Tag Archive for: Commentary

The mere fact that the laudatory, even triumphal, documentary Hesburgh will enjoy a limited release in theaters beginning today would no doubt have been deeply satisfying to the late Holy Cross Father Theodore Hesburgh, who led the University of Notre Dame (1952-1987) to enormous growth and prestige.

From beginning to end, the film makes the obvious point that Father Hesburgh was important and accomplished much on a human scale. Notre Dame’s enrollment, public reputation, academic standing, physical campus and donor support all improved considerably under his leadership.

He was also an influential leader on some of the most important issues of his time, especially civil rights for African Americans. The film’s images include a myriad of leaders — popes, U.S. presidents, celebrities and others — with whom Father Hesburgh associated, collaborated and sometimes clashed.

But the documentary largely glosses over important questions about Father Hesburgh’s thinking and impact and his conflicts with Church leaders, doctrine and the mission of Catholic education. It simply reports — without any real analysis and in a decidedly favorable way — his leadership in crafting the Land O’ Lakes Statement that declared the independence of Catholic colleges from the bishops and magisterium of the Church, his legal separation of the university from the Holy Cross order (thus increasing his own independence from religious superiors), his embrace of a radicalized “academic freedom” in the manner of modern research universities, and his delight in Notre Dame’s 2009 commencement honors for pro-abortion President Barack Obama.

Even while the film champions Father Hesburgh’s determination to engage with all viewpoints, the filmmakers shy away from any serious examination of charges that he had in some ways betrayed the Church and the mission of Catholic education. It’s not even acknowledged that 83 Catholic bishops publicly opposed the Obama honors.

The film also fails to address the morally serious concern that Father Hesburgh, through his work with the Rockefeller Foundation, and together with his Notre Dame colleagues, quietly advanced a population control and family planning agenda. Or that he relied on Father Richard McBrien to reform the Notre Dame theology department as a center of liberal theology. Or that, when Cardinal John O’Connor of New York publicly scolded New York politicians, Gov. Mario Cuomo and congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro, both Catholics, for their public advocacy of abortion rights, Father Hesburgh welcomed the New York governor to Notre Dame for a landmark speech that claimed a “latitude in judgment” within Catholic teaching that permits a Catholic to privately hold that abortion is unjust killing while publicly championing laws that keep it legal, out of respect for others who disagree with our beliefs. These facts, highly relevant to Father Hesburgh’s pursuit of a “great Catholic university,” are simply ignored in more than two hours of film.

Rather, the documentary features multiple tributes from mostly “progressive Catholics” who include former students and colleagues at Notre Dame, writers from the National Catholic Reporter, and even House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. It all has the feel and the gloss of an episode of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Viewers are invited to indulge in awe and envy.

‘A Great Catholic University’

A deeper and more honest assessment would have acknowledged that Father Hesburgh’s legacy is complicated and has in fact done significant damage to the university that he strove to build and to the Church in the United States to which he gave his life in service.

Father Hesburgh was driven to transform Notre Dame into a “great Catholic university” built on human “excellence,” as the film mentions briefly. But how that pursuit evolved over his 35 years at the helm of Notre Dame — and influenced subsequent University leaders — is far better explained in the new biography, American Priest: The Ambitious Life and Conflicted Legacy of Notre Dame’s Father Ted Hesburgh (Image, 2019) by Holy Cross Father Wilson Miscamble. Father Miscamble has taught at Notre Dame for more than 30 years and is a vocal advocate for restoring what he and many perceive as Notre Dame’s lost Catholic identity, and so he searches for clues to why that identity slipped under Father Hesburgh’s leadership. But as a serious historian, he also is careful to report facts objectively and thoroughly.

For instance, Father Miscamble provides the surprising revelation that during Father Hesburgh’s first term in the 1950s, he publicly embraced a vision of Catholic higher education that resembled Blessed John Henry Newman’s Idea of a University. Nevertheless, Father Hesburgh’s actual emphasis in building up Notre Dame was on raising funds, building Notre Dame’s reputation through association with prominent academic and public figures, and transforming the university in the image of the secular research institution.

