Notre Dame Officially Accepts Gay Group

By Rod Dreher • December 7, 2012, 12:14 PM

Notre Dame University has long refused to allow the formal establishment of a gay organization on campus, citing its adherence to Catholic teaching. Those days are over, reports the Notre Dame newspaper:

Though this is a historic decision in Notre Dame’s efforts to better serve a diverse student body, University President Fr. John Jenkins said the plan for the unnamed student organization is a natural progression of previous initiatives.

“In the 1990s, as I said, we created the Standing Committee [on Gay and Lesbian Student Needs]. In 2006, that was changed to the Core Council [for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Questioning Students], and various initiatives were undertaken in conjunction with those efforts,” he said. “I see this as the next step to be more effective.”

The story is long, and full of ameliorative bureaucratic-speak (e.g., “external benchmarking,” “Spirit of Inclusion”) that sidesteps the obvious questions about reconciling this decision with Catholic teaching. The closest it comes is in this exchange between the reporter (JC) and Father Jenkins (JJ), from the transcript:

JC: Speaking of the University’s Catholic mission, I know you said that was an important aspect of how you thought about this. Can you develop a little for me, what are the practical limitations of “activities consistent with Notre Dame’s Catholic allegiance and commitments?” What kind of practical limitations will this club have because of that aspect of the Catholic mission?

JJ: You know it would be impossible to state that in a sentence. It’s a rich teaching about the role of sexuality, about intimacy, about human relations, about responsibilities to the community, about relationships to the Church and I’m not evading the question but to put this in a ‘well you can do this, you can’t do that,’ is to distort the issue. I would just invite those who are wondering about it to look at this plan to reflect upon catholic teachings about these issues because I think this can be an opportunity for all of us to think about this more deeply, and at least that, that’s a wanted result.

Translation of JJ’s statement: “I’m avoiding the question.” And the reporter helped him avoid this question too, by not asking obvious follow-ups to compel the university president to speak clearly about a highly contentious issue, instead focusing on procedural matters. It’s almost as if the reporter approved of the university’s move, and was throwing him a lifeline. I’m not surprised that Notre Dame is doing this, but it is irritating when priests and administrators who make these consequential decisions try to mushmouth and spin their way through the implications of what they’ve done, and sympathetic media, intentionally or not, give them an out.

Posted in Christianity, Education, Sex and Sexuality. Tagged gay, homosexual, John Jenkins, Notre Dame.

31 Responses to Notre Dame Officially Accepts Gay Group

Joe Magarac says:

December 7, 2012 at 12:25 pm

I just read the actual pastoral plan and encourage others to do the same. Notre Dame is not recognizing a pre-existing gay group that is dedicated to advocacy. To the contrary, it is establishing its own outreach organization, which will be overseen by a staff member. Notre Dame will have final authority over things like approving the group’s constitution and activities.

The plan itself states, inter alia, that:

At the same time, the University also adheres to the Church’s teaching concerning homosexual actions. As a result, “Homosexual persons are called to chastity” and to “friendship,” and should cultivate “the virtues of self‐mastery that teach them inner freedom” (CCC, 2359). Indeed, each and every student at Notre Dame is called to nothing less. All Notre Dame students are urged to understand and live the teachings of the Church relative to their lives and expressions of sexual intimacy.

When Rod suggests that ND’s resistance to formal establishment of a gay group on campus is “over,” he implies that ND is waving a white flag and bending over to gay activists. I don’t think that’s what it’s doing.
MBunge says:

December 7, 2012 at 12:32 pm

Eh. I’d wait and see what kind of student organization it is. LGBT (since when did “questioning” get thrown in?) students do have particular concerns and problems. If all this group does is acknowledge their existence and try to help them, rather than promoting free sex parties and the like, I’m not sure what the problem is.

Mike
Matt in TX says:

December 7, 2012 at 12:40 pm

Father Jenkins might disapprove of this gay group but be afraid of blowback from its supporters, or he might be supportive of the gay group and afraid of blowback from conservative Catholics. All that we can be sure about is that he’s afraid.

Also: This is arguably a smaller deal than it seems. Gay student groups on college campuses are notoriously unpopular and poorly attended, with most the gay students finding better things to do with their time. And I can guarantee that it’s only a lagging reflection of what’s already a reality on the campus, and not a foreshadowing of what’s to come.
Paul Emmons says:

December 7, 2012 at 12:41 pm

As much as one may wish that gay people either stop being gay or just go away, it’s not gonna happen. The Catholic Church’s teaching grasps both the concept of moral responsibility and practical reality well enough to understand this. Furthermore, freedom of speech and of association are Constitutional rights in this country that I don’t think that Catholic Church opposes. On most campuses, student organizations are supported by fees that students have paid. Therefore, denying a group the right to spend money that students have paid and to meet for any legal purpose requires a very convincing and urgent rationale. I don’t see it here.
Rod Dreher says:

December 7, 2012 at 12:49 pm

Yeah, Matt, that was the thing that stands out to me about this, and why I thought it worth blogging about: Father Jenkins’ fear, and the apparent willingness of the student journalist to allow him to avoid speaking plainly about what this move means, and what it doesn’t, by hiding behind ameliorative language and not putting hard questions to him.
W.E.B. Dupree says:

December 7, 2012 at 12:59 pm

As a suffering USC fan, it pains me that, after this season, I cannot respond to this article with a joke (“I thought Notre Dame already had a gay student organization — the football team!”), but things took a dramatic turn for Notre Dame’s team this season (and for USC’s, unfortunately).

Joking aside, I wonder if anyone knows whether BYU has any sort of gay student organization sponsored or recognized by the university. It may be a calculated risk for a political campaign to choose not to tailor its positions to appeal to college-age voters’ gay-friendly attitudes, but how do you ignore such attitudes if those kids are your institution’s customers?
Anderson says:

December 7, 2012 at 1:02 pm

Me, I had thought Notre Dame accepted sexual conduct outside the teachings of the Church only when necessary to protect its football team.
Egypt Steve says:

December 7, 2012 at 1:14 pm

By the way, all explicit scriptural prohibitions against homosexuality are aimed at men. There’s no expressed prohibition against female same-sex intimacy. And I think the Church would have a hard time arguing coherently that scriptural directives explicitly addressed to one gender are implicitly addressed to the other. After all, it has long used the fact that Christ called only males as members of the Twelve as an argument that He affirmatively intended to exclude women from the priesthood. Consistency demands acknowledging that the Almighty intended to exclude females from the prohibition against homosexuality.
Paul Emmons says:

December 7, 2012 at 1:22 pm

What hard questions might the reporter put? If he asked “Are you going to make the organization promise in advance not to hold free sex parties?” he would probably be laughed out of town by his fellow students, or by anyone else who understands the nature of such student groups. I wouldn’t expect him to stoop to dirty-minded stereotypes straight out of the 1950s.
Tim says:

December 7, 2012 at 1:26 pm

“Gay student groups on college campuses are notoriously unpopular and poorly attended, with most the gay students finding better things to do with their time.”

That wasn’t the case when I was in college ten years ago. I mean, the LGBT group wasn’t huge, but it seemed to be a pretty healthy group, and, as far as I could tell, well liked on campus.
Sam M says:

December 7, 2012 at 1:27 pm

I’m curious: What do you view as the obvious follow-up questions?

I am thinking maybe something like, “Will the organization be permitted/expected to promote safe sex practices?” I’d also like to see a job description for the “full-time student development staff position focused on GLBTQ issues.”

What else did you have in mind?

My other question revolves around their approach to heterosexual sex. He mentions that that they are all called to chastity until marriage. Does ND give out condoms? Does it allow student groups to do so? Health Services?

But again, maybe my thoughts on obvious follow-up are different than yours.
Joe the Plutocrat says:

December 7, 2012 at 1:35 pm

Raghib “The Rocket” Ismail (Muslim) and current LB Manti T’eo (Morman) are not Catholic, but they have been welcomed and venerated by ND administration, alums, etc.. in many ways this is no different. at the end of the day, I suspect this is ND’s way not judging, lest ye be judged.
JT says:

December 7, 2012 at 1:39 pm

Joe is exactly right. From outside the ND community, this may look like giving in, but the history, and a close reading of the plan tell a different story. In the past, the University has been asked to recognize an existing GLBT group, and has declined on the grounds that the groups activities likely will not be in line with Catholic thoughts on homosexuality. In this instance, the University will create the group and direct it in accordance with the pastoral mission to which Catholics are called. Certainly, how this all plays out can be treated with skepticism, but on its face, this action appears to move ND closer to Catholic teaching rather than farther from it.
JT says:

December 7, 2012 at 1:43 pm

Sam,

Keep in mind that the interviewer is from the student newspaper, and would have already know that ND does not permit condoms to be distributed, nor does it support reproductive health services on campus.
Rod Dreher says:

December 7, 2012 at 1:49 pm

I’m curious: What do you view as the obvious follow-up questions?

Oh, off the top of my head:

What do you say to Catholics who believe that this kind of thing is incompatible with Catholic teaching, and the mission of a Catholic university?

In the past, Vatican officials have said that Catholic universities should not accept gay clubs because support for gays has to be consistent with Catholic teaching. How is this initiative consistent with Catholic teaching?

Is it acceptable for this initiative to teach under the auspices of this organization that the Catholic Church’s condemnation of homosexuality is morally wrong? How far is Notre Dame prepared to allow dissent from Catholic teaching to go with this?

