As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, Msgr. John A. Ryan was the instigator behind the sabotage of the academic career of Fulton J. Sheen at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Nor (as we shall see) did Msgr. Ryan confine his campaign against Sheen to Academia. As time went on, he was active in extracurricular activities intended to blacken Sheen’s name.
THE Global Justice Movement Website
This is the "Global Justice Movement" (dot org) we refer to in the title of this blog.
Showing posts with label Notre Dame. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Notre Dame. Show all posts
Thursday, June 11, 2020
Monday, March 12, 2012
Welfare Blackmail, Part I: Obama's Case
The American Catholic bishops are in a bind, as are all Catholic Americans. Having as a body effectively endorsed the Welfare State and accepted that the State is the guarantor of all individual goods (see Economic Justice for All, the 1986 American Bishops' "Pastoral Letter" on the U.S. economy), they have acquiesced in legalized abortion and are now faced with being forced to participate materially in providing artificial contraception and sterilization. That is, having accepted the benefits the State presumably confers, they now balk at the price.
The liberal media have been quick to exploit the situation, presenting the Catholic Church's position — as they and, unfortunately, many Catholics understand it — as hypocritical. The Church has, after all, despite decades of protests and demonstrations, permitted abortion to continue, even conceding the use of tax dollars to support the abortion industry. Requiring that religious institutions pay for contraception and sterilization doesn't seem as bad as abortion, so why all the fuss? Besides, most Catholics use contraception and some have sterilizations, so why not just recognize reality and come into the 21st century?
The general public — and the media that tell the public what to think — clearly doesn't understand the difference between allowing even a monstrously unjust law to continue for a time if you are not personally forced to do wrong, and a law that forces you to do wrong. In moral philosophy (which means simple common sense), we can — in some cases must — allow an injustice to continue if trying to end the injustice under current conditions would reasonably be expected to materially disrupt society.
This does not mean that we are permitted to let things stay as they are. There are two caveats to allowing unjust laws to continue that many people, even Catholics, overlook. The first is that we are not forced in any way to participate in the evil. Legalized abortion does not require that anyone have an abortion; to that extent the mealy-mouthed equivocation of the Pro-Choice position is correct: if you're against abortion, don't have one. (The issue of tax monies used to support abortion, directly or indirectly, confuses many people because they don't understand the principles of taxation, and our unnecessarily complex tax system obscures how tax monies are spent.)
The second caveat is that we must not allow matters to stay as they are. In social justice we are obligated to organize with others and work to reform our institutions, preparing the way to remove the unjust law in a way that reasonably ensures that people accept not having what they formerly regarded as a right.
Allowing an unjust law that does not force you to do wrong to continue — for a time — however, is substantially different from going along with a law that forces you personally to do wrong. When chattel slavery was legal, no one was legally required to own a slave, nor did the government provide subsidies, tax credits, or other benefits to slave owners.
When the government did support slavery, as with the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, the law was widely disobeyed, in some cases openly flouted. The Fugitive Slave Act was, until the Volstead Act (Prohibition), the most widely disobeyed law in U.S. history.
The political and economic forces behind the Fugitive Slave Act and the subsequent Dred Scott decision that overturned the Missouri Compromise eventually led to the Civil War. Prohibition led to the almost complete breakdown of civil authority in some areas, such as Chicago, and to the entrenchment of organized crime.
It is thus a supreme irony that America's first black president (who was also a senator from Illinois), who should be more sensitive than anyone else to the consequences of laws that force people to act contrary to conscience, has announced that he will not negotiate or give ground in any way on the issue of forcing religious institutions to violate religious principles. President Obama seems determined to overturn the "compromise" of Roe v. Wade and impose a modern day Dred Scott decision.
From his perspective, Obama's actions are eminently reasonable, and he has what appears to be solid support for his move, legally, politically and economically. Justice Roger Brooke Taney, of course, in 1857 believed he had equally firm support for the Dred Scott decision, which according to William Crosskey was a blatant attack on the Constitution of the United States. The Fugitive Slave Act, despite its futility, demonstrated the support of the federal government for slavery, as would the use of government troops to put down John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry in 1859. David Christy's Cotton is King in 1855 argued that the economic survival of the United States and the British Empire depended absolutely on chattel slavery.
Obama has every reason to believe that the American bishops — and, of course, the laity of the Catholic Church whose votes ensured his election in 2008 — will (after a suitable display of bravado and bluster) cave in. The bishops' protests over Obama being granted an honorary degree from the University of Notre Dame, bestowed by University President Father John Jenkins in open defiance of the bishops' authority, were clearly nothing for anyone to worry about, a tempest in a teapot. The bishops obviously lacked the power to keep even a single Catholic institution, and that one a virtual icon of American Catholicism, in line. The controversy (such as it was) blew over. Father Jenkins was not called to book for his act, and was even regarded as a Pro-Choice hero by many for what was characterized as a courageous stand in going with public opinion.
To clinch the matter from Obama's perspective, by allowing the State to become (as one enthusiast put it) "the sole intercessor available to the poor" (i.e., the source of every material good), the bishops have necessarily abrogated their moral authority. The bishops, now dependent on the State for funding the social programs they believe to be essential, are going to be forced to obey, despite anything they say. They have always given ground before, and the contraception mandate is no different from previous confrontations in which the bishops demonstrated their complete lack of power.
