somehow inconsistent with the Christian tradition. That commitment might be unpopular with one group or another from time to time. But it is a noble calling fully in accord with, and indeed dictated by, the Christian tradition.

It is not enough, however, for you to rest on the assurance that you are doing the right thing. You have to know why it is so and you have to be prepared to educate your critics on the realities of the duty to defend the common good. So let’s review some basic principles.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church affirms the traditional Christian view that “governments cannot be denied the right of lawful self-defense, once all peace efforts have failed.” Citizens are obliged to support a just war. “Public authorities, in this case, have the right and duty to impose on citizens the obligations necessary for national defense.”

Such defense must satisfy “just war” analysis. The requirements for jus ad bellum, justice in going to war, are proper authority, just cause and right intention. The Catechism lists further details: “[T]he damage inflicted by the aggressor… must be lasting, grave and certain;” war must be a last resort, with “all other means impractical or ineffective,” “there must be serious prospects of success;” and “the use of arms must not produce evils… graver than the evil to be eliminated.” “The evaluation of these conditions,” however, “belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.” Citizens, including members of the military, are obliged, in effect, to give a benefit of the doubt to the decisions of those in lawful authority.

Jus in bello, justice in fighting a war, requires proportionality and discrimination (non-combatant immunity from intentional attack). The Catechism of the Catholic Church affirms that: “Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation.” Pursuant to the principle of the double effect, however, it can be morally justified to attack a military target of sufficient importance even though the attacker knows, but does not intend, that innocent civilians will be killed in the attack. The key is the intent. No one ever has the moral right to intentionally kill the innocent. But the good act of attacking the legitimate target can be justified even though it has the unintended evil effect of killing the innocent, provided that the good effect of the attack is not obtained by means of the evil effect and provided there is sufficient reason for permitting the unintended evil effect.

The Uniform Code of Military Justice, the very restrictive Rules of Engagement and other binding military policies effectively protect noncombatants and otherwise conform to the requirements of jus in bello. Some military personnel violate the law but their record is far better than that of corporate executives and members of Congress. And the armed services are diligent, sometimes even to the point of excess, in prosecuting putative offenses.

The Second Vatican Council affirmed that, “All those who enter military service in loyalty to their country should look upon themselves as the custodians of the security and freedom of their fellow countrymen; and when they carry out their duty properly, they are contributing to the maintenance of peace.”

The universal pacifist refuses to take part in any and all wars: “Those who renounce violence,” said Vatican II, “and, in order to safeguard human rights, make use of those means of defense available to the weakest, bear witness to evangelical charity, provided they do so without harming the rights and obligations of other men and societies. They bear… witness to the… risks of recourse to violence.” However, a universal pacifism which denies the right of the state to use force in defense, is inconsistent with the teaching of the Church.

Granting the sincerity of universal pacifists, their claim to moral superiority is flawed. One can well “bear witness to evangelical charity” by renouncing force in defending himself. The universal pacifist, who denies that force can ever be used in defense of the common good, would refuse to defend not only himself but others. He would deny to his fellow citizens their right to have the state provide what the Catechism calls “legitimate defense by military force.”

Unlike the universal pacifist, the selective pacifist refuses to take part in a particular war he regards as unjust. The law of the United States allows exemptions from military service only for universal, and not for selective pacifists. The Catechism urges, but does not require, the state to make “equitable provision” for all conscientious objectors who “are nonetheless obliged to serve the human community in some other way.” It is difficult, however, to see how an exemption for selective objectors, who object not to war in general but only to a particular war, could be administered without inviting fraudulent evasion.

Whatever its legal status, selective pacifism is required by the teaching of the Church. We should all be selective pacifists, insisting, with prudence, that any war—or any other act of state,-- is subject to the higher standard of the natural law and the law of God. A strong presumption of validity attaches to the decisions and acts of those entrusted with the care of the common good. But that presumption is not conclusive. All wars are debatable, including the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Subject to the legitimate authority of Congress, the president has the duty to defend the nation. His decisions and those of Congress are entitled to a strong benefit of the doubt. But there are limits.

To participate in the defense of the nation and the common good is an honorable calling. Those who do so deserve appreciation and respect. So, please, do not permit anyone to try to lay a guilt trip on you for your commitment to your country’s military service. You should be proud of that freely given service. You have earned the appreciation and respect of the Notre Dame community, and especially of those who profess allegiance to the Christian tradition.

Yesterday was the 235th birthday of the United States Marine Corps. Permit me to quote a line from the Marine Corps Hymn which I rightly apply to you and to the Army, Navy and Air Force in honor of your service: “Here’s health to you and to our Corps, which we are proud to serve.”

Thank you. And God bless you.


Notes:

Luke 3:14.

1 Cor. 7:20-24.

John A. Hardon, S.J., The Catholic Catechism (1975), 346-347.

Butler’s Lives of the Saints (1963), vol. III, 619.

The Roman Theban Legion, http://bibleprobe.com/theban/html. St. Maurice of the Theban Legion,

HYPERLINK "http://www.suite101.com/content/st-maurice-of-the-theban-legion-a42501" http://www.suite101.com/content/st-maurice-of-the-theban-legion-a42501.

Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), no. 2308.

CCC, no. 2310.

CCC, no. 2309.

Gaudium et Spes, no. 79.

CCC, no. 2306.

CCC, no. 2309.

CCC, no. 2311.

Ron Paul Talks About His Pro-Life Convictions

The Wanderer interviews Dr. Ron Paul, Republican Congressman of Texas.

July 2008

[As the Congress prepared to go out on its annual August recess, Dr. Ron Paul met in his Capitol Hill office with Wanderer contributing editor Christopher Manion].