These are all variations on the same question, but you know how it goes as a journalist: you often have to ask the same question several different ways to get a clear answer from an official who doesn’t want to answer it.
Charles Cosimano says:

December 7, 2012 at 1:52 pm

Notre Dame has always had a gay group. It’s called a football team. (ducking.)
GgL says:

December 7, 2012 at 2:04 pm

“Yeah, Matt, that was the thing that stands out to me about this, and why I thought it worth blogging about: Father Jenkins’ fear,…”

His fear? Of what? Sounding ridiculous? Or of the brutal suppression by the gay inquisition?

You clearly think the latter, but it is not that the gays have established some kind of brutal dictatorship that suppresses the idealistic views of some pure (or poor?) religious souls. It is just that younger generations have realized (by actually knowing plenty of gay people, now mostly out of the closet) that there is nothing human or natural to the absurd fear and discrimination of gay people. It looks like there are some “natural laws” after all, they just might be a bit different from what you think they are.
EngineerScotty says:

December 7, 2012 at 2:20 pm

Obviously, what Notre Dame needs is an All-American football player who is gay.
TJ says:

December 7, 2012 at 2:33 pm

Pet peeve, Rod: It’s called the University of Notre Dame. I admit I have not read much about this other than the formal press release, but it seems to me this is indeed just a pastoral outreach and NOT a compromise of Catholic teaching on homosexuality. Am I wrong on this?

If I am right, this is exactly the type of outreach the Church should be doing to homosexuals that are trying to live out the teachings of the Church.
Joe the Plutocrat says:

December 7, 2012 at 2:33 pm

What do you say to Catholics who believe that this kind of thing is incompatible with Catholic teaching, and the mission of a Catholic university?

how so? seems to me (lapsed Catholic) that “free will” is a cornerstone of the Catholic faith. even if Catholic dogma views homosexuality as “sinful”, it is incompatible for Catholics to not “…hate the sin, but love the sinner.”

In the past, Vatican officials have said that Catholic universities should not accept gay clubs because support for gays has to be consistent with Catholic teaching. How is this initiative consistent with Catholic teaching?

see above. this is why Catholics have confession/absolution; which again, is a cornerstone of Catholicism.

Is it acceptable for this initiative to teach under the auspices of this organization that the Catholic Church’s condemnation of homosexuality is morally wrong? How far is Notre Dame prepared to allow dissent from Catholic teaching to go with this?

again, ND is merely “recognizing” that GLBTQ students attend the University. there is no wrong or right; or moral edict in this decision. it is simply an acknowledgement that gay students exist.
Derek Leaberry says:

December 7, 2012 at 2:44 pm

No surprise. Much of the Catholic church has turned it’s back on the Faith over the last fifty years. Notre Dame did long ago.
Joe Magarac says:

December 7, 2012 at 2:47 pm

there is nothing human or natural to the absurd fear and discrimination of gay people

Au contraire, mon frere. I would argue that incest and anal sex have been widely considered taboo across time and across cultures, in both cases because one’s first reaction to the concept is disgust or revulsion. The widespread notion that anal sex is normative and even pleasurable is historically very novel.

Also, you will see commentary here and elsewhere that the most successful gay advocacy advertisements and campaigns tend to be the ones that feature actual gay people rarely if at all. Many people are willing to support gay rights in the abstract but find actual gay men and women to be somewhat creepy.

I am not condoning these instincts. I am merely pointing out that they are instincts. Becuase they are instincts, they are not absurd.
Chris S. says:

December 7, 2012 at 3:00 pm

Rod,

I really do wish you’d respond to the posters above who note that the pastoral plan itself mentions specifically the catechism’s teachings on sexuality, both generally and as they apply to those with homosexual inclinations.

ND has a long history of making sure that it ministers to its students, acknowledging the realities of their lives (and provides them the resources they need to flourish) while also maintaining and guiding in the fullness of Catholic teaching. One example that springs to mind is the alcohol policy — no liquor, kegs, or drinking games in the dorms (because those are particularly likely to lead to drunkenness) — but beer and wine drunken responsibly are fine. Now, as a fan of bourbon and gin, it’s not my favorite policy, but you can see where the impulse to meet the students where they are without shying away from Catholic teaching led to the policy.

Anyway, I don’t see anything anywhere that raises an actual red flag. Jenkins’ answer isn’t a forceful stand for chastity, but he does ask people to read the plan, which contains one. And he’s right — to start from the negative (what the club won’t be allowed to do) would be a problem. The right approach is to start from an authentic understanding of human sexuality (a positive and good and beautiful thing) and build a group outward from that. It seems like that is what Jenkins is trying to do.
Rod Dreher says:

December 7, 2012 at 3:08 pm

I really do wish you’d respond to the posters above who note that the pastoral plan itself mentions specifically the catechism’s teachings on sexuality, both generally and as they apply to those with homosexual inclinations.