#30#
The liberal media have been quick to exploit the situation, presenting the Catholic Church's position — as they and, unfortunately, many Catholics understand it — as hypocritical. The Church has, after all, despite decades of protests and demonstrations, permitted abortion to continue, even conceding the use of tax dollars to support the abortion industry. Requiring that religious institutions pay for contraception and sterilization doesn't seem as bad as abortion, so why all the fuss? Besides, most Catholics use contraception and some have sterilizations, so why not just recognize reality and come into the 21st century?
The general public — and the media that tell the public what to think — clearly doesn't understand the difference between allowing even a monstrously unjust law to continue for a time if you are not personally forced to do wrong, and a law that forces you to do wrong. In moral philosophy (which means simple common sense), we can — in some cases must — allow an injustice to continue if trying to end the injustice under current conditions would reasonably be expected to materially disrupt society.
This does not mean that we are permitted to let things stay as they are. There are two caveats to allowing unjust laws to continue that many people, even Catholics, overlook. The first is that we are not forced in any way to participate in the evil. Legalized abortion does not require that anyone have an abortion; to that extent the mealy-mouthed equivocation of the Pro-Choice position is correct: if you're against abortion, don't have one. (The issue of tax monies used to support abortion, directly or indirectly, confuses many people because they don't understand the principles of taxation, and our unnecessarily complex tax system obscures how tax monies are spent.)
The second caveat is that we must not allow matters to stay as they are. In social justice we are obligated to organize with others and work to reform our institutions, preparing the way to remove the unjust law in a way that reasonably ensures that people accept not having what they formerly regarded as a right.
Allowing an unjust law that does not force you to do wrong to continue — for a time — however, is substantially different from going along with a law that forces you personally to do wrong. When chattel slavery was legal, no one was legally required to own a slave, nor did the government provide subsidies, tax credits, or other benefits to slave owners.
When the government did support slavery, as with the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, the law was widely disobeyed, in some cases openly flouted. The Fugitive Slave Act was, until the Volstead Act (Prohibition), the most widely disobeyed law in U.S. history.
The political and economic forces behind the Fugitive Slave Act and the subsequent Dred Scott decision that overturned the Missouri Compromise eventually led to the Civil War. Prohibition led to the almost complete breakdown of civil authority in some areas, such as Chicago, and to the entrenchment of organized crime.
It is thus a supreme irony that America's first black president (who was also a senator from Illinois), who should be more sensitive than anyone else to the consequences of laws that force people to act contrary to conscience, has announced that he will not negotiate or give ground in any way on the issue of forcing religious institutions to violate religious principles. President Obama seems determined to overturn the "compromise" of Roe v. Wade and impose a modern day Dred Scott decision.
From his perspective, Obama's actions are eminently reasonable, and he has what appears to be solid support for his move, legally, politically and economically. Justice Roger Brooke Taney, of course, in 1857 believed he had equally firm support for the Dred Scott decision, which according to William Crosskey was a blatant attack on the Constitution of the United States. The Fugitive Slave Act, despite its futility, demonstrated the support of the federal government for slavery, as would the use of government troops to put down John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry in 1859. David Christy's Cotton is King in 1855 argued that the economic survival of the United States and the British Empire depended absolutely on chattel slavery.
Obama has every reason to believe that the American bishops — and, of course, the laity of the Catholic Church whose votes ensured his election in 2008 — will (after a suitable display of bravado and bluster) cave in. The bishops' protests over Obama being granted an honorary degree from the University of Notre Dame, bestowed by University President Father John Jenkins in open defiance of the bishops' authority, were clearly nothing for anyone to worry about, a tempest in a teapot. The bishops obviously lacked the power to keep even a single Catholic institution, and that one a virtual icon of American Catholicism, in line. The controversy (such as it was) blew over. Father Jenkins was not called to book for his act, and was even regarded as a Pro-Choice hero by many for what was characterized as a courageous stand in going with public opinion.
To clinch the matter from Obama's perspective, by allowing the State to become (as one enthusiast put it) "the sole intercessor available to the poor" (i.e., the source of every material good), the bishops have necessarily abrogated their moral authority. The bishops, now dependent on the State for funding the social programs they believe to be essential, are going to be forced to obey, despite anything they say. They have always given ground before, and the contraception mandate is no different from previous confrontations in which the bishops demonstrated their complete lack of power.
#30#
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
What Happened to Notre Dame?
Once again we interrupt our series on "thoughts on money" to post what we consider an Important News Bulletin. Readers of this blog may have gotten the idea over the past year or so that we believe one of the chief problems of the modern world to be the virtually complete abandonment of the natural moral law as the basis of a rationally-ordered human society. We have concurrence on this from such diverse authorities as Dr. Max Weismann, president of the Center for the Study of the Great Ideas in Chicago (co-founded by Dr. Weismann and Dr. Mortimer J. Adler, the late "Great Books" philosopher), Dr. Ahmed Subhy Mansour, president of the International Quranic Center, and Dr. Norman G. Kurland, president of the Center for Economic and Social Justice ("CESJ") in Arlington, Virginia.