The Wanderer. Dr. Paul thank you for your hospitality today. Let's get right to the point. Today, as the Congress is about to go out of session for the August recess, healthcare is the number one agenda item. Where does that stand, especially from the point of view of those of us who consider the life issues as paramount in this legislation?

Representative Paul. I think it's going to be very bad. I've always assumed that the worst tactic the left could use is to make pro-life people pay for abortions. That gets their attention like nothing else will. And they're going to do it. They been doing it for years -- I used to fight all this foreign aid and this pretense that we send this foreign aid and that they say “Oh, yeah, no abortions,” and yet you know it goes to certain groups – these funds are fungible, and they end up going to abortions, and it's going to get a lot worse."

Even the Hyde Amendment isn't perfect, but this actually blatantly violates or removes the Hyde amendment. I think ultimately the only way you can prevent taxpayer funding for abortions is no funding for those organizations.”

The Wanderer. The GOP has been regarded as the pro-life party in these past few elections, and the party hasn't done very well. What do you think the prospects are for the GOP as a vehicle for conservative ideas in general, and especially for pro-lifers?

Rep. Paul. I don't think -- you know it's shifting, but over the years we never suffered from it. I mean Ronald Reagan you know took a pro-life position, but it is true that the Republican party, like in many other issues, would speak more strongly than their actions -- you know, they didn't do a whole lot once they were in office. I think for the Republicans to be successful, they should stick with it, but I have a position that's slightly different than the average Republican. Which is less confrontational, because I don't want to use the cloud of the federal government to settle this dispute. I want to do it constitutionally, so I don't want to write national laws, and I want to go back to the states, which means that I want to repeal Roe versus Wade and I want the state of Texas to be able to write these laws and to be left alone, and lo and behold, that is not nearly so antagonistic as having constitutional amendments and more mandates. Sometimes our right to life groups get upset with me because they write laws up here and they use the clout of the government to punish, and I don't think that's the proper way to do it. I think it's an act of violence, and I think all acts of violence, whether it's robbery and murder and manslaughter – all these things are meant to be local issues. And I think that's where they should stay.

The Wanderer. A lot of people get rankled when I mention that you've delivered 4000 babies (he chuckles) because they don't want to confront the reality of a baby in your arms.

Rep. Paul. Yeah, that’s right.

The Wanderer. You are a champion of the Constitution with regard to the pro-life issue and with regard to the wars abroad. What is going to happen to the Constitution with all the new influx of American responsibility and troops into Afghanistan now, and in the Middle East in general?

Rep. Paul. Well, I would probably phrased the question in a slightly different way -- you say, "what is going to happen to our Constitution," and I might say, “what has happened to the Constitution?" Because, you know, I don't think we have a whole lot left of our Constitution. It gets worse all the time, whether it's in the executive branch, or the judicial branch, or the legislative branch. And we go to war without declarations, and we print money without authority to print money -- you know, in the Federal Reserve system -- and it all goes on and on. So I think it's going to continue. So often I make the point that we got into this financial and political mess and foreign-policy mess because we don't obey the Constitution. Maybe we could get out of it if we decided to follow the Constitution. I'm not hopeful that in the next year or two that were going to have any majority vote in the Congress changing the course that we've taken. But I am very optimistic about the number of young people who are really really interested in what we've been talking about and coming to our rallies. Our campus meetings that we’re having and our rallies have been very well attended, and they're very interested in the Constitution.

And that's what it takes. You know, Keynsianism in economics came in vogue in the 1930s. And that is a philosophic issue that is pervasive in the Republican and Democrat parties-- it is both. So a philosophic revolution has to affect both parties. Whether it has to do with gun issues or right to life issues or economic issues, to be successful you really have to have a philosophic change.

And that's why I'm encouraged. The young people are willing to look at these issues because they know they're getting dumped on, they know they're getting a bad deal. They're getting wars to finance, wars to fight, and these bills to pay. So I look at this as much as an opportunity as a danger that we have today.

The Wanderer. Dr. Paul, the Fed [the Federal Reserve Bank] has always been a mysterious institution. In the last six months, they’ve lent two trillion dollars to people whose names they won’t reveal. Isn’t that our money” I notice that your “Audit the Fed” Bill now has a majority of congressman sponsoring it. But it's clearly going to get resistance from the Senate and from the White House. Why is the Fed so important for our readers to understand?

Rep. Paul. Well, because of the assumption made, especially with your readership, who are people who have moral principles. The basic moral principle in dealing with the Fed is that it should be illegal to counterfeit money. People understand counterfeit, and the Bible says something about honest weights and measures, it's been around a long time that you're not supposed to cheat people. And when you're just printing money out of thin air, you're diluting the value of the dollar that we hold and there's no restraint on the printing press.

If an individual did it, they’d go to prison for counterfeiting. Here, we've created -- we've allowed it to be created by Congress -- a secret private organization that is not monitored and has no significant oversight, and they’re a government unto itself. They print money, and not only have they done this for years, but just recently with the financial crisis, they been able to bail out their buddies. You know, there are a lot of people who have gotten loans, and guarantees, they've allowed to get involved in loans to governments, and loans to other central banks, and in a way they're doing something that should only be done by treaty. They're actually having agreements with other governments. Here we are, having the Federal Reserve get involved and treaties, and they're doing it without the authority of the Constitution. The Constitution has not given any authority for a central bank, and we have been instructed to use only gold and silver as legal tender, so there's a lot of reasons why we should oppose the Fed, and it's also the reason that I’m writing a book that's coming out, it’s called End The Fed.

The Wanderer. Pope Benedict and America’s founders seem to agree that do have a society that enjoys liberty, morality is indispensable in the people. Can you restore liberty to this country without restoring morality?

Rep. Paul. No, there's no way. I think even the abortion issue is more of a moral issue than a legislative issue. I've admired Mary Cunningham Agee, she's very, very strong on pro-life, but she doesn't deal in politics. She deals in taking care of young women.

