Secularism At ND

A senior at ND recently penned an article about The Secularization of Notre Dame: Is There Hope?

It doesn't have much in the way of surprises. Excluding guys like John Cavadini, it's been on its way to secularism since the Land O Lakes statement and the subsequent nose-thumbing at Ex Corde Ecclesiae. Sure, it's not completely desolate and still has a lot of Catholic students and a basilica on campus, but it seems like we're stretching the definition of "Catholic university" if that's all it takes to count.

The funny thing is that when this is brought up in front of ND folks, even the ones who aren't particularly religious, there is enormous offense taken. It's weird. Given the number of people I know who completely lost their faith there, I think that much of what the school does now is not good, and that was way before the Obama invite.

My favorite retort to the question of ND's secularization usually involves comparing it favorably to Georgetown. Nothing like lowering the bar, I guess. What's even better about this is that the Catholic Georgetown folks I know use almost the exact same kind of defense. "We're Catholic! Have you ever been to (fill in blank with public college which is usually LSU since I'm from Louisiana and is sort of ironic because LSU is teeming with Catholics)."

So I guess we're in a tallest dwarf competition now.