Religion & Law

With respect to the "Dog That Didn't Bark", and Fr. Reese's concluding paragraph:

?Whatever the cause of this presidential silence,? he concluded, ?it was shameful. The presidents owe Notre Dame and Fr. Jenkins an apology; they owe Catholic higher education better leadership; they owe their faculties an explanation for not defending academic freedom and autonomy. They stood silent while another educational institution was unfairly and viciously attacked.?

Hmmm.  That's one way of looking at it.  My own views on the Notre Dame / Obama matter are not a secret, so it's probably not a surprise that I think that Fr. Reese, for all his achievements, badly misunderstands what happened, and what was at stake, in the affair. 

For Notre Dame to have declined to honor Pres. Obama, with a ceremonial degree, in an over-the-top fawning way, at this particular time, would have done nothing to undermine -- indeed, it would not have even implicated -- academic freedom.  Those who care about academic freedom -- as we all should -- should be more worried about the possibility that outside pressure and influences (hint:  not the Catholic bishops or those pesky "conservatives") caused Notre Dame to lose sight -- temporarily, I persist in hoping -- of its obligation, and its calling, to be something different, interesting, faithful, and free.