Customer Reviews

What Happened to Notre Dame?

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As a graduate of the University of Notre Dame I have often felt that something is wrong with the institution and the direction in which it is heading. Unfortunately, I have lacked the background information and sufficient understanding of Catholic doctrine to articulate these feelings in an eloquent way. Something inside me has been saying "This isn't right."

Dr. Rice concisely and clearly provides some answers as he describes the evolution of Notre Dame from its traditional position as the leading US Catholic University to its current position as a virtual Protestant or non-denominational school. He shows how this resulted from the university's rejection of the authority of the Catholic Church to define Catholic doctrine. Although the latest and most well known disconnect between the university and the church may be that of President Obama's speech at the 2009 graduation ceremony, Dr. Rice uses his research and intimate knowledge of both the church and the university to demonstrate how this separation actually began some 40-years earlier under the leadership of Father Theodore Hesburgh. Hesburgh and other university leaders developed the "Land O'Lakes" statement of educational autonomy from the church; a well intentioned though troubling effort to increase Notre Dame's standing as an institution of higher learning, which has been at the expense of its Catholic foundation.

Dr. Rice demonstrates that as Notre Dame grew apart from the authority of the church it essentially decided that the university leadership could interpret and define Catholic scripture, or leave it undefined and open to interpretation as it pleased. This has resulted in more and more liberal and inconsistent interpretations of Catholic scripture and doctrine in everything from charity to abortion, and has served to separate students and others from the true and correct teachings of the Church. Instead of creating a better Catholic university this has led to the evolution of a small "Purdue with a Golden Dome."

The book is very easy to read even though the subject matter is of such weight. Dr. Rice not only tells the story effectively, but provides concise instruction on various directly related subjects like Natural Law, Relativism, and the impact of the change to a research focused institution (as well as a host of other important issues).

This is a must read for anyone who cares about the Catholic Church and the University of Notre Dame. Surprisingly, this book should be of great interest to anyone who feels our society (or a particular community) focuses too much on individualism and self satisfaction, and who wonders "What is wrong here?" Dr. Rice goes on to provide some answers as to what it will take to make things better at Notre Dame because all is not lost, but the question remains...will the university's leadership listen?

This book was written because of the conferral of an honorary doctor of laws degree by my alma mater, the University of Notre Dame du lac, upon President Barack Obama. Charles E. Rice is now a professor emeritus of law at Notre Dame. Over 25 years ago he was one of my professors at the law school. He was famous as being one of the most conservative professors on campus and a former U.S. Marine.

The honoring of Barack Obama was a deliberate flouting of the 2004 statement from the Catholic bishops in America asking that Catholic institutions "not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles." The action of Notre Dame's Board of Trustees scandalized Catholics around the country because President Obama is "the most relentlessly pro-abortion public official in the world."

Professor Rice traces back the antecedents of this (literally) scandalous decision to the meeting in July 1967 of 26 Catholic educators at a conference center in Land O'Lakes, Wisconsin which was owned by Notre Dame. The meeting produced a statement named after the site in which they announced: "The Catholic university today must be a university in the full modern sense of the word... [it] must have a true autonomy and academic freedom in the face of authority of whatever kind, lay or clerical, external to the academic community itself."

I don't have the time or the space to do justice to the argument made by Professor Rice showing how in the past four decades he has observed Notre Dame lose its way during a quest for acceptance by the "peer institutions" of Harvard, Yale and other secular universities. He cites evidence of a tendency to apply external standards drawn from secular institutions without regard to the moral or religious heritage of the Catholic faith.

There have been multiple instances where the University has lent its prestige in a promiscuous fashion. Here are just two. The museum there showed the movie, "The Last Temptation of Christ", a blasphemous work, citing the Museum of Modern Art as the arbiter of what should be shown at Notre Dame. For seven years in a row students at Notre Dame performed "The Vagina Monologues", an obscene play that demeans female sexuality.