The Wanderer. When I was the pro-life faculty advisor at Boston University 20 years ago, she was very helpful in a very practical way to our efforts.

Rep. Paul. Well, she emphasizes doing something, caring for these girls and caring for the unborn. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't have laws against abortion, because it is killing, and we should do it directly under the Constitution. I became very much aware of the abortion issue in the 60s when I was studying OB/GYN. I tell the story in my little booklet on right to life that I walked into a room -- and the law was still pretty strong against abortion -- and I walked in where they were doing a hysterotomy, because the fetus was fairly large, a pound or two, and they deliver the baby, and it was still breathing and crying, and whimpering, and they put the baby in a bucket and put it in a room and pretended that they didn't hear anything. And I thought, “Wow! Isn’t this something,” but the law was against it. But they were defying the law. Society had changed -- we had the drug culture, the Vietnam culture, and the so-called desire for these abortions on demand, then the law changed. We didn't become immoral because the courts said it’s okay to do abortions, we did abortions, society endorsed abortions, so the courts were reflecting society. And I think that's an example of how you need to be a moral society. The Constitution is a great document, but the document is only dependent on the people, and dependent on the quality of the people … [even] if you have a good document, it won't change the morality of the people.

The Wanderer. Dr. Paul, I think you've been a great inspiration to millions of people. Thank you for talking to us today, and keep up your good work for the cause of liberty.

What Happened To Notre Dame? [Part Two]

Is Abortion Just Another “Issue”?

By Christopher Manion [from the Wanderer]

The more one pages through Charles Rice’s new book, “What Happened to Notre Dame,” the more Obama’s triumphal visit there last May emerges as a turning point, not only for the university, but for Catholic education and the American Catholic Church. No longer could the university pretend that the “Fighting Irish” would fight for the lives of the unborn. Instead, the event sent the message that Notre Dame had demoted abortion from the status of an intrinsic evil to just one of many increasingly obscure threads in the “seamless garment” that Obama’s favorite archbishop, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, conjured up long ago to diminish the relative importance – indeed, the horror -- of abortion in America, reducing it to a political issue that must be considered alongside many others.

Rice confronts that dialectic head-on, using the lens of Cardinal Ratzinger’s “Dictatorship of Relativism.” I wonder, do Notre Dame students read Orwell any more? Because the truth is right there in Animal Farm: in the seamless garment, “all issues are relative, but some issues are more relative than others.” Professor Rice drives the point home: “Could you possibly imagine Fr. Jenkins … honoring a public official who persistently expresses his approval of the Holocaust or legally enforced racial segregation, because of that official’s stand on the economy or health care?”

Come on, class, let’s not always see the same hands.

Relativism nonetheless has its supporters in the Church. While some eighty-three American bishops criticized Notre Dame’s decision to honor the most pro-abortion president in history, a couple of hundred were silent. Last month, one of their number, Archbishop Michael Sheehan of Santa Fe, criticized his colleagues who were critical of Father Jenkins. According to the National Catholic Reporter, “Sheehan said the Catholic community risks isolating itself from the rest of the country and that refusing to talk to a politician or refusing communion because of a difference on a single issue was counterproductive.” Archbishop Sheehan, who said he had once worked under Cardinal Bernardin, called the bishops’ criticism of Notre Dame “hysterical.”

I am grateful to Archbishop Sheehan for candidly revealing that he thinks not theologically, but politically – taking politically in its post-modernist, relativist, and reductionist sense. Abortion is reduced to a pesky “single issue” -- oppose it forthrightly and you “risk isolating yourself”! The good archbishop pretends that those 83 bishops “refuse to talk” to pro-abortion politicians, a canard that sounds pretty “hysterical” in itself (He does not complain that pro-abort politicians might not have ears to hear). But if that’s what Abp. Sheehan is against, what is he for? The Reporter again: “He said his approach – whether dealing with civic officials or church members, relied heavily on collaboration, a technique he said he learned from the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago.”

Collaboration or Cooperation?

Rice recognizes that collaboration is a dangerous road. Regarding Obama’s support of cloning, and then killing, human embryos for stem-cell research, he writes, “the experiments performed by Nazi doctors on concentration camp prisoners were unimaginative and primitive by comparison. By conferring Notre Dame’s highest honors on the national leader who is setting the stage for such an atrocity, Notre Dame’s officers acted like ‘good Germans’ who were submissive to their Führer.”

In German, they called those folks “Kollaborateur” -- collaborators. How does Archbishop Sheehan counsel us to prevent his (apparently innocuous) collaboration from becoming cooperation? He does not say.

His positivism persists: Abp. Sheehan next claims that “the majority” of bishops agree with him. Perhaps that is true. He complains: “We’d be like the Amish, you know, kind of isolated from society, if we kept pulling back because of a single issue.”

Why the Amish, Your Excellency? Why not the English martyrs?

Darn those silly little “single issues”! But not all of them: near the end of his life, Cardinal Bernardin was very concerned about the precipitous decline of voluntary financial support for the Church from the laity. Could that explain why the USCCB has turned to the government, which has given their educational, charitable, and medical institutions tens of billions in taxpayer dollars? Didn’t Cardinal Bernardin ever warn Archbishop Sheehan that the issue of money might tempt the bishops not only to collaborate, but to cooperate, with abortionists? Was government money a “single issue” that the Church just couldn’t refuse?

Bravo Bishop D’Arcy

One prelate who takes his job more seriously than money or politics is my hometown bishop, John M. D’Arcy. After Rice’s book went to press, D’Arcy penned “A pastoral reflection on the controversy at Notre Dame” for America magazine – perhaps placing it in that liberal journal to make sure that folks at Notre Dame would see it. Bishop D’Arcy gets right to the point: “Does a Catholic university have the responsibility to give witness to the Catholic faith and to the consequences of that faith by its actions and decisions—especially by a decision to confer its highest honor? If not, what is the meaning of a life of faith?”

