Dancing UOJ

The Cock Crows at Notre Dame

April 11, 2009
The Cock Crows at Notre Dame
By Andrew Sumereau
Betrayal is not too strong a word to describe the actions of Notre Dame in inviting President Barak Obama to speak and receive an honorary doctor of laws degree from the university. This betrayal explains why normally docile Catholics have been stirred to unprecedented protest and anger.

Rev. John Jenkins, C.S.C., president of the University of Notre Dame who offered the invitation, has felt the wrath of thousands of Roman Catholics who see him as a Judas Iscariot. In a more sober assessment, Jenkins should be viewed as Peter the apostle, in his emotional denials to a watching and judgmental world, rather than as a Judas, the brazen traitor.


Sophisticated opinion might scorn such appraisals. "What is the big deal?" they question. Any university with serious aspirations and credentials should welcome the President of the United States to speak on campus, the thinking goes. Surely the president of a nation that observes the separation between church and state should not be prevented from addressing a university commencement just because his policies or issues are not in agreement with particular religious doctrines. It is patently wrong to prevent the airing of ideas from authoritative sources that may not concur with Church teachings. Great universities must engage in the great discussions of the day. Truth must never hide from controversy. It ought never be determined that questions of right and wrong have been settled, and only those that agree with the settled consensus be given a hearing. Finally, openness and tolerance of disagreement are the hallmarks of great centers of learning. Surely Notre Dame is just such a great center of learning.


This is how Jenkins would like to frame the controversy. Taking the intellectual high road (he believes) in addressing the critics, Jenkins poses as a positively heroic scholar and patriot...


"... In every statement I have made about the invitation of President Obama and in every statement I will make, I express our disagreement with him on issues surrounding the protection of life, such as abortion and embryonic stem cell research. If we repeatedly and clearly state that we do not support the President on these issues, we cannot be understood to 'suggest support'.


"...We need to do more to persuade all people that human life is precious and human dignity must be defended. This requires more effective dialogue and engagement with all public officials... However misguided some might consider our actions, it is in the spirit of providing a basis for dialogue that we invited President Obama.


"On May 17 we will welcome the ninth President who will receive an honorary degree from Notre Dame. It will be an important opportunity to bring the leader of our nation to Notre Dame, and, I hope, a joyful day for our graduates and their families."


(Father Jenkins to the Board of Trustees at the University of Notre Dame:)


Sounds pretty reasonable. No?


In Jenkins' view, there is simply a "disagreement" and the president is simply "misguided."


Playing to elite opinion rather than the churchgoing rabble, he uses words like "dialogue" and "engagement" rather than condemnation in referring to the culture of death embodied in the policies of our new president. Being judgmental, after all, is without doubt the gravest sin to modern eyes and Father Jenkins knows this and counts on it. Besides, on social issues (whatever they are) the new progressive president effectively cancels out his misguided notions on life.


But if we are to believe the prelate, where exactly does the imaginary engagement of Obama occur? Is Jenkins inviting Obama to address a seminar on life issues? Will there be a rebuttal of the president's pro-abortion policies after his address? Will they "roundtable" and "brainstorm" and "dialogue" about abortion, stem cell funding, euthanasia, and infanticide?


Sadly, what the awakened and disgusted American Catholics see happening is lost on, or of no interest to, Father Jenkins and his supporters. The university officials are obviously much more interested in securing the good graces of the ninth president to address the school than in supporting Church teaching. As intellectuals they share denseness with thinly disguised contempt.


As Hilaire Belloc said one hundred years ago, "Real intelligence resides in the ability to make distinctions." In this case the distinctions are everything. Notre Dame means literally Our Lady. The University of Our Lady has been founded, promoted, supported and loved by devout Catholics of this country for a long time. The issues of life have been settled in the eyes of the church for over two thousand years and no amount of engagement will change that. Notre Dame should never bestow an honor on the likes of our current president.


The event all works perfectly for the President. Cocktails and chatter with some noted Catholic VIP's, photo-ops, good-humor, perhaps a few thoughtful frowns, some vague-but-pleasing Obama rhetoric, and off the president goes. On to the Naval Academy and another commencement ceremony with a new legitimacy and the unofficial imprimatur of America's great Catholic University.

***

GJ - One of my fellow students at Notre Dame was a Christian Brother. Years later he was president of their little college in Philadelphia. He had a chance to meet with President Clinton, so he urged the president to adopt a pro-life policy. Clinton, like Gore and Jesse Jackson, had once been pro-life. Clinton did not budge.