To this role we can add another name, Dr. Charles E. Rice of the University of Notre Dame Law School, a friend of CESJ and the Just Third Way who has written an analysis of the decay of ethical standards and the virtual rejection of the natural law at Notre Dame, as exemplified in the decision by the Trustees and President of the University to confer an honorary degree on President Barack Obama in open defiance of a clear directive to the contrary issued by the American bishops. The book, What Happened to Notre Dame?, published by the St. Augustine Press in South Bend, Indiana, is a 192-page study of the state of American Catholic higher education and what it means for everyone. This is epitomized by the case of Notre Dame and its public humiliation of thousands of students, alumni, and supporters, Catholic and non-Catholic, Christian and non-Christian, who believe that there are principles by which humanity is constrained to live if we want to develop more fully as human beings in a manner consistent with our own nature. By the action of its president and board of trustees, Notre Dame betrayed what many people of all faiths, even none, considered the school's tacit apostolate to represent what it means to be a Catholic in America, a good citizen, and a decent person, as exemplified by the University's motto, "God, Country, and Notre Dame."
As we have stated previously on this blog, we had and continue to have no substantial objections to President Obama as a commencement speaker, at Notre Dame or anywhere else. We believe that there may have been, and probably were, better choices to represent what Notre Dame claims to represent. The selection of a speaker, however controversial, is a matter of prudence; the objective good or evil of the invitation to President Obama is not a matter for human judgment. Father Jenkins and the Notre Dame Trustees, according to their own Catholic belief, will be held accountable for their actions and the scandal they have given not by man, but by God, and punished or rewarded according to their true motives.
Conferring an honorary degree on Mr. Obama, however, is a matter for human judgment. It was a public act in open defiance of a clear directive that Father Jenkins and the Notre Dame Trustees affected not to understand, or reinterpreted for their own convenience and glorification, equivocating in a series of obviously self-serving and self-congratulatory justifications that fooled nobody. The repercussions of this decision on Catholic higher education in America are the subject of Dr. Rice's What Happened to Notre Dame?, an important contribution to the study of the state of the natural law in the world today. Dr. Rice's previous book on the natural law, Fifty Questions on the Natural Law: What is It and Why We Need It (1999), is still one of the better selling books on the subject, but does not get down to cases as does What Happened to Notre Dame?
Nor is Dr. Rice alone in his analysis or conclusions. Two of Notre Dame's most eminent writers and natural law philosophers have joined with Dr. Rice in his efforts to "wake up the echoes" and focus the attention of the public at large on exactly what has happened, not just to "Catholic America," but to all America, as well as the rest of the world, by the widespread abandonment of the natural moral law. Dr. Ralph McInerny, who holds the "Grace Chair of Philosophy" at Notre Dame and is the author of a large number of philosophical works and novels, has written a brief preface. (By mere coincidence over the past week and a half I have been rereading Dr. McInerny's noted "Father Dowling" murder mysteries when I should have been working on my book on money, credit, banking, and finance.) Dr. Alfred Freddoso, the "John and Jean Oesterle Professor of Thomist Studies" at Notre Dame and author of many scholarly works (but, alas, no murder mysteries), has written the introduction.
To gauge the effect that Father Jenkins's and the Trustees' act has had on the Notre Dame community and the public at large, some selections from a review of What Happened to Notre Dame? by Dr. Samuel Nigro, another friend of CESJ and supporter of the Just Third Way, are revealing. Anyone who knows Dr. Nigro will probably be able to see where we toned down some of the rhetoric and deleted some incisive but inflammatory passages, but have hopefully left his righteous — and justified — anger intact. (Needless to say, Dr. Nigro's opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of this writer, other contributors to this blog, CESJ, or the Just Third Way. They do, however, offer a valuable barometer of feeling among members of the Notre Dame family.)
Judging from the current condition of society, however, What Happened to Notre Dame? should help wake up people to the basic problem of modern society — the near-total abandonment of the natural moral law as the basis of a just social order — and make them more receptive to possible solutions embodied in the proposals of the Just Third Way, such as Capital Homesteading, the Abraham Federation, and the large number of specific proposals detailed on the CESJ website.
Dr. Charles Rice's What Happened to Notre Dame? can be ordered online from:
Amazon ($10.20, list $15.00)
Barnes & Noble (List, $15.00, online, $12.00, member, $10.80)
We strongly suspect (although we could be wrong) that What Happened to Notre Dame? is not covered by the new definition of "academic freedom," and is probably not available at the campus bookstore.
