Follow-up: The professor and me, and the Catholic cultural divide

(Please go to this post, to get the first part of the story.)

A few hours after I hit the "publish" button, I received an email from the professor. He was not yet aware of my blog post and was quite friendly (a huge turnaround from his last email), even as he reminded me that my view of the "truth" (translation: what the Church teaches!) has led me to disrespect anyone who deviates from that "truth". 

He spoke of Jesus, and doing unto others as you would have them do unto you. And he asked that I not judge Fr. Hesburgh on one "single issue", but recognize that he had taken an unremarkable Notre Dame and built it into a great university.

There was more gentle correction and talk of common ground, and then he concluded by asking me not to blog about our conversation.

I sent a friendly response, telling him that I had already posted about our conversation just that morning. I assured him that I was hopeful to continue our conversation, and that many, many people care deeply about what has happened to Catholic universities in America, specifically in terms of orthodoxy (or lack thereof). I explained that my main point in publishing the post was to introduce my readers to the Land O'Lakes disaster. I lamented the ignorance of the average Catholic these days (something I figured we both could agree on), and I pointed out that the Vatican itself had worked to undo the immense damage caused by Fr. Hesburgh's actions.

I wished him a good New Year.

His response was to cut me off cold, after expressing his disappointment that I had published the post.

I understand that the professor took this very personally. But what the professor doesn't understand is that this is not about him. He is merely representative of hundreds of professors and administrators at scores of Catholic universities -- universities that have shed the heart of their Catholic identity while conveniently keeping the name. All in accord with Fr. Theodore Hesburgh's Land O'Lakes rebellion.


The professor said that I should not judge Fr. Hesburgh on one issue.


??? 


The very reason Fr. Hesburgh is beloved in academia is the very thing that the professor wants me to overlook. The celebrated "ascendency" of Notre Dame began when Fr. Hesburgh orchestrated its autonomy from Church authority. Are we to understand that a university becomes more great when it becomes less Catholic? That's a lot for the Catholic faithful to swallow. As I've said, the Catholic universities in America, with a few refreshing exceptions, have sold their souls for thirty pieces of silver, and they cannot (will not?) see it. 

This is a cultural divide, not an intellectual one. And it's a divide of which the professor and his colleagues seem utterly unaware. I gained a clearer understanding of this divide when I read Joseph Bottum's analysis of the Notre Dame/Obama scandal (First Things) and his discussion of "the great divergence in outlook and purpose between Catholic universities and the Catholic population of America."


This sad cultural divide was confirmed for me in my exchanges with the professor, as I did not hear even an acknowledgement of the catastrophe that befell my generation of Catholics, how we were robbed of our patrimony, our religious inheritance, our authentic faith. Could the professor truly not be aware of the indignation and frustration that's out here and growing, especially as more and more Catholics awaken to the truths of the Faith that were withheld from them? What can we say of the myriad Catholic professors who do indeed teach the "official Catholic position", but present it only as one more option (and not even the best option) alongside a rainbow of dissenting views? 


The same day I posted about the professor, I saw a comment from a woman who read my story and told her friend: "Her story is so very much like mine. The details differ; but the broad outline is very much the same.... I'm still struggling with so much baggage from all that I was never taught." Her struggle is common, but those chiefly responsible have yet to acknowledge their neglect, which has now affected two generations.


It's true that I'd never heard of Fr. Hesburgh before our exchange, but I've done plenty of reading about him in the past few days. I found an interesting reflection by a heartbroken 1953 graduate of Notre Dame University, a medical doctor who loved (and still loves) Fr. Hesburgh. The doctor uses Hamlet as an allegory for the Church today, specifically the American Catholic university. He entitled his post: "Hesburgh, Prince of Notre Dame: A Tragedy":  

“To be” is to return to the orthodoxy of the Magisterium. No more “secondary” or “alternative magisterium.” No more “autonomy” from Catholic authority claimed by the Land O’ Lakes Statement in 1967. Fr. Hesburgh, whom I love, brokered this. In doing so he lept back eighteen centuries to the renowned theologian Tertullian who after a lifetime of great work besmirched it in his dotage.

I'll let Chesterton get the last word:

It is quaint that people talk of separating dogma from education. Dogma is actually the only thing that cannot be separated from education. It is education. A teacher who is not dogmatic is simply a teacher who is not teaching.

G. K. Chesterton (What’s Wrong with the World)