The Left has all the wrong answers. They hug Mother Earth but hate babies. The Catholic clergy I knew were all political liberals and doctrinal apostates. For instance, this particular Christian Brother was shocked that I believed in the Virgin Birth and resurrection of Christ. I remember him slamming a book on Lutheran beliefs and saying, "There is no use talking to you."

Catholic clergy think they can support the Left and budge them on pro-life issues. Impossible. I consider this Notre Dame scandal simply a grander version of how they honored Governor Cuomo, who came to argue for abortion and against the death penalty. The death penalty was "murder," according to the governor, nicknamed Pope Pious.

ASU will also honor Obama. That dust-up concerns giving a politician an honorary degree, which is against ASU policy in general. As I have mentioned to many students, I have never heard anyone say, "Wow! He has a degree from ASU!"

The best way to get rid of an ASU graduate on your doorstep is to tip him $5 and take the pizza box inside.

Mark 16 Easter Quotations

Mark 16 Quotations

"If I do not believe it, I will not receive its benefits; but that neither renders it false nor proves that anything is lacking in Christ."
Sermons of Martin Luther, 8 vols., ed., John Nicholas Lenker, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983, II, p. 258. Easter, Third Sermon Mark 16:1-8.


"Only begin this [prayer, self-examination], I say, and see how you will succeed in the task; and you will soon discover what an unbelieving knave is hidden in your bosom, and that your heart is too dull to believe it."
Sermons of Martin Luther, 8 vols., ed., John Nicholas Lenker, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983, II, p. 257. Easter, Third Sermon Mark 16:1-8.

"Therefore the Holy Spirit must come to our rescue, not only to preach the Word to us, but also to enlarge and impel us from within, yea, even to employ the devil, the world and all kinds of afflictions and persecutions to this end. Just as a pig's bladder must be rubbed with salt and thoroughly worked to distend it, so this old hide of ours must be well salted and plagued until we call for help and cry aloud, and so stretch and expand ourselves, both through internal and through external suffering,that we may finally succeed and attain this heart and cheer, joy and consolation, from Christ's resurrection."
Sermons of Martin Luther, 8 vols., ed., John Nicholas Lenker, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983, II, p. 253. Easter, Third Sermon Mark 16:1-8.

"You may tie a hog ever so well, but you cannot prevent it from grunting, until it is strangled and killed. Thus it is with the sins of the flesh." Sermons of Martin Luther, 8 vols., ed., John Nicholas Lenker, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983, II, p. 247. Easter, Second Sermon Mark 16:1-8. "For when the heart clings to the Word, feelings and reasoning must fail."
Sermons of Martin Luther, 8 vols., ed., John Nicholas Lenker, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983, II, p. 246. Easter, Second Sermon Mark 16:1-8.

"He who follows his feelings will perish, but he who clings to the Word with his heart will be delivered."
Sermons of Martin Luther, 8 vols., ed., John Nicholas Lenker, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983, II, p. 245. Easter, Second Sermon Mark 16:1-8.

"To this I reply: I have often said before that feeling and faith are two different things. It is the nature of faith not to feel, to lay aside reason and close the eyes, to submit absolutely to the Word, and to follow it in life and death."
Sermons of Martin Luther, 8 vols., ed., John Nicholas Lenker, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983, II, p. 244. Easter, Second Sermon Mark 16:1-8.

"However, we see that although Satan causes many sects and factions to rise up soon they war among themselves and disappear again. What countless cliques and fanatical tyrants Satan has produced to oppose the Gospel during these fifteen hundred years, endeavoring to rend and destroy the kingdom of Christ!"
Sermons of Martin Luther, 8 vols., ed., John Nicholas Lenker, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983, III, p. 235.

"The greatest, the most powerful, the noblest born, the most learned and the holiest person is not a whit better than the humblest, simplest, most despised on earth. All are brought into one company and fellowship. No one is preferred above another. No partiality is shown. No one is pictured or separated to special honor or advantage; but everything hinges entirely on 'He that believeth.' It matters not what people, nation or rank or what station in the world they may occupy."
Sermons of Martin Luther, 8 vols., ed., John Nicholas Lenker, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983, III, p. 222. Ascension Day Mark 16:14-20.

