By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK
In the January 15 issue of First Teachers, we published portions of a letter from John Lyon to the administration at the University of Notre Dame, questioning the university’s decision to create a student organization designed, writes Lyon, “to provide peer- to-peer support, direct service opportunities, and friendship” for homosexual students, along with “the creation of a committee to advise the Vice President for Student Affairs on relevant matters, and the hiring of a full-time Student Development Professional in this area.” Lyon is an alumnus of the Notre Dame and a retired professor and university administrator with many years of experience.
Lyon protested that a Catholic university has a responsibility to keep its Catholic identity front and center in this matter, that it “would seem incumbent on the University administration to issue with some immediacy an unequivocal statement of support for the Church’s traditional and regularly iterated position on homosexuality.” And that, if it fails to do so, “the university will not only lose face . . . it will lose its identity and thereby what remains of its credibility.”
T.W.V., a retired physician from Minnesota, writes to comment upon this matter. “Excellent letter from John Lyon. Will it be helpful? I doubt it. Every now and then a professor from the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota sends a letter opposing secular activity on that campus. Is it helpful? I doubt it. These letters do not make these institutions Catholic. I’m willing to say we have lost the battle unless Catholic leadership, archdiocesan hierarchy, clergy, USCCB, etc., condemn publicly the secular progression at these institutions. That is not likely to occur. These institutions believe stained-glass windows and a chapel make them Catholic and Catholic leadership and the clergy encourage this charade.”
We also received a letter on this topic from Fr. B.F., a missionary priest recently returned from his overseas assignment and a Notre Dame alumnus from the 1940s. He maintains that at a Catholic university “the teacher should strive to lead his or her students to excellence in their secular studies, but must first of all lead them lead them to a more enlightened and fervent life of faith.”
Fr. B.F. expands upon this point. He reports he has no objection to a Catholic university inviting outside “secular-agnostic speakers” to give lectures to the student body, “as long as they are respectable scholars in their field, and as long as the university makes sure that someone from the university is present at the lecture to make clear when the presentation touches upon matters of faith and morals not acceptable to the Catholic Church. But a Catholic university should not hire agnostics and atheists, who may be acceptable as guest lecturers, to become members of the faculty and teachers of our young. The Sycamore Society, a group of Notre Dame alumni, is trying to bring the school back to its Catholic roots.”
Fr. B.F. applauds this effort. “Prospective students should be made aware of this goal of the university. If they do to want to attend a school devoted to a Catholic identity, they should not apply for admission.”
Another reader, D.M., writes to comment upon the January 22 edition of First Teachers, which centered on syndicated columnist Joseph Farah’s criticism of Pope Francis for his willingness to accept the theory of evolution. D.M. raises some intriguing questions on this matter. He writes that “the column was of special interest to me because for the last 35 years I have enjoyed reading and thinking about the subject of creation and I have attended lectures on the subject, to include one by none other than Dr. Stephen Jay Gould. I don’t want to take sides or attack the Pope, Mr. Farah, or you.
“But I would like to offer the following thoughts: That first sin by that first human, condemned all of mankind, billions of people, and thus required God to become man and die to save us from our sins. It is difficult for me to comprehend the magnitude of those concepts. Just think, that first sin must not have been simply a matter of the first humans misbehaving. We know God is a just God. Would a just God condemn all of humanity and send His Son to die as a human to solve the matter, just because some prehistoric creature somewhere misbehaved? No! I believe those first humans were Adam and Eve, and they knew God personally. They were created perfect and sinless, and could know Him. Therefore, knowing God and hearing His commands infinitely magnified their sin. That to me is the key to Genesis. That is why God became man and died for out sins.”
D.M. continues: “Since the above concepts are the foundation of Christianity, I for one believe that the Holy Spirit ensured that the account in Genesis of Adam and Eve is absolutely accurate. Understanding this concept of original sin is of great importance. For example, it explains the need for Our Blessed Mother to have been immaculately conceived.”
On another topic: the ongoing interest in the Obama administration’s proposed education reform, Common Core. Fr. U.P. from New Mexico, who describes himself as a “faithful reader of The Wanderer, because of the serious and true comment” it offers on “the various crises in thought that we face at the present time,” writes to express his disappointment over First Teachers’ call for nothing more than “readers’ opinions about Common Core.” Fr. U.P. requests more: “Some serious comment by writers for The Wanderer,” analyzing how Common Core “is going to bring our education system from near last in performance among developed countries back toward the top of the scale again, as its proponents claim.”
Fr. U.P. urges us to specifically “spell out what is wrong with it.” He recommends as a starting point the book Story Killers: A Common Case Against Common Core by Dr. Terrence Moore “reviewed in the October 2015 issue of the magazine Culture Wars.”
First Teachers is happy to relay to our readers Fr. U.P.’s recommendation of Dr. Moore’s book. One of the purposes of this column is to provide a forum for readers to offer their observations and opinions on issues relating to our schools. We cannot promise, however, to provide the kind of personal analysis of Common Core that Fr. U.P. requests. First Teachers has no staff to assign to a topic such as this. Beyond that, we receive many recommendations about books and magazine articles from our readers. It is impossible to read them all. That is why we call upon our readers’ input — as we do in reference to Terrence Moore’s book.
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Readers are invited to submit comments and questions about this and other educational issues. The e-mail address for First Teachers is fitzpatrijames@sbcglobal.net, and the mailing address is P.O. Box 15, Wallingford, CT 06492.
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