[Apologetics] Bishop Doran to Notre Dame: "Change the Name of the University"

[Art Kelly]

http://catholicism.about.com/b/2009/04/02/bishop-doran-to-notre-dame-change-the-name-of-the-university.htm?nl=1
Bishop Doran to Notre Dame: "Change the Name of the University"
Thursday April 2, 2009
 

Bishop Doran, a fighting Irishman himself, does not mince words: After expressing his "dismay and outrage," he urges President Jenkins to rescind the invitation or to change the name of the university so that it does not dishonor the Blessed Virgin. Here is the full text of his letter, as printed on the Cardinal Newman Society website:

March 31, 2009
Reverend John I. Jenkins, C.S.C.
President
University of Notre Dame
400 Main Building
Notre Dame, IN 46556
 
Dear President Jenkins:
 
I wish to express in my own name and on behalf of the Catholic community of this Diocese, my dismay and outrage at your decision to invite the current President of the United States to address the 2009 graduates of the University of Notre Dame and to receive an honorary degree.
 
This decision of your flies in the face of the expressed directive of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in the year 2004, that Catholic institutions not so honor those who profess opposition to the Church’s doctrine on abortion and embryonic stem cell research.
 
I would ask that you rescind this unfortunate decision and so avoid dishonoring the practicing Catholics of the United States, including those of this Diocese. Failing that, please have the decency to change the name of the University to something like, “The Fighting Irish College” or “Northwestern Indiana Humanist University.” Though promotion of the obscene is not foreign to you, I would point out that it is truly obscene for you to take such decisions as you have done in a university named for our Blessed Lady, whom the Second Vatican Council called the Mother of the Church.
 
I sign myself
 
Very truly yours,
The Most Reverend Thomas G. Doran, D.D., J.C.D.
Bishop of Rockford


Art


      
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