This IS NOT How a Catholic College Celebrates Easter Week

What really is the icing on the cake of all that gauls me about this is when they announced it, late in the afternoon on Holy Thursday. I think they hoped this would slip under the radar by opting for that time & date. Why wait until right before the Catholic Church begins its celebration of the Easter Triduum? Several reasons I suspect. 1st of all, by doing this so late in the day on Holy Thursday, they were hoping that most of those organizations that would protest would already be shut down for the week because it is the Triduum. Even if they had, it would have only delayed the inevitable. 2ndly, by doing so, they can avoid answering any of the obvious questions, like what in the theological place of eternal damnation are you thinking to even do something like this in the face of all the heat you are already taking?

Finally, you know full well they knew well in advance when these events were scheduled for, as well as what they were. So, given that colleges normally like to get announcements of things like this out ASAP, the timing is definitely intentional. & the timing of it being Easter week for holding it? Well, another slap in the face of Christ, another lash in His scourging, another thorn in His crown, do I have to go on?

If Notre Dame really cared about homosexuals, they would be inviting groups like Courage in to help them live celebate lives as Christ wants & the Church teaches.

& this makes the 3 April protest letter Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz sent to Fr. Jenkins even more apropo:

Notre Dame Announces Homosexual-Themed Events for Easter Week

Manassas, Va. – Late in the afternoon on Holy Thursday, the University of Notre Dame announced a series of events during Easter Week to promote an “inclusive spirit” in support of homosexual students, including a film that blames a mother’s Christian faith for causing her gay son’s suicide.

“Christianity is under attack from within our own Catholic universities,” said Patrick J. Reilly, President of The Cardinal Newman Society. “The bad news continues, perhaps appropriately on the day when we recall Christ’s terrible agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. We need Catholics worldwide to draw the line, here and now, by joining more than 255,000 witnesses for the Faith at NotreDameScandal.com.”

“StaND Against Hate Week,” to occur April 14 through 17, is co-sponsored by Notre Dame’s Gender Relations Center, student government and University Counseling Center.

The week includes a screening of the film Prayers for Bobby, which portrays Mary Griffith, a faithful Christian mother who seeks spiritual healing for her homosexual son, as the cause of her son’s suicide. According to a review at ReligionDispatches.org, the film biography ignores the real-life Bobby’s drug use and “stint as a gay prostitute.” The real Mary Griffith has renounced her faith and champions homosexual rights, including same-sex marriage.

Notre Dame also will participate in the national “Day of Silence” on April 17, an event to oppose harassment of homosexual students in schools. Despite the worthy goal, the national event is used by the sponsoring Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network to promote school curricula that equate “sexual identity” with racial and ethnic differences, without clarification about the moral and health consequences of homosexual activity.

The announced agenda for the week indicates no effort to teach students about Catholic teaching on homosexual activity as gravely sinful.

April 17 is the one-year anniversary of Pope Benedict XVI’s address to Catholic educators in Washington, D.C., during which he called Catholic colleges and universities to a stronger Catholic identity.

“We observe today a timidity in the face of the category of the good and an aimless pursuit of novelty parading as the realization of freedom,” Pope Benedict said. He continued, “[P]articularly disturbing, is the reduction of the precious and delicate area of education in sexuality to management of ‘risk,’ bereft of any reference to the beauty of conjugal love.”

Meanwhile, Notre Dame’s plan to bestow an honorary law degree on President Barack Obama on May 17 has been protested by students and alumni, 31 Catholic bishops, 10 Holy Cross priests and more than a quarter million Catholics at www.NotreDameScandal.com, which was established by The Cardinal Newman Society.

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& this makes the 3 April protest letter Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz, Diocese of Lincoln, sent to Fr. Jenkins even more apropo (emphasis is mine on what I think is the clincher in this letter):

April 3, 2009

The Reverend John Jenkins, C.S.C
President, University of Notre Dame
400 Main Building
Notre Dame, IN 46556

Reverend and dear Father Jenkins,

Permit me to add my name as well to the long list of Bishops of the Catholic Church who are utterly appalled at your dedication to immorality and wrong-doing represented by your support for the obscenity called “The Vagina Monologues” and your absolute indifference to the murderous abortion program and beliefs of this President of the United States. The fact that you have some sort of past connection with the State of Nebraska makes it all the more painful that the Catholic people here have to see your betrayal of the moral teachings of the Catholic Church.

I can assure you of my prayers for your conversion, and for the conversion of your formerly Catholic University. I am

Sincerely yours in Christ Jesus,

The Most Reverend Fabian W. Bruskewitz
Bishop of Lincoln