Naturally we can't recommend somebody else's book without putting in a plug or two for our own publications. In Defense of Human Dignity (2008) might prove useful in orienting readers to realize that there are natural law solutions to today's problems that are financially and economically feasible as well as morally sound. It can be purchased online from:
Amazon ($20)
Barnes & Noble (List and online price, $20, member price, $18)
And, of course, you will want to read Capital Homesteading for Every Citizen, available as a free download from the CESJ website, along with Louis Kelso and Mortimer Adler's The Capitalist Manifesto, 1958, and The New Capitalists, 1961, with the all-important subtitle, "A Proposal to Free Economic Growth from the Slavery of Savings." Capital Homesteading is also available from:
Amazon ($18)
Barnes & Noble (online price, $18; member price, $16.20)
#30#
To this role we can add another name, Dr. Charles E. Rice of the University of Notre Dame Law School, a friend of CESJ and the Just Third Way who has written an analysis of the decay of ethical standards and the virtual rejection of the natural law at Notre Dame, as exemplified in the decision by the Trustees and President of the University to confer an honorary degree on President Barack Obama in open defiance of a clear directive to the contrary issued by the American bishops. The book, What Happened to Notre Dame?, published by the St. Augustine Press in South Bend, Indiana, is a 192-page study of the state of American Catholic higher education and what it means for everyone. This is epitomized by the case of Notre Dame and its public humiliation of thousands of students, alumni, and supporters, Catholic and non-Catholic, Christian and non-Christian, who believe that there are principles by which humanity is constrained to live if we want to develop more fully as human beings in a manner consistent with our own nature. By the action of its president and board of trustees, Notre Dame betrayed what many people of all faiths, even none, considered the school's tacit apostolate to represent what it means to be a Catholic in America, a good citizen, and a decent person, as exemplified by the University's motto, "God, Country, and Notre Dame."
As we have stated previously on this blog, we had and continue to have no substantial objections to President Obama as a commencement speaker, at Notre Dame or anywhere else. We believe that there may have been, and probably were, better choices to represent what Notre Dame claims to represent. The selection of a speaker, however controversial, is a matter of prudence; the objective good or evil of the invitation to President Obama is not a matter for human judgment. Father Jenkins and the Notre Dame Trustees, according to their own Catholic belief, will be held accountable for their actions and the scandal they have given not by man, but by God, and punished or rewarded according to their true motives.
Conferring an honorary degree on Mr. Obama, however, is a matter for human judgment. It was a public act in open defiance of a clear directive that Father Jenkins and the Notre Dame Trustees affected not to understand, or reinterpreted for their own convenience and glorification, equivocating in a series of obviously self-serving and self-congratulatory justifications that fooled nobody. The repercussions of this decision on Catholic higher education in America are the subject of Dr. Rice's What Happened to Notre Dame?, an important contribution to the study of the state of the natural law in the world today. Dr. Rice's previous book on the natural law, Fifty Questions on the Natural Law: What is It and Why We Need It (1999), is still one of the better selling books on the subject, but does not get down to cases as does What Happened to Notre Dame?
Nor is Dr. Rice alone in his analysis or conclusions. Two of Notre Dame's most eminent writers and natural law philosophers have joined with Dr. Rice in his efforts to "wake up the echoes" and focus the attention of the public at large on exactly what has happened, not just to "Catholic America," but to all America, as well as the rest of the world, by the widespread abandonment of the natural moral law. Dr. Ralph McInerny, who holds the "Grace Chair of Philosophy" at Notre Dame and is the author of a large number of philosophical works and novels, has written a brief preface. (By mere coincidence over the past week and a half I have been rereading Dr. McInerny's noted "Father Dowling" murder mysteries when I should have been working on my book on money, credit, banking, and finance.) Dr. Alfred Freddoso, the "John and Jean Oesterle Professor of Thomist Studies" at Notre Dame and author of many scholarly works (but, alas, no murder mysteries), has written the introduction.
To gauge the effect that Father Jenkins's and the Trustees' act has had on the Notre Dame community and the public at large, some selections from a review of What Happened to Notre Dame? by Dr. Samuel Nigro, another friend of CESJ and supporter of the Just Third Way, are revealing. Anyone who knows Dr. Nigro will probably be able to see where we toned down some of the rhetoric and deleted some incisive but inflammatory passages, but have hopefully left his righteous — and justified — anger intact. (Needless to say, Dr. Nigro's opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of this writer, other contributors to this blog, CESJ, or the Just Third Way. They do, however, offer a valuable barometer of feeling among members of the Notre Dame family.)
The title of this book is a question I have been asking for a long time. I graduated from Notre Dame in 1958. Three of my children are graduates. But about 20 years ago, I gave up on Notre Dame. It was not easy to do. My family has been heavily involved in Notre Dame since Knute Rockne. My uncle was Knute's roommate when both were students and remained best friends. My uncle began the Rockne Club that went on for 40 years after Knute's death. When I was a student, my uncle would take me for a pre- and post-game feast at Bonnie Rockne's house. There, a very old South Bend Tribune sports writer told me that it was my father, Charley Nigro, on the train ride back from the 1924 Army game who pushed and prodded that the just-named "Four Horsemen" be photographed on four horses. It was not easy to give up on Notre Dame. But sometime in the late 1980s, I began to ask "What happened to Notre Dame?" Not even sports scores mattered any longer. Well, this book tells all.We have not had a chance yet to read What Happened to Notre Dame? As readers of this blog are aware, we're a "little" involved in a number of other literary projects, such as the republication of Dr. Harold Moulton's 1935 classic The Formation of Capital, a compendium of the more important short writings of Father William Ferree, S.M., Ph.D. (Introduction to Social Justice, 1948, and Discourses on Social Charity, 1966), our own paper and book on money, credit, banking, and finance (untitled as yet), a possible new edition of another book by William Cobbett, Dr. Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir's prison reminiscences, and so on.