Bishop D’Arcy finds much to applaud in the students of Notre Dame: “I attended the Baccalaureate Mass the day before graduation, for the 25th time, speaking after Holy Communion, as I always do. Then I led an evening Rosary at the Grotto with students, adults and a number of professors. We then went to a chapel [the largest, in Dillon Hall] on campus. It was packed for a whole night of prayer and Eucharistic adoration.” (By the way, Fr. Richard McBrien, Notre Dame’s notorious critic of popes past and present, recently wrote that because today’s Catholics “are so literate or even well-educated … there is little or no need for [such] extraneous Eucharistic devotions.”) About Fr. McBrien’s colleagues in the Theology Department, Bishop D’Arcy makes a stunning, possibly promising observation: “It is notable that a vast majority has been willing to seek and accept the mandatum from the local bishop [D’Arcy],” he writes.

For Bishop D’Arcy, l’affaire Notre Dame is not yet over. “I firmly believe that the board of trustees must take up its responsibility afresh, with appropriate study and prayer. They also must understand the seriousness of the present moment,” he writes. It is up to board to address “the situation that so sundered the church last spring.” Well, since Land O’Lakes, that board has been pretty proud of its independence from the hierarchy. No matter -- Bp. D’Arcy makes his role clear: “The bishop must be concerned that Catholic institutions do not succumb to the secular culture, making decisions that appear to many, including ordinary Catholics, as a surrender to a culture opposed to the truth about life and love.”

Bishop D’Arcy then puts three questions to the board of Notre Dame: “(1) Do you consider it a responsibility in your public statements, in your life as a university and in your actions, including your public awards, to give witness to the Catholic faith in all its fullness? (2) What is your relationship to the church and, specifically, to the local bishop and his pastoral authority as defined by the Second Vatican Council? (3) Finally, a more fundamental question: Where will the great Catholic universities search for a guiding light in the years ahead? Will it be the Land O’Lakes Statement or Ex Corde Ecclesiae?”

In his introduction to Rice’s book, Professor Alfred Freddoso observes that Notre Dame invited Obama thinking it “could reap the great public relations benefits of a presidential visit, once it survived what it undoubtedly expected to be a short-lived protest by the local bishop.” Clearly Notre Dame got it wrong. Those questions are not going away: Bishop D’Arcy is waiting for answers.


[Charles Rice's book is pubished by Saint Augustine's Press

What Happened To Notre Dame? [Part One]

What Happened To Notre Dame?

[a review of Charles E. Rice's new book from St. Augustine's Press]

By Christopher Manion for the Wanderer

A few weeks into Notre Dame’s Fall semester of 1949, a sleeping freshman was jostled awake by a couple of upperclassmen.

“Hey, fella,” they shouted, “hey, we just wanna know -- how did you get into Notre Dame if you’re not Catholic?”

That awakened the sleeper in a heartbeat. “Whaddya mean, ‘not Catholic,’” he retorted. “Of course I’m Catholic!”

“Then why don’t you go to Mass!” they sternly replied.

That freshman became one of our family’s best friends – and one of Notre Dame’s most passionate alumni. All his life, he attributed his profound faith and his ardent love of Holy Mother Church and our Blessed Mother to Notre Dame. For him, and for generations of the Fighting Irish, Notre Dame was the exemplar of the Catholic Faith.

But times have changed.

“What happened to Notre Dame?” I have heard that question countless times since I graduated forty years ago. A ready answer does not come easily to mind. After all, Knute Rockne, Notre Dame’s legendary football coach, used to tell my father (who started teaching there in 1919), “You should never spit on a man’s head if you’re standing on his shoulders.” And countless thousands of Notre Dame alumni undoubtedly owe their academic, their professional, and even their spiritual formation to Notre Dame. How can they criticize Notre Dame if they are “standing on its shoulders”?

Everything good about Notre Dame comes from God. For a century and more, the Holy Catholic Church and the salvation of souls was Notre Dame’s sole reason for being. By the 1960s, however, Notre Dame had grown weary of “standing on the shoulders” of the Church. Like a wayward spouse, it longed for independence, to be of the world as well as in it. Finally, with Land O’Lakes in 1967, Notre Dame filed for divorce. “For the sake of the children” (its students and alumni) and money (their financial support), it continued to project a public façade of harmony between the Church and its own secular relativism. But Notre Dame was simply trying to serve two masters, keeping up its Catholic appearances while sinking ever deeper into the mire of worldly infidelity. Last May, the flimsy façade finally came crashing down.

Hey, Wake Up!

The timing of even the most inevitable earthquake is hard to predict. But for years, Notre Dame has been poised athwart a widening chasm that makes the San Andreas Fault look like the Rock of Gibraltar. Charles E. Rice, Professor of Constitutional Law at Notre Dame since 1968, has long been a defensor fide there. His column in the campus newspaper regularly pierces the fog of faculty doubters like the siren of a Catholic Rescue Squad, racing to resuscitate victims who have been run over by hit-and-run heterodoxy. His numerous books, his Wanderer columns, and his speeches and legislative testimony have made key contributions to the intellectual and legal defense of the Culture of Life in the United States. When “Old Notre Dame” collapsed for good with Barack Obama’s commencement appearance last spring, Dr. Rice went to work. With his new book, What Happened To Notre Dame, he once more rides to the rescue.