According to Father Miscamble, Father Hesburgh gave very little attention to ensuring an integrated Catholic curriculum and a faithfully Catholic faculty — resulting in a dramatic slide toward secular education that continues today.

Father Miscamble’s biography portrays a priest who had incredible natural leadership abilities but failed to rely on God’s grace and the Church’s timeless wisdom. It would have been a truly remarkable witness for Father Hesburgh to have brought Notre Dame to greater acclaim while also amplifying the university’s Catholic identity. After all, if the Catholic faith really is transcendental — true, beautiful and good — then doesn’t it have the power to attract?

Instead, Father Hesburgh’s career as president appears to have been an exercise of misplaced pride in human achievement, especially his own capabilities, and greater faith in state and secular institutions than the goodness of the Church.

Father Hesburgh was a prayerful priest who celebrated Mass daily and had a devotion to Mary, yet in his presidency he had this air of “going it alone” and failing to appreciate Catholic education as fundamentally an encounter with Christ.

In Hesburgh, he states plainly, “There had to be a way to balance faith and academics” — as if the two are in conflict. Again, he asks: “Was it possible to be both a great university and Catholic? I believed it was as long as there was balance.”

Because of his failure to acknowledge the Catholic faith as truth that is fundamental, not opposed, to the academic enterprise, Father Hesburgh’s impressive human achievements have today resulted in the sort of unintended confusion and lack of structural integrity that befell the builders at Babel.

Perhaps without intending to, director Patrick Creadon highlights Father Hesburgh’s unsettling certainty of the wisdom of his actions and opinions — even those in opposition to the Church — by including a voice-over by actor Maurice LaMarche, who pretends to be Father Hesburgh recounting his own tale using actual quotes from Hesburgh’s writings and recordings. The device is awkward for a film that is something of a congratulatory eulogy for the priest, who died in 2015. Right or wrong, LaMarche’s tone makes Father Hesburgh seem rather smug.

I am rather sure the makers of Hesburgh would not agree with Father Miscamble’s assessment of Father Hesburgh’s legacy, but at least an assessment is made in American Priest. In the documentary, there is no movement beyond the Hesburgh “hagiography” (a term suggested by Father Miscamble) that seems to prevail within the Notre Dame community.

Clearly Father Theodore Hesburgh had enormous influence across the Church and U.S. society. His choices had real consequences for Notre Dame and Catholic education nationwide.

While Hesburgh presents an intriguing look at the many important activities of an important man, his legacy is left to more serious biographers like Father Miscamble to straighten out.

This article was first published at The National Catholic Register.

Faithful Catholic education is under attack. And since we just celebrated Catholic Schools Week, it’s a great time to launch a counter-offensive that goes beyond clichéd cheerleading for lukewarm schools.

Consider what has occurred over just the last few weeks: First, leftist activists pilloried Second Lady Karen Pence for volunteering at an evangelical Christian school—one that upholds the same standards for teachers that Catholic schools should embrace, when they are courageous enough to insist on the moral formation of their students and the consistent witness of every teacher.

Among the critics was a professor who taught 10 years at the Catholic Dominican University in Illinois. He used the controversy to target not only Pence’s school but all religious schools and colleges with moral standards for employees, calling them “anti-American.” He argued that “no one, anywhere, ever, should risk employment because of who they love or what consensual activities they choose to engage in with other adults.”

Except that such behavior is an example to kids. And if Catholic schools want to claim that teachers are “ministers of the faith” under law—as they should—then pervasive sin ought to be a disqualifier.

Then, as we all witnessed ad nauseum, the media piled on Nick Sandmann and his fellow pro-life students from Covington Catholic School, before realizing that a widely circulated video actually shows that the boys were the victims of an aggressive and hateful confrontation while waiting for their bus home to Kentucky. It’s not the error that was most offensive. It’s the vitriol with which the media quickly turned on pro-life Catholic kids. (Sure, the MAGA hats drew fire too, but I’m convinced that Catholic identity added fuel to the fire.)

