 |
 |
 |
Dear Father Jenkins:
We write as supporters of Project Sycamore to offer a pledge and to present a request.
As you know, Project Sycamore consists of alumni dedicated to the preservation of the Catholic character of Notre Dame. We have joined in this association because of our concern over the degree of secularization that has taken place at Notre Dame over recent years. This phenomenon , as we see it, can be measured in rough but striking fashion by the precipitous decline in the proportion of Catholics members of the faculty, and its pernicious influence has become apparent through events such as The Vagina Monologues that are pervasively hostile to the teachings and traditions of the Church. Our reasons for these views are described in detail in the Project’s website (www.projectsycamore.com), and accordingly we need not elaborate here.
The depth of our concern is matched by the intensity of the hope and optimism that we have drawn from your eloquent limning of a vision of a Notre Dame unparalleled in both its academic and its religious vitality and, even more importantly, from your forthright acknowledgement of, and your determination to remedy, the attenuation of the Catholic presence on the faculty. Your tenure, we are convinced, comes at a critical point in the history of the University. Notre Dame either follows beyond the point of no return the path to secularization that has been traveled by most, if not all, other major Catholic universities in this country, or it fulfills its great promise and mission of becoming the leading truly Catholic center of learning and education in the world. We realize full well the enormity of the responsibility with which you have been charged, and our pledge to you is that of both our prayers and our assistance in whatever way we can lend it. We are at your call.
At the same time, we know you would not expect us to forgo respectful criticism when in our judgment, after careful deliberation, there is something going on at the University that plainly and importantly collides with the demands of Catholic identity. At this point, given the significance with which the Vagina Monologues issue has been invested, the request we make of you is that, when permission is once again sought for the oncampus performance of this play, you reconsider your position.
We are encouraged in making this request by the assurances given by you and others in the administration that the issue has not been foreclosed forever. Here again, we will not set forth our reasons in any detail, relying instead on the discussion in the Project’s website materials. We will say only that, as we see it, no sufficiently weighty claims of academic freedom are implicated here. There is no question of foreclosing classroom consideration of the play or of the moral issues it raises. What is implicated is the compatibility of a Catholic sense and sensibility with an annual parading of a degrading, startlingly explicit paean to sexual gratification in a host of illicit forms.
We leave you, Father, with our prayers for you in the discharge of your heavy responsibilities and for the success of your mission, and with a renewal of our pledge of support. |
 |
|
(fields marked with * are required)
|
|
|
|
The purpose of Project Sycamore is to provide to Notre Dame alumni concerned about the preservation of the Catholic identity of the University with a source of information, a means of communication, and a collective voice. |
|
The views expressed in this petition are solely those of the petition's
sponsor and do not in any way reflect the views of iPetitions.
iPetitions is solely a provider of technical services to the petition
sponsor and cannot be held liable for any damages or injury or other
harm arising from this petition. In the event no adequate sponsor is
named, iPetitions will consider the individual account holder with which
the petition was created as the lawful sponsor.
|
|
|