In the introduction, Notre Dame philosophy professor Fred Feddoso succinctly explains Obama’s visit: “Both sides had much to gain. President Obama could cloak himself in the mantle of Our Lady’s university as part of an ongoing campaign to solidify his standing among those many Catholic voters for whom life issues are not very important, or at least not overriding. The university, on the other hand, could reap the great public relations benefits of a presidential visit, once it survived what it undoubtedly expected to be a short-lived protest by the local bishop, John D’Arcy of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, and a few hardcore pro-life activists.”

Ever since, both Obama and Notre Dame have struggled to stay on message: “No big deal -- just a natural meeting of a great university and a great leader. Turn the page.”

Well, not just yet. Professor Freddoso limns Notre Dame’s transition from Catholic orthodoxy to national prominence, a course that Rice examines in detail. Freddoso’s ruminations conclude that “Notre Dame is a wonderful place in many ways. [But] What it is not is a Catholic university, i.e., an institution of higher learning where the Catholic faith pervades and enriches, and is itself enriched by, the intellectual life on campus.” Freddoso concludes with the arresting description of Notre Dame as “a public school in a Catholic neighborhood.” The kids are Catholic, but the education -- what is taught in the classroom -- “has little or nothing to do with Catholicism.”

In celebrating Obama last May, University President Father John Jenkins was giddy with exultation. All that was missing was a tattoo across his forehead, proclaiming, “Fighting Irish Welcome O’Bama.” Rice zeroes in on the telling moment, early in Obama’s address, when a voice from the cheap seats shouted, “abortion is murder!” Immediately the students answered with a roar, shouting Obama’s campaign slogan (“Yes we can!”) and their favorite football cheer (“We are N. D. !!”).

How could it be that the kids from the “Catholic Neighborhood” were cheering the premier advocate of abortion in the western world? Perhaps the students were not just cheering Obama. They were cheering Father Jenkins, who had defeated their arch-rivals. And who were the bad guys? Not Michigan State or Southern Cal, but the Church, the orthodox faithful, the old alumni, and, ultimately, the Magisterium.

Notre Dame As A Lesson For Everyone

Always the master teacher, Rice examines the Obama appearance with precision. He then moves to a deeper consideration of the principles that inform Catholic education, and compares them with the conflicting assumptions and key events that have made Notre Dame “a small Purdue with a Golden Dome” that eventually collapsed into the arms of modernity with a longing for money, prestige, and worldly “success.” Over the years, Notre Dame has built a very expensive house of cards designed to serve two masters – the modern secular world of the intellectual, political, and cultural elite, on the one hand, and traditional Catholic faithful and alumni, on the other. With Obama’s appearance, those cards came tumbling down. One by one, Rice lays them face up on the table.

In one example, Rice addresses Notre Dame’s desire to be a “research university,” which brings in millions in grants, but gives the back of the hand to undergraduate education. Almost anticipating this criticism, Notre Dame broadcast an infomercial during its season opener in September touting its role “as a premier research university [that] works to pursue a cure for .. rare diseases often overlooked by mainstream science.” The irony? Right under its nose, there is a very widespread disease, all the more dangerous because it is so rarely detected – a loss of faith, a dalliance with the culture of death, a celebration of modernity, and an abandonment of the university’s responsibility to provide a Catholic education.

Rice’s book is not a polemic but a roadmap. “In its historical acceptance of its full Catholic character, including the teaching authority of the Church, Notre Dame had it all. And then walked away from it,” he concludes. The remedy? Return – not to the past, but to the timeless truths that the “Fighting Irish” used to cheer and fight and die for – the truths of the Faith, our firm defense against the dictatorship of relativism.


Christopher Manion won the Father Hesburgh Prize in 1968.

Who's On First?

From Under The Rubble

by Christopher Manion
The Wanderer, July 2, 2009

So Obama has weighed in on the removal of Honduran President Jose Manuel Zelaya Rosales by the country’s Congress and Supreme Court, and, ultimately, the Honduran army. It’s “not legal,” says Obama – but neither was Zelaya’s plan to pull a Chavez-style coup of his own. The Honduran constitution limits the president to a single term. Zelaya, elected in 2005 with 49% of the vote, wanted to defy the constitution – undoubtedly modeling himself not only on Venezuela’s Chavez, but perhaps also on our own stateside Democrats and Republicans who routinely ignore the U.S. Constitution at home and abroad. Well, Zelaya announced that, whatever the Honduran constitution says, he would run for re-election anyway. To accomplish that goal, he announced a referendum, which the country’s Supreme Court and Congress both declared illegal. He ignored them, and demanded that the army provide security for it.

Army Gen. Romeo Vasquez Velasquez refused, citing the constitution. Zelaya fired him and branded the rest of the government as “elitists.” The rest of the country’s top military commanders quit in support of General Vasquez Velasquez, and the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the general’s firing was illegal. The Honduran Congress stripped Zelaya of his presidential powers, and instead of providing security for the Sunday referendum, the army surrounded Zelaya’s house and sent him packing to Costa Rica.

Since Zelaya is a leftist, this event is popularly known as a “coup.” Were he a rightist, his removal would be hailed as “national liberation.” But let’s not quibble about vocabulary, since by now the reader might be experiencing what Bill Safire, who used to be funny, once coined as “MEGO” – “My Eyes Glaze Over.”

The average American isn’t expected to keep up on all those Latin American tinhorns, and neither is our own youthful, energetic president. Obama certainly doesn’t want to be bothered with such depth of detail without his teleprompter – after all, isn’t General Motors bigger than General what’s-his-name in Honduras anyway? But we can all rest assured that our State Department, under the seasoned hand of Hillary, has everything under control – right?

Well, as one Foreign Service lifer used to answer every question, “only up to a point.” And how we arrived at that point – that is, history – is worth looking at. Let’s start with the last eight years.

