By Kathleen Gilbert
NOTRE DAME, Indiana, August 17, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – As the University of Notre Dame's board of trustees prepares for a meeting at the end of this month, a Notre Dame watchdog group has launched a campaign to persuade the members to repair the disintegration of the school's Catholic identity following the Obama scandal.
The Sycamore Trust is also calling upon those outraged by the Obama scandal to contact the board of trustees before their August 21 meeting, to urge them to steer the school back to fidelity to the Catholic Church.
“With respect but without doubt, we stress that this is not a matter of discretion but rather a matter of fiduciary obligation,” wrote Sycamore Trust president William Dempsey in a letter to the University of Notre Dame's board of trustees.
The group suspects that the extraordinary board meeting is intended to discuss the after-effects of the school's decision to invite President Obama.
“The overarching requirement [in Notre Dame's constitutive documents] is that Notre Dame be Catholic, not that it rank in the top tier of the U.S. News & World Report annual rankings or that it be invited to become a member of the select group of research universities in the AAU or that it reflect a specified degree of faculty diversity,” Dempsey added.
The mission of the Sycamore Trust, established in 2006, is to encourage Notre Dame “to fulfill its own declared mission of maintaining the Catholic character of the University, which means a predominantly Catholic faculty” – something the group notes is called for in the school's own mission statement.
The Trust helped lead the charge to oppose the school's invitation to President Obama to give the main address and receive an honorary law degree at commencement May 17 – over the protests of ND's own Bishop, John D'Arcy, and 79 other active U.S. bishops. Though primarily constituted of alumni and others related to the school, the Sycamore Trust community has grown to include all people – even several non-Catholics – who support encouraging Notre Dame to return to its roots in Catholic faith and moral teaching.
The group has also spoken out against other recent scandals at Notre Dame, including the hosting of the Vagina Monologues and the Queer Film Festival. But the Trust says it gained the most momentum during the Obama scandal: members say that interest in and support for Sycamore Trust has been “explosive” ever since the episode. One of its members estimated that Sycamore doubled its support from about 5,000 to over 10,000 during the Obama scandal.
In his most recent letter to board members, Dempsey pointed out that, in a Rasmussen poll on the Notre Dame scandal, 60% of Catholics said the University should not award an honorary degree to President Obama, with only 25% saying it should. 52% of all Americans disapproved of Notre Dame's decision.
“To be sure, no matter what view one takes of the merits, one may wonder whether the visitation by President Obama, for example, was worth the cost,” wrote Dempsey. “But we cite these events here, not to replay them, but rather to underscore the importance of prompt, decisive, and visible action by the Fellows designed to restore Notre Dame's reputation as a robustly Catholic institution with a mutually respectful and productive relationship with the institutional Church.
“That reputation has been purchased through an incalculable investment of prayer and dedication and sacrifice,” he continued. “It is Notre Dame's principal asset.”
Dempsey pointed out that the root of the problem could be traced to an increasing tendency to hire non-Catholic and dissident Catholic faculty at Notre Dame. He noted that, according to the Trust's findings, “being unashamedly and publicly Catholic is often a handicap for an applicant.”
“In the end, the secularization of the faculty results in the collapse of the religious culture. It is simply a matter of time,” said Dempsey.
The Trust president encouraged the University to recuperate its commitment to Catholic moral teaching by investing in the new Notre Dame Fund for the Protection of Human Life – which, as Dempsey pointed out, “has the potential to become the country's most important pro-life intellectual center.” (Click here for more information on the pro-life fund.)
The Sycamore Trust takes its name from an ancient tree, known as the “Guardian of the Grotto,” on Notre Dame's campus that, according to legend, marks the spot where an innocent Native American was murdered.
“As this sentinel is perpetually protective of the Grotto, so, too, have Notre Dame alumni been protective of the school's formative heritage as it is adapted to the challenges of each age,” states the group.
“At the heart of that heritage are Notre Dame's Catholic identity and its sustaining relationship to the Church, even as institutional links have been dissolved.”
The website offers several ways to take action with the Sycamore Trust, including signing a petition to University president Fr. John Jenkins, subscribing to the group's mailing list, and joining the Sycamore Trust prayer team.
Dempsey said that the Trust has the potential to represent the vast number of citizens outraged by the school's decision to honor a staunchly pro-abortion president. A petition circulated by the Cardinal Newman Society against the invitation gathered over 360,000 signatures.
“Sycamore Trust represents the eyes, ears, and voice of those who realize the importance of a truly Catholic Notre Dame to the Church and the Catholic community,” Dempsey told LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) in an email this week.
“We report what is happening, provide a forum for exchange of views, and express our collective views to those who govern the University. Our impact will depend in part on our numbers. We should be, and can be, tens of thousands strong.”
Click here to visit the Sycamore Trust website.
See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Notre Dame Ethics Prof Reveals Groundbreaking Pro-Life Academic Program in the Works
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/feb/09022401.html