When Ought We to Declare a Catholic Institution Dead?

I no longer watch Notre Dame football.

To those who grew up with me, especially, this pronouncement will come as a cataclysmic shock. After all, I was raised in the shadow of the Golden Dome at the University of Notre Dame, where my father taught philosophy for over fifty years. As a kid I saw pretty much every game, either at the stadium itself or on television, and I spent countless fall afternoons in the backyard throwing a football with frosty fingers pretending I was Number 3 – Joe Montana. If anyone ever was, I was born to be a fan of Notre Dame football.

At the beginning of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, Waugh’s hero, Captain Charles Ryder, sums up the dreary three months he has spent at a British army camp in Scotland by saying: “Here love had died between me and the army.” I have felt a similar feeling, one which has increased in intensity over the years, in regard to my alma mater, Notre Dame.  (more...)

When Ought We to Declare a Catholic Institution Dead?