Backing Down at Notre Dame - Selling Our Kids' Souls for Job Security

From Catholic Exchange:

Many Catholics were heartened by news reports that the new president of Notre Dame, Fr. John Jenkins, was going to prohibit performances of The Vagina Monologues at the university. I was on board, devoting a column a few weeks ago to a New York Times’s story in mid March about Jenkins’s willingness to take on the trendy secular leftists in regard to this play.

Selling Our Kids' Souls for Job Security

Jenkins would not have had to mount the barricades alone. Providence College and the Catholic University of America banned the play earlier this year, as has Father Jenkins's superior in the Holy Cross religious order at the University of Portland.

The Times quoted from a speech given by Jenkins to faculty members and students at the university in which he maintained that permitting productions like The Vagina Monologues implied an “endorsement of values in conflict with Roman Catholicism.” Jenkins elaborated: “Precisely because academic freedom is such a sacred value, we must be clear about its appropriate limits. I do not believe that freedom of expression has absolute priority in every circumstance.”

He took the position that The Vagina Monologues should be commended for trying to reduce violence against women, but that its “graphic descriptions” of various sexual experiences “stand apart from, and indeed in opposition to” the Church’s teaching “that human sexuality finds its proper expression in the committed relationship of marriage between a man and a woman that is open to the gift of procreation.” You can see why many Catholics were hopeful.

Those who were hopeful were premature. Jenkins backed down.

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See also this item from Amy Welborn's blog:

First off, Catholic News Service, has sort of surprisingly, run a story on the controversy. The fact that they've run it is surprising (considering that CNS does not really seem to like to admit that conflict exists with the Church in the US), but the author is not - Ann Carey, who's written quite a bit on matters such as this, often printed in OSV.

Secondly, I'm running a short piece written by Daniel McInerny, Associate Director of the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture. It was penned as a letter to the editor, but it find its way to print - so - enjoy!

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Previous Pro Ecclesia posts on this subject:
Weigel: A Golden Dome Opportunity Missed

An Open Letter to the Notre Dame Community Regarding Catholic Identity [UPDATED AGAIN]

Bishop D'Arcy Issues "Pastoral Response" to Father Jenkins' "Closing Statement"

Rape Survivor (ND Graduate) "Shocked" and "Depressed" by Father Jenkins' "Closing Statement"

Bishop D'Arcy Denounces Notre Dame Policy

Some GOOD Things Happening at Notre Dame, Too

The "Scooby Doo" Ending to the Academic Freedom Debate at Notre Dame

An Open Letter to the Notre Dame Community Regarding Catholic Identity [UPDATED]

Father John Jenkins, Moral Coward

More of the Same at Our Lady's University?

Fr. Richard McBrien, MSM, Cleared of Plagiarism