Notre Dame lost its soul. That is, it is no longer committed to the Catholic transcendentals of Truth, Oneness, Good, and Beauty, but to economics, public relations, and relativism, i.e., a sales effort using the Catholic Church as its pitchman. Professor Rice details four decades of Notre Dame undermining the Natural Law, and discarding the protective umbrella of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit (Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety, and Fear of the Lord).
The book was published within three months of Notre Dame's conferring an honorary Doctor of Law Degree onto President Barack Obama. That the scholars (sic) of Notre Dame saw nothing wrong in this is proof that Notre Dame cares nothing about truth, the oneness of humanity, the common good, or the beauty of the universe — only for the bottom line.
This is a depressing book as it chronicles the degeneration of Notre Dame from the Catholic University which educated me, to the quisling 1967 Land O'Lakes Declaration wherein some universities declared their independence and "autonomy" from the Vatican and, at the same time, double-spoke their "Catholicism." Thankfully, Professor Rice tells what needs to be done, and all can hope that, after this crucifixion, there will also be a resurrection. Until then, however, Notre Dame is a façade of Catholicism, a "Pretender of the Faith," and a traitor to its origins. It stands for nothing but contemporary showbiz and the commercialization of truth. Notre Dame may have the money now, which is what they wanted, but it does not have the Faith nor the Gifts of the Holy Spirit to deserve its name as the one-time greatest Catholic University in America.
Judging from the current condition of society, however, What Happened to Notre Dame? should help wake up people to the basic problem of modern society — the near-total abandonment of the natural moral law as the basis of a just social order — and make them more receptive to possible solutions embodied in the proposals of the Just Third Way, such as Capital Homesteading, the Abraham Federation, and the large number of specific proposals detailed on the CESJ website.
Dr. Charles Rice's What Happened to Notre Dame? can be ordered online from:
Amazon ($10.20, list $15.00)
Barnes & Noble (List, $15.00, online, $12.00, member, $10.80)
We strongly suspect (although we could be wrong) that What Happened to Notre Dame? is not covered by the new definition of "academic freedom," and is probably not available at the campus bookstore.
Naturally we can't recommend somebody else's book without putting in a plug or two for our own publications. In Defense of Human Dignity (2008) might prove useful in orienting readers to realize that there are natural law solutions to today's problems that are financially and economically feasible as well as morally sound. It can be purchased online from:
Amazon ($20)
Barnes & Noble (List and online price, $20, member price, $18)
And, of course, you will want to read Capital Homesteading for Every Citizen, available as a free download from the CESJ website, along with Louis Kelso and Mortimer Adler's The Capitalist Manifesto, 1958, and The New Capitalists, 1961, with the all-important subtitle, "A Proposal to Free Economic Growth from the Slavery of Savings." Capital Homesteading is also available from:
Amazon ($18)
Barnes & Noble (online price, $18; member price, $16.20)
#30#
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
What I am Fighting For, III
A day or so ago I received an e-mail from the Alumni Association of the University of Notre Dame, this one focusing on the Association's efforts to fund student endeavors to establish and maintain a just world economy. Since that is what I and others in the Global Justice Movement have been doing for some time, I replied with the following e-mail, directing them to our efforts. This is the third e-mail to the Alumni Association, but they haven't yet had time to respond.
Charles F. Lennon Jr. '61, '62 M.A.
Executive Director
Notre Dame Alumni Association
Dear Chuck:
Thank you for the continuing e-mails reporting on the Alumni Association's efforts to bring justice to the world. The last one was particularly appropriate, as I am Director of Research for the interfaith Center for Economic and Social Justice ("CESJ"). We have been working to establish a healthy — that is, just — economy throughout the world since our founding in 1984. I'm sorry you haven't had the chance yet to respond to any of my earlier e-mails.
Since you highlighted economics in this last e-mail, you should be extremely interested in a number of our publications, as well as the work of the Center in general. In particularly I would draw your attention to:
Curing World Poverty: The New Role of Property (1994). Co-published by CESJ and the Social Justice Review, official journal of the Central Bureau, Catholic Central Union of America in St. Louis, this book (edited by the late Rev. John H. Miller, C.S.C., S.T.D., who taught at Notre Dame) is a compendium of articles detailing a comprehensive approach to the problem of endemic world poverty.
Capital Homesteading for Every Citizen: A Just Free Market Solution for Saving Social Security (2004). Written by Dr. Norman G. Kurland (president of CESJ), Dawn K. Brohawn, and myself. While ostensibly directed to the growing specter of the projected deficit in Social Security and Medicare, the principles explained in Capital Homesteading can be applied to any economy in the world. We are working this week on arranging a meeting with the Economic Officer of the Embassy of Ireland to study the application of these ideas in that country.
In Defense of Human Dignity: Essays on the Just Third Way from a Natural Law Perspective (2008). This is my own recently-released book, containing a series of previously-published articles from Social Justice Review on social justice and economic issues. It's available from Amazon, although not yet up on Barnes and Noble.
There is, of course, a great deal more material available, both on the CESJ web site and our blog. I invite you to visit both, and if you have any questions, give us a call.
Donations to CESJ are tax deductible in the United States under IRC § 501(c)(3):
Charles F. Lennon Jr. '61, '62 M.A.