"The preaching of this message may be likened to a stone thrown into the water, producing ripples which circle outward from it, the waves rolling always on and on, one driving the other, till they come to the shore. Although the center becomes quiet, the waves do not rest, but move forward. So it is with the preaching of the Word. It was begun by the apostles, and it constantly goes forward, is pushed on farther and farther by the preachers, driven hither and thither into the world, yet always being made known to those who never heard it before, although it be arrested in the midst of its course and is condemned as heresy."
Sermons of Martin Luther, 8 vols., ed., John Nicholas Lenker, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983, III, p. 202.

"Such is the nature of faith that it feels nothing at all, but merely follows the words which it hears, and clings to them."
Sermons of Martin Luther, 8 vols., ed., John Nicholas Lenker, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983, III, p. 194. .

"Although it is impossible to believe without repenting (ohn Reu) as I have said above, when I proved that faith and grace are imparted amid a great spiritual upheaval (Sturm), nevertheless, if this were possible, faith alone would be enough. For when God said: 'He that believeth shall be saved' (Mark 16:16), He did not offer His grace to repentance, nor to a work of any sort, but to faith."
What Luther Says, An Anthology, 3 vols., ed., Ewald Plass, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1959, III, p. 1213. Mark 16:16.

(1) "He that believes and is baptized Shall see the Lord's salvation; Baptized into the death of Christ, He is a new creation. Through Christ's redemption he shall stand Among the glorious heavenly band Of every tribe and nation. (2) "With one accord, O God, we pray: Grant us Thy Holy Spirit; Look Thou on our infirmity Through Jesus' blood and merit. Grant us to grow in grace each day That by this Sacrament we may Eternal life inherit." Thomas Kingo, 1689, "He That Believes and Is Baptized"
The Lutheran Hymnal, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1941, Hymn #301. Mark 16:16.

Walther on Pure Doctrine

C. F. W. Walther learned Christian doctrine via Pietism, but his statements about the struggle for pure doctrine
are still worth reading.

Brett Meyer has left a new comment on your post "Another Pusillanimouse Post":

"Of course, if no one would falsify God's Word, no conflict would be necessary,..."

"Oh, therefore, let us never listen to those who praise and extol the conflict of the Reformation for the pure Gospel but want to know nothing of a similar conflict in our days. God's command: "Contend for the faith!" applies to all times, also to ours."

"That God's Word testifies to us on all pages, and so also the apostle Jude, who has the surname Thaddeus, writes in our text: "Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints."

On the basis of these words permit me today to answer the question:

WHY DARE AND CAN WE NEVER GIVE UP THE CHURCH'S STRUGGLE FOR THE PURE DOCTRINE?
I answer:

Because the Pure Doctrine of our Church is Not Our Possession, but a Treasure Only Entrusted to us for Our Faithful Administration;
Because the Loss of This Treasure Would be Something Much More Terrible than All the Strife and Discord Among Men; and finally,
Because this Conflict is One Commanded by God, and Therefore is Certainly Blessed by God in Time and in Eternity."

"Now tell me yourself: Does love demand that a steward give away some of the property entrusted to him, or that he make a reduction of the debt to the debtors of his lord? or that he can calmly take for himself the treasures of his lord which are given to him to guard and keep? Was it, for example, love when that steward, in order to make him his friend, said to a debtor who owed his lord 100 measures of oil: "Take thy bill and sit down quickly, and write fifty?" (Luke 16:6). Was that not rather unfaithfulness, yes, open deceit and theft? Does not Christ for that reason also call him the "unjust steward?" Would it be love if in order to avoid a battle a general would allow merely a small opening to be made for the enemy in the wall of a fortress given to him to defend? Would not such a general rather be called to account and punished as a traitor? Or is it love to steal their possessions from others in order to do good to the poor? and finally, would it be love if Luther would have immediately become silent about the discovered and known truth?"

"Therefore, that the world might see that love is still in us Lutherans, let us in all earthly things show our love so much the more richly; however, in matters pertaining to God, to the pure doctrine of his Word which "was once delivered unto the saints" let Christ's utterance be our motto and guiding star: "He that loveth father, or mother, and he that loveth son, or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me.""

http://www.cfwwalther.com/heck/walther19.htm

A faithful sermon by C.F.W. Walther.

Recommended reading for the Anonymous posters who, in their enthusiasm, intend to smother the world with their pillow of love until, lungs gasping, they choke out the very last bit of Confessional Lutheran doctrine.