The Seven Lean Years

In attempting by force to enkindle the “natural democratic spirit” in Middle Eastern Islamic societies after 9-11, the Bush Administration missed a golden opportunity to solidify the still fragile, America-friendly democracies in Latin America. In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan had managed to clean up after Jimmy Carter and nurture that continent’s move away from dictatorship while directing the final, triumphant conduct of the Cold War leading to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

A historic feat indeed. Alas, the Bush years were different. In fact, the contrast with the Reagan years could not be more stark, nor the consequences more dire. Latin America has for years been a foreign policy backwater, attracting sentimental leftists to academic and government posts dealing with the area. The tough assignments were Russia, Asia (primarily China), and the Middle East, and Europe. Regarding Latin America, Bush’s first Secretary of State, Colin Powell, didn’t have a chance. After a long battle, he lost control of foreign policy to the neocons. They then damaged him beyond repair by feeding him disinformation regarding Iraq and WMD that Powell repeated in public testimony before the U.N. Security Council. Dismayed and discredited, Powell finally left office.

Colin Powell was succeeded by Condi Rice, Bush’s National Security Advisor. Rice was undoubtedly well-intentioned, but she was simply inept. Nonetheless, President Bush valued her highly, as he did his other gentle protectors, Karen Hughes and Harriet Miers, whose support he relied on most during the years that Dick Cheney ran the executive branch and foreign policy as the most powerful vice-president in history.

While the Bush Administration studiously ignored our neighbors to the south, China’s top leaders treated Latin America like their backyard, sealing long-term economic and political deals, encouraging leftists and anti-Americans of every stripe, and simply outclassing their American counterparts. During the Bush years, U.S. officials appeared to be merely bewildered as Latin America veered ever more leftward. With Obama, that momentum will now be facilitated by Hillary’s State Department and the Senate veteran Chris Dodd, who has steered Latin American policy to the left for the Democrats there for almost 30 years.

A Whiff Of An Empty Bottle

Dr. Erik von Kuehneldt-Leddihn was a conservative original. He traveled the world, lecturing six months out of every year, spending the other months studying at his home in the Austrian Tirol. He knew a dozen languages and was always busy learning another one (“I have to go upstairs and study Japanese,” he said on one of his last visits, as he finished breakfast). Dr. von Kuehneldt-Leddihn was “an expert on everything, including expertise,” one wag fondly observed, and Leftism, his magnum opus, still stands as a true work of genius.

He once told me about a short story he had written (I’ve never been able to find it – he published it under a pseudonym, and in an obscure journal) -- in the late 1940s. He referred to it on several occasions to illustrate the inevitable decline of a culture, or even a civilization, once its central core of truth is abandoned.

The final scene is unforgettable. A young man has become a revolutionary. His father, a weak-kneed Lutheran minister, tried to restrain his son with reminders of the civic virtues, admonishing him to avoid extremes – all typical of the plaintive liberal weakling. The son, fed up with his father’s vacillations between progressivism and propriety, finally erupts. He points to the portrait hanging over his father’s desk. It depicts his grandfather, whom his father reveres – who was all his life a staunch and devoted Lutheran minister.

“He believed in something,” the son shouts, pointing to his grandfather. “He had principles, he had faith, he had courage, he had convictions. But you – (here his father cringes) – you -- you are living off the whiff of an empty bottle!”

I was reminded of Dr. von Kuehneldt-Leddihn’s young revolutionary by Hilaire Belloc’s description of William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury under Charles I. Laud came to power as “the leader of and representative of those who feared and disliked Puritanism as a moral disease.” Laud had “sympathy” with all things Catholic – images, Our Lady, the Sacraments, even the Eucharist. But he and his cohorts “remained (though they would not have admitted it) thoroughly anti-Catholic, because they rejected that one part of Catholic doctrine which is its essential -- the combination of unity and authority. The unity of the visible Church and its invincible authority were repugnant to their growing nationalism, and those who preserved such an attitude of mind were just as much the enemies of Catholicism as the most rabid Puritan could be, or the most complete agnostic.”

As we survey the cultural wreckage around us, and hear platitudes about “human rights” (the homosexual slogan) and “I am personally opposed to abortion but…” – we see everywhere a dying body politic. But the whiff of an empty bottle cannot revive it. Only the Truth – Christ crucified, who unites us while platitudes and perversion divide and destroy us – can save us. Loyalty to Christ, to his Vicar on earth, and to the unity he represents is the true hope of the world.

Another Battleground

From Under The Rubble

by Christopher Manion
The Wanderer, July 2, 2009

During the early days of the Reagan administration in 1981, Guatemala was living through one of its more chaotic moments. The country’s military waged pitched battles with armed Marxist-Leninist terrorists throughout the country. Cardinal Mario Casariego, Archbishop of Guatemala City, was candid regarding the number of Catholic priests who supported the revolutionaries. There were quite a few of them, he told me – disobedient, passionate, and harmful to the Catholic Church as well as to the country.

The Cardinal’s observation came to mind when I was given a briefing by the U.S. embassy staff in Guatemala City. This "country team” meeting involved in-depth presentations by all the senior embassy officials -- perhaps ten in all. As they surveyed the economic, political, agricultural, and military disasters besetting the country, they never mentioned religion, much less the Church.

When they were finished, I asked a simple question: "I understand there are many American protestant missionaries here in the country. Have any of them come to you and said something along these lines: "Please tell the military government that our church doesn't preach politics like the Catholics, we only teach the Bible."

“Oh, yes!” came the answer -- from virtually everybody around the conference table, almost in unison. Then there was a moment of silence as they all stared at one another. Apparently, every one of them had heard similar complaints from American protestant missionaries in Guatemala – they were afraid that the military government classified all American missionaries as leftists, just because so many Catholics were. These non-Catholic missionaries -- primarily independent Evangelicals and Baptists – were all over the country, including some remote village areas that were often controlled by the terrorists. They didn't want the military to think that they were terrorist supporters -- "like those Catholics."