Executive Director
Notre Dame Alumni Association
Dear Chuck:
Thank you for the continuing e-mails reporting on the Alumni Association's efforts to bring justice to the world. The last one was particularly appropriate, as I am Director of Research for the interfaith Center for Economic and Social Justice ("CESJ"). We have been working to establish a healthy — that is, just — economy throughout the world since our founding in 1984. I'm sorry you haven't had the chance yet to respond to any of my earlier e-mails.
Since you highlighted economics in this last e-mail, you should be extremely interested in a number of our publications, as well as the work of the Center in general. In particularly I would draw your attention to:
Curing World Poverty: The New Role of Property (1994). Co-published by CESJ and the Social Justice Review, official journal of the Central Bureau, Catholic Central Union of America in St. Louis, this book (edited by the late Rev. John H. Miller, C.S.C., S.T.D., who taught at Notre Dame) is a compendium of articles detailing a comprehensive approach to the problem of endemic world poverty.
Capital Homesteading for Every Citizen: A Just Free Market Solution for Saving Social Security (2004). Written by Dr. Norman G. Kurland (president of CESJ), Dawn K. Brohawn, and myself. While ostensibly directed to the growing specter of the projected deficit in Social Security and Medicare, the principles explained in Capital Homesteading can be applied to any economy in the world. We are working this week on arranging a meeting with the Economic Officer of the Embassy of Ireland to study the application of these ideas in that country.
In Defense of Human Dignity: Essays on the Just Third Way from a Natural Law Perspective (2008). This is my own recently-released book, containing a series of previously-published articles from Social Justice Review on social justice and economic issues. It's available from Amazon, although not yet up on Barnes and Noble.
There is, of course, a great deal more material available, both on the CESJ web site and our blog. I invite you to visit both, and if you have any questions, give us a call.
Donations to CESJ are tax deductible in the United States under IRC § 501(c)(3):
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
What I am Fighting For, II
Charles F. Lennon, Jr., Executive Director of the Notre Dame Alumni Association, hasn't had time yet to respond to my earlier reply to his e-mail to me, but I took another opportunity to bring him up to date. While Mr. Lennon hasn't yet gotten back to me, another alumnus, Dr. Samuel Nigro of Cleveland, sent me a nice note about the effort, especially the focus on health care. Thanks, Sam!
Charles F. Lennon, Jr., ND '62
Executive Director
Notre Dame Alumni Association
Dear Mr. Lennon:
Thank you for your second e-mail, this one regarding the ad during the Notre Dame/Michigan game this past Saturday. I appreciate it as I watch the game on television with the sound off, and generally ignore commercials.
Nevertheless, as I stated in my previous e-mail, the campaign raises an important issue concerning the role of Notre Dame and the impact it can have on the surrounding culture in the United States and throughout the world. For that reason I am taking the time to draw your attention to an effort ("Saving Notre Dame") to make certain that the University retains its special character and maintains its unique traditions. I have publicized this to a limited extent on our blog, which can either be accessed directly, or through the link on the web site of our interfaith Center for Economic and Social Justice ("CESJ"), www.cesj.org.
Since you mentioned the issue specifically in your e-mail, you might be especially interested in CESJ's proposed Doctors' Plan for Universal Health Care, designed to address the problem of the millions of Americans without health care coverage, or who have inadequate coverage.
In view of the traditional concern of Notre Dame alumni for social justice, I would also like to draw your attention to Introduction to Social Justice by one of CESJ's co-founders, the late Father William J. Ferree, S.M., Ph.D., Chairman of Dayton University, as well as our overall pro life economic program embodied in our book, Capital Homesteading for Every Citizen (2004).
If any of this interests you, I urge you in the strongest possible terms to make contact with CESJ's president, Dr. Norman G. Kurland, whom I am cc.ing on this e-mail, along with CESJ friends Dr. Charles Rice of the Notre Dame Law School and Father Edward Krause, C.S.C., Ph.D. (fellow alumnus and son of Notre Dame's long-term Athletic Director, "Moose" Krause), who recently participated in the First Social Justice Collaborative in St. Louis, at which I delivered the keynote address.
Donations to CESJ are tax deductible in the United States under IRC § 501(c)(3):
Charles F. Lennon, Jr., ND '62
Executive Director
Notre Dame Alumni Association
Dear Mr. Lennon:
Thank you for your second e-mail, this one regarding the ad during the Notre Dame/Michigan game this past Saturday. I appreciate it as I watch the game on television with the sound off, and generally ignore commercials.
Nevertheless, as I stated in my previous e-mail, the campaign raises an important issue concerning the role of Notre Dame and the impact it can have on the surrounding culture in the United States and throughout the world. For that reason I am taking the time to draw your attention to an effort ("Saving Notre Dame") to make certain that the University retains its special character and maintains its unique traditions. I have publicized this to a limited extent on our blog, which can either be accessed directly, or through the link on the web site of our interfaith Center for Economic and Social Justice ("CESJ"), www.cesj.org.
Since you mentioned the issue specifically in your e-mail, you might be especially interested in CESJ's proposed Doctors' Plan for Universal Health Care, designed to address the problem of the millions of Americans without health care coverage, or who have inadequate coverage.
In view of the traditional concern of Notre Dame alumni for social justice, I would also like to draw your attention to Introduction to Social Justice by one of CESJ's co-founders, the late Father William J. Ferree, S.M., Ph.D., Chairman of Dayton University, as well as our overall pro life economic program embodied in our book, Capital Homesteading for Every Citizen (2004).