***

GJ - When a denomination goes soft in the head, the first sign is shock, remorse, and rebuke toward anyone who might emphasize the confessions of that denomination. There are usually lofty pronouncements that "We can afford a few heretics" or "We can learn from (fill in the blank - Buddhists, atheists, Marxists) too."

In the name of love, various imprecations are hurled at anyone who prefers the truth of the past to the fads of today.

During the slide into apostasy, the denomination embraces openly one year what would have been a scandal 10 years before.

Here is an example from ELCA:

ELCA NEWS SERVICE

April 2, 2009

Three Members of the Task Force for ELCA Studies on Sexuality Share Dissent
09-080-MRC

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- Three members of the Task Force for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's (ELCA) Studies on Sexuality issued a public statement March 28 to express their
dissent over the content of two documents released by the task force. The chair of the task force responded to the statement.

On Feb. 19 the task force released a proposed social statement on human sexuality and a report recommending a process to consider changes to ministry policies that could make it possible for Lutherans in committed same-gender relationships to serve as ELCA associates in ministry, deaconesses, diaconal ministers and ordained ministers.

Recommendations for both documents will be considered at the 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly, the church's chief legislative body, Aug. 17-23 in Minneapolis.

Because of theological and pragmatic concerns and because the proposed recommendation allows the ELCA's 65 synods and individual congregations to "determine their own practice," the Rev. Scott J. Suskovic, the Rev. Corrine R. Johnson and the Rev. Carol S. Hendrix said they felt compelled to offer a dissenting position, which is featured in the Appendix of the task force's report (Dissenting Position 1).

Suskovic, Johnson and Hendrix began their statement with thanks and gratitude for the opportunity to serve on the task force. Although in disagreement with the other 27 members and advisors of the task force on "traditional biblical interpretation and theological principles," they said they were regarded with "great kindness, dignity and respect."

Suskovic is pastor of Christ Lutheran Church, Charlotte, N.C. Johnson serves as director for development and public relations, Fortune Lake Lutheran Camp, Crystal Falls, Mich. Hendrix, a retired pastor, served as bishop of the ELCA Lower Susquehanna Synod, Harrisburg, Pa., from 2001 to 2007.

The pastors said changing current policies would sever the ELCA from the "ecumenical church and the Christian consensus down through the ages."

They contend that the task force's report and recommendation, "which advocate same-gender unions and the ordination of non-celibate homosexual persons, have little biblical, historical and traditional support."

Of critical importance when considering sexuality is the role of God's commandments in the "moral ordering of the Christian life," they said. "We are convinced that God's intention for marriage -- life-long covenant of fidelity between a man and a woman -- established as the First Institute in Genesis 2 and reaffirmed by Jesus in Mark 10: 6-9, serves as the center around which all Christian sexual ethics are defined."

The pastors recommend that voting members of the assembly "affirm and uphold" current ELCA ministry and discipline policies, and affirm the pastoral guidance in a 1993 statement of the ELCA Conference of Bishops. The statement says that "there is basis neither in Scripture nor tradition for the establishment of an official ceremony by this church for the blessing of a homosexual relationship." Pastors within their local contexts are to "provide pastoral care for all whom they minister."

The church is deeply divided on the issue of human sexuality, the pastors said. The recommendations of the majority of the task force represent a "radical change" that is not only contrary to Scripture but one that "will splinter our congregations, alienate many of our members, further divide the unity of this church" and "grieve the heart of God," they said.

The Rev. Peter Strommen, Shepherd of the Lake Lutheran Church, Prior Lake, Minn., and task force chair, called the dissenting statement "unfortunate and unnecessary."

"It was unnecessary because their dissenting view is already included in the Report and Recommendations Appendix, which was distributed widely February 19. It is unfortunate because by identifying their names and characterizing the process, they acted contrary to agreed upon protocol and ELCA practice. For instance, their statement might be interpreted to indicate that everyone else was of one mind when in fact the views of task force members were quite varied and diverse," Strommen said.

"Normally the chair of a task force is the person who speaks publicly on behalf of the task force. I do not believe it was their intent to disrespect the process but note that while individual task force members are free to express their personal views, it is not appropriate for task force members to make formal public statements or initiate what may be perceived as their own news release," he said.

The "Statement by Three Dissenting Members of the ELCA Task Force on Human Sexuality" is at http://tinyurl.com/djwgop on the ELCA Web site.