What surprised me most was how ignorant our State Department officials were. Every one of these "experts" at that briefing had heard the same complaints from Americans in Guatemala, but had never bothered to report them or even to discuss them with each other. As far as religion goes, they were clueless -- like most secular government types then and now. Furthermore, most of them were liberals, if not socialists, and they probably thought that, for all they knew, Liberation Theology represented progress for Latin America.

Well, it certainly didn’t represent progress for the Catholic Church there. Evangelical missionaries from the United States roundly denounced the Catholic Church. Like the Liberation Theologians, they attacked it as a backward institution that kept the people poor. Like their American sponsors, they preached “the Gospel of Prosperity,” promising Latin Americans that “God wants you to be rich.” Jimmy Swaggart packed them in, 90,000 people a night, at the soccer stadium in Lima, Peru.

Most of these American evangelical missionaries were supported by individual, independent congregations throughout the United States. Those churches tithed religiously and made their foreign missions a highlight of their activities. Their missions built schools, medical clinics, and orphanages, and also provided a good number of volunteers from the congregation for several weeks a year to work on those projects.

Unfortunately, leaving the Church has not helped Guatemalans achieve either peace or prosperity. A friend there tells me that gangs, kidnappings, and murder now abound. He’s been there since I first visited in 1959, and he’s never seen it worse. People are looking to get out, either to Spain, or to the U.S.

The Theology of Reconciliation

Liberation Theology was popular among the Latin American left for political, not religious reasons. “Human rights” advocates in the United States would criticize only governments, not the revolutionaries who terrorized their countries. Politically, the terrorists got a free ride in Congress: the domestic Left relentlessly attacked President Reagan’s policies, often employing religious language and stooges. Not surprisingly, the culturally illiterate State Department officials were pathetic, and always on the defensive.

That was not the case with the Latin American Church. Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo of Colombia became known and beloved by American Catholics in the 1990s because of his heroic efforts on behalf of the family. But in the 1980s, as secretary and then president of the Latin American Bishops Conference (CELAM), he championed “the Theology of Reconciliation,” an authentic antidote to Liberation Theology based on man’s true liberation from sin in Christ, rather than in ideology and revolution. Cardinal Lopez Trujillo was never fooled by the religious trappings of liberation theology – he knew from long years of study and experience that it represented the Marxist theory of class warfare, which he knew would destroy Latin American culture.

Pope John Paul II made over 100 international trips during his pontificate, but the very first was to the meeting in Puebla, Mexico, in January 1979 – arranged by then-Archbishop Lopez Trujillo. Puebla lay the important groundwork for the Church’s response to Liberation Theology for the next 25 years.(Incidentally, the principal advocate of liberation theology, both at the preparations for the meeting in Puebla and throughout the 1980s, was Father Gustavo Gutierrez, O.P., who now serves as the Cardinal O’Hara Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame.)

A Two-Front Battle

For 40 years, the Catholic Church in Guatemala (like its sister churches throughout the hemisphere) has fought on two fronts: first, against the "liberationists," and second, against the "sects" -- the fundamentalists. Unfortunately, a recent report from the Catholic News Agency (CNA) indicates that the battle is far from over – that the Catholic Church in Guatemala is seriously threatened by the growth of Evangelical sects that try to win converts with offers of money, jobs, and other material goods:

“Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), a Catholic Charity that works with oppressed and suffering Christians throughout the world, found that half of the people of Guatemala are now Evangelical, and new churches are appearing rapidly,” says the report, which actually describes a steady process that took over 30 years. The report details allegations that the fundamentalists’ recruitment efforts include outright payments and even bribes, which may be true; but the most powerful attraction of the “sects” is their focus on the Bible, and the stress they place on economic advancement as part of their evangelization.

Our own bishops confront similar problems -- again, on two fronts. First, we have our own Liberation Theology -- the "parallel Catholic Church" applauded by Obama at Notre Dame – that is advocated by Catholic university faculties and the staff of the USCCB. Second, a detailed study by the Pew Charitable Trust reports that ten percent of American evangelicals are former Catholics. Of course, some of those defections can undoubtedly be attributed to Catholics who disagreed with the moral teachings of the church and who left in search of friendlier pulpits. But as Wanderer readers know all too well, there are other very plausible reasons, too many to number, for this sad exodus.

The U.S. Church also confronts the Latin American dilemma. The millions of Hispanic immigrants, legal and illegal, in the United States undoubtedly comprise millions of former Catholics who are now members of fundamentalist churches. Like their brother bishops in Guatemala, our bishops naturally want to keep the Catholic faithful from jumping ship. While we might differ with their chosen means – supporting amnesty for illegal aliens, and advocating a left-wing political agenda in Washington – the laity should certainly do all it can to help our bishops and priests bring wavering Hispanics back to the fullness of the faith.

Perhaps we can start with Sonia Sotomayor.

No Way To Treat A Laity

From Under the Rubble

The Wanderer, p.3
June 18, 2009

In this “age of the laity,” the laity that the USCCB bureaucracy pays attention to features Chris Dodd, John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Pat Leahy, and Nancy Pelosi. Now Barack Obama, has taken the lead, brandishing his newly-minted Fighting Irish imprimatur and adroitly evading moral absolutes as he preaches the same political agenda that the USCCB has embraced for years.

Obama’s speech at Notre Dame was a clarion call for pro-abortion “Catholics” to stand up and fight for the heresy that Pope Benedict has called “the dictatorship of relativism.” That effort requires a sly semantic two-step -- first, reductionism: equate the importance of the paramount life issues of abortion, stem-cell research, and contraception to the “social justice” issues like those found in the platform of the Democratic Party. This approach echoes the “seamless garment” sleight-of-hand promulgated by Obama’s favorite bishop ever, Joseph Cardinal Bernardin.

