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Notre Dame Alumni Confirm $13.9 Million in Withheld Donations

Financial penalty of Obama invite continues to mount

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DEARBORN, MI – (May 13, 2009) – Organizers of ReplaceJenkins.com, the online effort that asks alumni and donors to the University of Notre Dame to withhold donations, announced Wednesday that they have tallied nearly $14 million in withheld donations from alumni and donors who feel disenfranchised by Notre Dame’s leadership abandoning the school’s Catholic identity. 

The website was launched after University of Notre Dame president Fr. John Jenkins invited President Obama to give the commencement address and receive an honorary law degree May 17.

ReplaceJenkins.com announced it has received over 1,400 pledges from alumni and donors promising to withhold future donations.  (https://www.ReplaceJenkins.com) 

“Most of the donors were at least loosely aware of the University’s trend away from its Catholic identity,” said ReplaceJenkins.com spokesperson and Notre Dame alumnus David DiFranco.  “But the invitation of President Obama to speak and to receive an honorary degree, combined with the weak responses presented by Father Jenkins as a defense to those who have criticized the decision, is what drives most alumni to our site.”

“Unwittingly, Father Jenkins has brought national attention to a problem that is decades in the making,” DiFranco explained. 

“A shrinking percentage of Catholic faculty and the efforts of secular-minded board members has long been eroding the Catholic heritage and foundation that makes Notre Dame great.  President Obama’s invitation represents the culminating scandal in this trend.”

Alumni and financial supporters of the University of Notre Dame launched the online initiative in an effort to withhold donations from Notre Dame, until Rev. John Jenkins, CSC is replaced.

The website urges supporters to withhold all contributions to the Notre Dame General Fund until President Jenkins is replaced with “someone who will be more loyal to the teaching of the Catholic Church.”

See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:

Notre Dame’s 40+ Year History of Unfaithfulness to the Church
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/may/09050601.html

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