You will note that my complaint is not with the plan itself, which I didn’t read in the original document, but with the way Fr. Jenkins presented the plan, and the way that the reporter conducted the interview. Jenkins could have, and should have, spoken with greater clarity in his presentation, and the reporter should have asked questions designed to draw him out on the topic. One should not have to click through and read the entire plan to determine from a lengthy news story and Q&A with the Notre Dame president how exactly the Catholic university squares this new outreach — which it has resisted for years — with Catholic teaching.
Paul Emmons says:

December 7, 2012 at 3:10 pm

>Father Jenkins might disapprove of this gay group but be afraid of blowback from its supporters, or he might be supportive of the gay group and afraid of blowback from conservative Catholics. All that we can be sure about is that he’s afraid.

He’s probably afraid of the bishop(s) or the Vatican, who can be very high-handed with academics who don’t agree with their edicts, as history has shown. (In the middle ages, according to Thomas E. Woods, the pope tended to support universities when they encountered opposition from local prelates. Are those days over?)

Some laity will grumble, of course, but a recent poll shows American Catholics more supportive of same-sex marriage than American Protestants are. Before anyone gasps with horror, we should also note data to the effect that Catholics are more happily married than Protestants. I would like to think that both findings reflect that fundamental comfort with physicality that results from having absorbed the dogma of the Incarnation, as many Protestants never quite do despite what their catechisms might state on paper (cf. _Against the Protestant Gnostics_ by Philp J. Lee).
Anderson says:

December 7, 2012 at 3:13 pm

“all explicit scriptural prohibitions against homosexuality are aimed at men”

I guess it depends on how one defines “explicit,” but Romans 1:24-27 sounds pretty disapproving of lesbianism to me:

24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
Anduril says:

December 7, 2012 at 3:18 pm

Thanks, Anderson, for that link – I’d read that in the post this past week. Should be some comfort to those folks who fear the Irish are abandoning Tradition.
GgL says:

December 7, 2012 at 3:50 pm

“there is nothing human or natural to the absurd fear and discrimination of gay people

Au contraire, mon frere. I would argue that incest and anal sex have been widely considered taboo across time and across cultures, in both cases because one’s first reaction to the concept is disgust or revulsion. The widespread notion that anal sex is normative and even pleasurable is historically very novel.

Also, you will see commentary here and elsewhere that the most successful gay advocacy advertisements and campaigns tend to be the ones that feature actual gay people rarely if at all. Many people are willing to support gay rights in the abstract but find actual gay men and women to be somewhat creepy.

I am not condoning these instincts. I am merely pointing out that they are instincts. Becuase they are instincts, they are not absurd.”

I talk about gay people and you respond with incest and anal sex. Go figure….

And no, the most successful ads are the ones showing actual gay people and their families. Even more powerful is having actual gay friends in your daily life, which is the new normality for people 30 (or 40) and under. Which is why the younger generation’s instincts tell them that guys reducing their gay friends to anal sex (and incest?) are pretty creepy….
Barley brew says:

December 8, 2012 at 2:34 am

Rod, I love you, but your last comment above makes no sense to me. Your first paragraph implies that Notre Dame is abandoning a position based on Catholic teaching for one that is not. The text of the document does not support that view. In fact, it arguably supports the opposite view, with ample citations to the catechism for good measure. As for the theologians Fr. Jenkins consulted, check out R.R. Reno’s recent rankings of theology departments at First Things. Notre Dame is #1, in no small part because of its orthodoxy. As for the reporter your are beating up, he’s probably a 19 year old freshman or sophomore. It’s a student paper, man. I worked for it. Not bad, as student papers go. If I remember correctly, it even won some awards. But crap, man, it’s chock full of crappy journalism by students learning that they do not, in fact, have a vocation to journalism. You look like a bully beating whoever this kid is up, and you look like a sensationalist (albeit without benefit of novelty) in calling out Notre Dame without, like so many boring red meat conservatives, any actual substantive evidence at all (even when it’s readily available). Ugh, this is so tedious. I totally agree with you on all the now ancient conventional GOP crap, Grover Norquist and all that. The lame ND baiting is, at least to me, of a piece with that sort of thing — equivalent of conservative talk radio b.s. (To be clear, i say this as a conservative). I expect, I think with justification, more from you. Repent! Before it’s too late!
mlindroos says:

December 8, 2012 at 6:17 am

Discrimination is discrimination no matter how you slice it.
I don’t see why we should allow e.g. Muslim schools in Western countries to violate laws they object to, on grounds of “religious liberty.”

MARCU$
The Sicilian Woman says:

December 8, 2012 at 7:06 pm

If only Rome would strip Notre Dame, Georgetown (of Sandra Fluke infamy) and all Catholic-in-name-only institutions of their “Catholic” affiliation for changing along with the winds of relativism.