The second step is pragmatism: we must (ahem, regrettably) admit that we are not within practical reach of reversing Roe v. Wade, passing a Human Life Bill, or adopting a Human Life Amendment to the Constitution. Therefore, we must find “common ground,” without alienating those pro-abortion politicians whose cooperation and support is so critical to the successful expansion of our “seamless garment” goals. Now, those same pro-abortion politicians are all supporters of “gay rights” as well. They are busily cooking up “hate crimes” bills that might outlaw the preaching of Catholic moral teaching altogether, as like-minded leftists have already done in Canada and England.

Many bishops have taken a firm stand of late in defense of traditional marriage, but some apparently find it difficult to take the next step and preach Humanae Vitae, even though Paul VI prophetically predicted the evils that are ravaging our culture today. These sinful indulgences are advocated in the public schools and celebrated on once-Catholic university campuses. They permeate the entire popular culture, and represent nothing less than a brazen and virtually unopposed frontal attack on the Catholic Church.

Models Of Perfection

On June third, we celebrated the Feast of Saint Charles Lwanga and companions, who were brutally executed by Ugandan King Mwanga on June 3, 1886. King Mwanga, a homosexual, hated Christians. Charles Lwanga was a lowly page in the court of the King, but he and his companions bravely rejected the King’s advances. The irate King ordered savage executions for the boys, all of whom chose to die for their Faith. Their heroism so impressed Pope Paul VI that he canonized the Ugandan Martyrs in 1964, then traveled to Uganda to in 1969 to break ground for a Basilica to be built on the site of St. Charles Lwanga’s execution.

On that occasion, Pope Paul VI said, “Who could have predicted to the famous African confessors and martyrs such as Cyprian, Felicity, Perpetua and – the greatest of all – Augustine, that we would one day add names so dear to us as Charles Lwanga and Matthias Mulumba Kalemba and their twenty companions?… The infamous crime by which these young men were put to death was so unspeakable and so expressive of the times. It shows us clearly that a new people needs a moral foundation, needs new spiritual customs firmly planted, and to be handed down to posterity.”

Holy Mother Church is so devoted to the memory of these valiant young men that Pope John Paul II made a pilgrimage to the basilica in 1993. All Uganda reveres them every year on June 3, which is now a national holiday there.

Like many homosexuals today, King Mwanga hated the Catholic Church. Yet Popes Paul VI and John Paul II underscored the heroic witness of the Ugandan martyrs to the truth of Catholic moral teaching in defiance of the king’s hatred that he inflicted with such brutality. Today, as we watch one “Catholic” state after another ratify some sort of officially-recognized homosexual consortium, Saint Charles Lwanga and his companions might be admirable models for our prayerful advocacy of moral foundations and spiritual customs based on the truths of the Catholic Faith.

Pope Paul VI visit to Uganda came less than a year after he had promulgated Humanae Vitae. He clearly recognized the fearless heroism required to defend moral teaching in the face of a decadent culture backed by a vile and powerful ruler. Today, in our midst, the battle is on. Saint Charles Lwanga and companions, pray for us!

Abortion Is Child Abuse

The Catholic Church teaches that abortion is an intrinsic evil, but a lot of Americans don’t think we really mean it. A majority of Catholics -- and possibly even of our bishops -- apparently voted for Obama, and today many “Catholics” willingly serve and support the most pro-death administration in American history. How can we restore the unity of the faithful that prevailed among our ancestors just 100 years ago -- when virtually everyone (and not only Catholics) considered abortion to be murder?

Christ prayed “that all may be one,” (John 17:22), but today the sheep are scattered indeed. In recent months, many of our bishops have bravely confronted the Culture of Death in the political sphere. At their upcoming meeting on the weekend of June 17-19, they have two opportunities to make further progress.

First: In 2008, when employees of Catholic Charities of Richmond, Virginia, procured an abortion for a minor under their care, neither Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo nor the director of Catholic Charities reported the incident to the Safe Environment Director in the Chancery. The lawyer for the diocese justified such secrecy, insisting that abortion is simply not considered either child abuse or murder by the Diocese of Richmond.

At their meeting this month, the bishops should take their cue from Bishop DiLorenzo. They should amend the definition of "abuse" in their 2002 Dallas “Charter For the Protection of Children and Young People” to include “abortion, or the procurement of an abortion for a pregnant minor.” It may seem like a no-brainer, but believe me, the bureaucrats, lawyers and insurance companies will scream bloody murder if the USCCB even discusses the issue in public.

But wait, there’s more: Bishop DiLorenzo fired four employees after this incident, but required them to sign nondisclosure agreements or lose their severance pay. This cover-up, was paid for with the money of the faithful to keep from the faithful facts they deserved to know. Such deceit was a central ingredient of the scandals for decades – but today it is also a direct violation of article VII of the Dallas Charter, which requires – which demands -- transparency.

Is there any worse occasion of "child abuse" than the murder of the defenseless child in the womb? The bishops should act swiftly.

Second: another no-brainer. the bishops should amend the Charter to reverse their decision in Dallas to exempt themselves from its provisions. In 2002, the bishops acknowledged that they had lost the credibility of the faithful because of the clerical sex abuse scandals. Cardinal Avery Dulles warned them that their Charter would alienate them from their priests. You could see them on EWTN, furtively glancing at the cameras as they voted to amend the definition of “cleric” to exclude bishops.

Unfortunately, that same approach has also alienated many of our bishops not only from their priests, but from the laity. In 2002, the bishops thought they could sweep it all under the rug and “put the scandals behind them.” Today we know all to well the damage wrought by that approach.