To cap it all off, New York Times reporter Dan Levin jumped on the bandwagon and announced plans to write about the social media campaign #ExposeChristianSchools, which was launched as an attack on religious education. I suspect that the Times intended to accumulate allegations of discrimination—especially in the realm of sexuality and gender—but in fact Levin received a flood of very positive reports from Catholic and others defending and celebrating their schools.

Give Your Testimony

So what’s a good Catholic to do about the growing animus toward our faith and Catholic schools? The response to the New York Times project, which resulted in a biased article that could have been much worse had Christians not intervened, suggests a counter-measure. For Catholic Schools Week and throughout the year, let’s keep highlighting the best of the best Catholic education.

To be clear, I’m not particularly interested in the broad marketing messages for Catholic schools that have poured out this week. Although it’s encouraging that our dioceses increasingly promote Catholic identity and are not shy about the mission of Catholic education, nevertheless they are unable to distinguish lukewarm Catholic schools from those that inspire and excite faithful Catholic families.

What would truly be exciting—and what would truly stand up to the anti-Catholic bigots who look to tear down or at least water down Catholic education—is for Catholics to witness to the impact of those Catholic educators who are extraordinary. I mean they are not just great with kids, but they truly lead young people to sainthood.

I’m biased in this project, because for many years The Cardinal Newman Society has been devoted to publicly recognizing model Catholic schools and colleges by our Catholic Education Honor Roll and Newman Guide. This week and every week, my staff already works hard to make Catholic families aware of truly faithful Catholic education—and not just the brick-and-mortar institutions, but also the great blessing of homeschooling to many Catholic students.

But the most powerful testimonials are the personal stories from students, parents, alumni and teachers. Those we can’t produce on our own, but we’re eager to re-tell what others can share.

The truth is, despite the growing secularism that corrupts many Catholic institutions, there is also a renewal of faithful Catholic education that is underway in many homes, schools and dioceses. Instead of cowering before the critics and subversives who hate Catholic moral formation, parents and Catholic educators are taking up the front lines, standing firmly and confidently in the truth of our Catholic faith.

It’s stories of truly faithful Catholic education that others need to hear. Because given the scandals at even the highest levels of the Church, I’m not sure that many Catholics believe the good news when we report it.

Families Need Hope

Think about it: most Catholic adults today have never experienced faithful Catholic education as it should be. We’ve done a poor job of catechesis over the last few decades, and many of today’s adults experienced the post-Vatican II meltdown of schools and their presiding religious orders, followed by the rapid hiring of laypeople who didn’t belong in a Catholic classroom. The rapidly declining enrollment in Catholic schools—which still has not leveled off—means that an increasing portion of Catholics never had even a year or two of weak Catholic education. And of course there’s the shameful secularization of many Catholic colleges since the late 1960s.

We might be tempted to conclude that the era of Catholic education is over in the United States. However, a renewal of faithful Catholic education is key to the renewal of the Church and society—to increased vocations and holy priests, well-formed parents and citizens, doctrinal literacy and fidelity, appreciation for Catholic culture and liturgical beauty, and ability to reason with compassion and respect for the common good. Giving up hope for Catholic education is, in my view, giving up on our youth.

In a time when even celebrated priests and once-admired bishops have let us down, it’s all the more difficult to persuade families of the necessity of sainthood—and the value of forming young people for sainthood. But such formation is the vocation of Catholic parents.

By the Grace of God, there are today young people who have been blessed by truly faithful Catholic education. We need to hear from them… to learn from them.

So, if you can testify to the renewal of faithful Catholic education, please tell your story. Find an outlet: a local newspaper, a Catholic blog, a parish lecture, a letter to your niece. Use the hashtag #FaithfulCatholicEd to share your story on social media—it’s wonderful how many Americans have interrupted this anti-Christian campaign with beautiful stories of faithful religious education. Share your story with me at the Newman Society (president@cardinalnewmansociety.org), and it may help us make a stronger case.

Catholic families need good reason to return to Catholic education and reject hollow secular education. The testimony of those who have been blessed by faithful education is key to bringing them back.

But marketing lukewarm schools and scandalous colleges with state-of-the-art facilities and exorbitant tuitions just won’t cut it.

This article was originally published on January 31, 2019 at the National Catholic Register.