If any of this interests you, I urge you in the strongest possible terms to make contact with CESJ's president, Dr. Norman G. Kurland, whom I am cc.ing on this e-mail, along with CESJ friends Dr. Charles Rice of the Notre Dame Law School and Father Edward Krause, C.S.C., Ph.D. (fellow alumnus and son of Notre Dame's long-term Athletic Director, "Moose" Krause), who recently participated in the First Social Justice Collaborative in St. Louis, at which I delivered the keynote address.
Donations to CESJ are tax deductible in the United States under IRC § 501(c)(3):
Monday, September 15, 2008
What I am Fighting For
Last week I got an e-mail from Mr. Charles F. Lennon, Jr., Executive Director of the Notre Dame Alumni Association, first listing some of the causes for which they are fighting, and asking for monetary contributions to assist in the various good works being done. I decided that what we had to offer was much better than mere money, and sent the following letter, to which he has not yet had time to respond:
Charles F. Lennon, Jr., ND '62
Executive Director
Notre Dame Alumni Association
Dear Mr. Lennon:
Thank you for your e-mail regarding the ad during the Notre Dame/San Diego game this past Saturday. The campaign raises an important issue concerning the role of Notre Dame and the impact it can have on the surrounding culture in the United States and throughout the world. For that reason I am taking the time to draw your attention to an effort ("Saving Notre Dame") to make certain that the University retains its special character and maintains its unique traditions. I have publicized this to a limited extent on our blog, which can either be accessed directly, or through the link on the web site of our interfaith Center for Economic and Social Justice ("CESJ"), www.cesj.org.
Since you mentioned the issue specifically in your e-mail, you might be especially interested in CESJ's proposed "Homeowners' Equity Corporation," designed specifically to address the subprime mortgage crisis (now spreading into "prime" territory), but which can also be used to finance adequate and affordable housing for people whose only current alternative is substandard housing. You will also notice a number of postings on the blog regarding this issue as well.
In view of the traditional concern of Notre Dame alumni for social justice, I would also like to draw your attention to Introduction to Social Justice by one of CESJ's co-founders, the late Father William J. Ferree, S.M., Ph.D., Chairman of Dayton University, as well as our overall pro life economic program embodied in our book, Capital Homesteading for Every Citizen (2004).
If any of this interests you, I urge you in the strongest possible terms to make contact with CESJ's president, Dr. Norman G. Kurland, whom I am cc.ing on this e-mail, along with CESJ friends Dr. Charles Rice of the Notre Dame Law School and Father Edward Krause, C.S.C., Ph.D. (fellow alumnus and son of Notre Dame's long-term Athletic Director, "Moose" Krause), who recently participated in the First Social Justice Collaborative in St. Louis, at which I delivered the keynote address.
Donations to CESJ are tax deductible in the United States under IRC § 501(c)(3):
Charles F. Lennon, Jr., ND '62
Executive Director
Notre Dame Alumni Association
Dear Mr. Lennon:
Thank you for your e-mail regarding the ad during the Notre Dame/San Diego game this past Saturday. The campaign raises an important issue concerning the role of Notre Dame and the impact it can have on the surrounding culture in the United States and throughout the world. For that reason I am taking the time to draw your attention to an effort ("Saving Notre Dame") to make certain that the University retains its special character and maintains its unique traditions. I have publicized this to a limited extent on our blog, which can either be accessed directly, or through the link on the web site of our interfaith Center for Economic and Social Justice ("CESJ"), www.cesj.org.
Since you mentioned the issue specifically in your e-mail, you might be especially interested in CESJ's proposed "Homeowners' Equity Corporation," designed specifically to address the subprime mortgage crisis (now spreading into "prime" territory), but which can also be used to finance adequate and affordable housing for people whose only current alternative is substandard housing. You will also notice a number of postings on the blog regarding this issue as well.
In view of the traditional concern of Notre Dame alumni for social justice, I would also like to draw your attention to Introduction to Social Justice by one of CESJ's co-founders, the late Father William J. Ferree, S.M., Ph.D., Chairman of Dayton University, as well as our overall pro life economic program embodied in our book, Capital Homesteading for Every Citizen (2004).
If any of this interests you, I urge you in the strongest possible terms to make contact with CESJ's president, Dr. Norman G. Kurland, whom I am cc.ing on this e-mail, along with CESJ friends Dr. Charles Rice of the Notre Dame Law School and Father Edward Krause, C.S.C., Ph.D. (fellow alumnus and son of Notre Dame's long-term Athletic Director, "Moose" Krause), who recently participated in the First Social Justice Collaborative in St. Louis, at which I delivered the keynote address.
Donations to CESJ are tax deductible in the United States under IRC § 501(c)(3):
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Saving Notre Dame
Here is a letter I sent out this morning after working on it over the Labor Day weekend. Feel free to act on it.
Dear Tom:
The delay in getting back to you was due to the fact that I have a couple of other demands on my time, such as saving the world, etc. As you will come to understand, however, saving academia is high on the list of tasks that (taken as an integrated whole) will result in the restructuring of the social order, the goal of Pope Pius XI, as expressed in Quadragesimo Anno (issued the same year that Knute Rockne died), and implied in almost every single encyclical, allocution, and letter he composed.