As then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, just days before his election to the papacy as Benedict XVI, stated: "A dictatorship of relativism is being constituted that recognizes nothing as absolute and which only leaves the `I' and its whims as the ultimate measure."

Regardless of whether you belong to any religious faith, much less Catholicism, you will find this book to be thought-provoking because it considers in a rigorously reasoned fashion the fundamental issues of how a university can and should educate someone to be a moral citizen who knows the spiritual dimensions of life, not to mention the Catholic faith.

Today the modern university student confronts "utilitarianism, fragmentation, secularism and rationalism" without the reinforcement of the faith and reason from the best of the intellectual heritage of Western Civilization, one in which the Catholic Church has played a central role. Aristotle, Aquinas, Chesterton are just a few of the thinkers whose works I bet are missing from the typical student's studies at Notre Dame. That is without giving much thought to a complete roster.

Every year there are choices to be made by any student at Notre Dame. As bob Dylan wrote in one song lyric, you "gotta serve somebody" and how you gonna know if all you have is yourself and the vacuous modern culture.

This is a fantastic book by a very distinguished professor at Notre Dame Law School. Whether you supported having President Obama speak at the commencement or not, this book provides the background of the events leading up to the decision and why so many were strongly opposed to the decision. Professor Rice writes clearly and convincingly about the commencement decision and the current state of the university. He also writes with deep humility about the university that he loves so dearly.

This is a must read for anyone who cares about ND!!

This is an excellent timely book. Catholic education has been transformed from 1967 when the `Land O'Lakes Statement" was issued to when President Obama was invited to give a speech at the 2009 commencement at Notre Dame. Charles Rice gives the history and reasons for these changes. He traces the events from the "Land O'Lakes Statement" to Ex Corde Ecclesiae (From the Heart of the Church). He also brings in the writings of Cardinal Avery Dulles and Cardinal John Henry Newman. ( Idea Of A University: Philosophy (Notre Dame Series in the Great Books) ).

He quotes Cardinal Dulles in summarizing the Holy Father in Ex Corde Ecclesiae by: "He calls for a universal humanism and an organic vision of reality. He likewise holds that Catholic universities have the incomparable advantage of being able to integrate all truth in relation to Christ, the incarnate Logos, whom Christians recognize as the way, the truth, and the life for the whole world."

Rice states that Father Hesburg and other supporters of the Land O'Lakes Statement "see a tension between being a "great" university and being a "Catholic" university." It is the author's position that Catholic universities are on the same path as followed by former Protestant universities such as Harvard and Yale which were originally formed as divinity schools to now being places where God has no place. It takes more than a crucifix in a classroom to be a Catholic university. The school administration will tell one story to parents in order to convince them that Notre Dame is a Catholic university and then will allow showings of movies such as the "Last Temptation of Christ" and plays such as the "Vagina Monologues". The author clearly presents his case that Notre Dame no longer follows the guidance of the Magisterium and instead listens only to itself.

This book screams with hypocrisy. All of these things about how Notre Dame has gone wrong and how it's such an awful place. If it's so awful, how come the authors haven't left? Take a real stand, and stop taking money from a university that you so vehemently disagree with the principles of. The authors rant and rave about how Notre Dame has gone wrong, but as long as they get their tenured paychecks, they're fine accepting the blood money gained at the expense of their morals. Yes, ND has gotten rich by its policies since this all began, and they don't seem to have any trouble benefiting from that. I recall with the "controversy" being a few people picketing the graduation ceremony, attempting to ruin it for the people who put in the work to graduate, with the Vatican and a vast majority of Catholic bishops and cardinals remaining completely silent. If the authors wish to follow the edict of the Pope, which they say they do, apparently ND already is.

I would rather do ANYTHING someone can possibly imagine than read this book.

Walk through a field of embers, chop off my arm, blow up an orphanage etc.

I graduated from Notre Dame in 2009, the class where Obama spoke at graduation. I only post that for context, not to associate myself with a school that has 3 of its most "distinguished scholars" writing such a worthless screed.