Post-Obama Letter by Fr. Jenkins to Notre Dame "Family"

The Jenkins letter is a study in how Catholic truth is co-opted into ideology-in-conflict:

Fr. Jenkins writes:

Dear Members of the Notre Dame Family,

In my four years as president of Notre Dame, I have been tremendously thankful for the genuine and heartfelt interest that members of this community express for the mission, work, and aspirations of the University. I am humbled and energized by the strength of your feelings for Notre Dame.

This was most certainly the case this spring, as my decision to invite President Obama to address the graduating class and receive an honorary degree resulted in a passionate discussion within the Notre Dame community and on the national and international stage. The events surrounding Commencement generated a significant volume of correspondence, making it all but impossible to answer each phone call, letter, and email personally.

I hope you will oblige me, then, in taking this opportunity to thank all those who shared their thoughts with me and with others at the University. I have the deepest respect for those whose faith-filled convictions compelled them to voice their opinions. I am also very grateful that, whether they agreed or disagreed with my decision, the overwhelming majority of our students, alumni, parents, benefactors, faculty, staff, and friends were thoughtful, reasoned, and respectful in their responses.

Commencement was only the beginning of what I hope will be a vital engagement with the issues highlighted by this event. Over the next several weeks, I will be considering possible next steps that will allow the Notre Dame family to engage in a prayerful and meaningful way with these issues. In doing so, I will continue to listen to and value your voices.

Thank you, once more, for your candor, insight, and commitment to Notre Dame. I look forward to advancing this conversation, and I pray daily that Notre Dame remains a place of which you can be proud.

Yours in Notre Dame,

Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C.

President

Perhaps we could take the paragraph that says: “I have the deepest respect for those whose faith-filled convictions compelled them to voice their opinions. I am also very grateful that, whether they agreed or disagreed with my decision, the overwhelming majority of our students, alumni, parents, benefactors, faculty, staff, and friends were thoughtful, reasoned, and respectful in their responses.”

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In his own speech at Notre Dame, Obama said: “I said a prayer that night that I might extend the same presumption of good faith to others that the doctor had extended to me. Because when we do that - when we open our hearts and our minds to those who may not think like we do or believe what we do - that's when we discover at least the possibility of common ground.

“That's when we begin to say, "Maybe we won't agree on abortion, but we can still agree that this is a heart-wrenching decision for any woman to make, with both moral and spiritual dimensions.

“So let's work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions by reducing unintended pregnancies, and making adoption more available, and providing care and support for women who do carry their child to term. Let's honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion, and draft a sensible conscience clause, and make sure that all of our health care policies are grounded in clear ethics and sound science, as well as respect for the equality of women."

“Understand - I do not suggest that the debate surrounding abortion can or should go away. No matter how much we may want to fudge it - indeed, while we know that the views of most Americans on the subject are complex and even contradictory - the fact is that at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable. Each side will continue to make its case to the public with passion and conviction. But surely we can do so without reducing those with differing views to caricature."

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My comment: Obama deploys here the Alinsky method to advance relativism: Applaud the pro-life position and encourage their steadfastness, while opposing that position with the reasonableness of the quality of life –“freedom” - for the woman. Confess both positions as reasonable and unresolvable. Lubricate the presentation with humor and relevant language (“don’t fudge it”).

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Fr. Jenkins continues:

“Commencement was only the beginning of what I hope will be a vital engagement with the issues highlighted by this event. Over the next several weeks, I will be considering possible next steps that will allow the Notre Dame family to engage in a prayerful and meaningful way with these issues. In doing so, I will continue to listen to and value your voices.”

* * * * * * * * *

Let me offer the opening gambit by Saul Alinsky in his “Rules for Radicals”[1] who is a major source of Obama’s intellectual formation:

“In this book we are concerned with how to create mass organizations to seize power and give it to the people; to realize the democratic dream of equality, justice, peace, cooperation, equal and full opportunities for education, full and useful employment, health, and the creation of those circumstances in which man can have the chance to live by values that give meaning to life. We are talking about a mass power organization which will change the world into a place where all men and women walk erect, in the spirit of that credo of the Spanish Civil War, ‘Better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.’ This means revolution…. In this book I propose certain general observations, propositions, and concepts of the mechanics of mass movements and the various stages of the cycle of action and reaction in revolution. This is not an ideological book except insofar as argument for change, rather than for the status quo, can be called an ideology… This book will not contain any panacea or dogma; I detest and fear dogma. I know that all revolutions must have ideologies to spur them on. That in the heat of conflict these ideologies tend to be of the truth, and the keys to paradise, is tragic. Dogma is the enemy of human freedom. Dogma must be watched for and apprehended at every turn and twist of the revolutionary movement. The human spirit glows from that small inner light of doubt whether we are right, while those who believe with complete certainty that they possess the right are dark inside and darken the world outside with cruelty, pain, and injustice…. To diminish the danger that ideology will deteriorate into dogma, and to protect the free, open, questing, and creative mind of man, as well as to allow for change, no ideology should be more specific than that of America’s founding fathers: ‘For the general welfare.”

[It should be kept in mind that the central axis of the American Revolution was the “self-evident truth” to the Americans of that time of the dignity of the human person. This was absolute and dogma of the American experience and the very meaning of “freedom of self-determination.” As Adams wrote: “But what do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American war? The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people.”]

My purpose here is to suggest that the Catholic mind of Fr. Jenkins has been subtly co-opted by the Alinsky methodology that permits no absolutes, and, therefore, no truth, and this because everything is true. It is the exchange of the true freedom of the absolute that is the human person who masters self, for the ersatz disguise of ideologies-in-dialogue masquerading as “freedom.”

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[1] Saul Alinsky, “Rules for Radicals” Vintage Books (1989) 3.