1.
Dr. Norman G. Kurland, president of the interfaith Center for Economic and Social Justice ("CESJ"), www.cesj.org (with whom I have worked for many years) is an expert in the fundamentals of restructuring institutions to conform them more closely to the demands of the common good, that is, to the principles of the natural law. He was active in the Civil Rights Movement in the early 1960s, but it was not until he discovered the work of Louis Kelso and Mortimer Adler that he was able to formulate a specific goal that would correct the root causes of injustice in our society. Perhaps not coincidentally, 2008 marks the 50th anniversary of the first book that Kelso and Adler co-authored, the misnamed, Capitalist Manifesto.
In consequence, Norm was able to participate in what many people regard as his greatest accomplishment, assisting in persuading the late Senator Russell Long of Louisiana (son of Huey Long) to champion the passage of the enabling legislation for the Employee Stock Ownership Plan ("ESOP"), barely a year after Senator Long had been identified as the ESOP's chief opponent.
In 1984 Norm was introduced to the late Father William J. Ferree, S.M., Ph.D., then Chairman of the University of Dayton, and acknowledged expert in the social doctrine of Pope Pius XI. On his death in 1985, Father Ferree was referred to as "America's greatest social philosopher" by no less an authority than Father Andrew F. Morlion, O.P., Ph.D., founder of the International University of Social Studies in Rome, and special envoy of Pope John XXIII. Both Father Ferree and Father Morlion were on CESJ's board of directors.
Along with others, such as Dr. Geoff Gneuhs, a professor at Fordham and editor with the Catholic Worker, William Schirra (who introduced Norm and Father Ferree), and Col. Vincent J. McGrath, U.S.A. (Ret.), Norm and Father Ferree founded the interfaith Center for Economic and Social Justice in 1984.
One of CESJ's first major projects was the Presidential Task Force on Project Economic Justice under President Ronald Reagan (who, as everyone knows, played George Gipp in Knute Rockne, All American). Norm served as Deputy Chairman of the Task Force. The report of the Task Force was circulated throughout the United States Agency for International Development, and was the inspiration for the Alexandria Tire Company in Egypt, the first ESOP in a developing country.
CESJ had two audiences with His Holiness John Paul II, during the first of which in his private library, he encouraged CESJ in its work, thereby providing the inspiration for CESJ's first major publication for popular consumption, Curing World Poverty: The New Role of Property (1994), shepherded through the long process of development and editing by the late Father John Miller, C.S.C., S.T.D., then head of the Central Bureau, Catholic Central Union of America in St. Louis, and Father Matthew Habiger, O.S.B., Ph.D., at that time head of Human Life International in Front Royal, Virginia. The principles articulated in Curing World Poverty, described by The Wanderer as "the most succinct Catholic economic program ever formulated - period," have most recently been embodied in a more ecumenical and interfaith fashion in Capital Homesteading for Every Citizen: A Just Free Market Solution for Saving Social Security (2004).
CESJ promotes a free enterprise approach to global economic justice through expanded capital ownership. CESJ is a non-profit, non-partisan, interfaith, all-volunteer organization with an educational and research mission. CESJ's global membership shares a common set of moral values — the natural law — and works together toward a common purpose, transforming good ideas into effective action.
Building upon the ideals of the American Revolution, especially as articulated by George Mason of Gunston Hall in the Virginia Declaration of Rights, CESJ focuses on extending economic empowerment to all. Going beyond the mere rhetoric of empowerment, CESJ has developed a commonsense, comprehensive plan — the Capital Homestead Act — to liberate every person economically. To build equity with efficiency at the workplace, CESJ has developed a management system for corporations of the 21st Century known as "Justice-Based Management."
CESJ's macro- and micro-economic concepts and applications are derived from the economic theories and principles of economic justice developed by the late lawyer-economist Louis Kelso and the Aristotelian philosopher Mortimer Adler. Combined with the ideas of Social Justice developed by Pius XI and refined by one of CESJ's founders, the late Thomist philosopher Rev. William Ferree, these ideas offer a new paradigm for the world of the 21st Century. We call this new paradigm — which transcends the power- and ownership-concentrating wage systems of traditional capitalism and traditional socialism — "the Just Third Way."
2.
After that "brief" introduction, the question then becomes, "What has this got to do with saving Notre Dame?"
The answer is — everything.
As His Holiness Benedict XVI has pointed out on more than one occasion, the most serious problem in the world today is bad ideas. Bad ideas are the cause of the plague of moral relativism that has infected all levels of all societies, domestic, religious, and civil. Nowhere is this moral relativism more evident — and more damaging — than in academia. Nowhere is the damage more serious than in Catholic academia.
As Dr. Ralph McInerny has pointed out, the whole idea of the university was to reinforce and support the Catholic culture of Europe. The question as to whether a Catholic university can be a "real" university is a non-issue, an accusation invented by secularists and anti-Catholics who for centuries spread the lie that a Catholic could not be a good citizen, a lie once applied to Jews, and before that to all Christians, and now to Muslims. "Catholic university" is not an oxymoron; it is redundant.
Other faiths and sects have used the idea of the university to good and beneficial effect within their own respective cultures, as has the secular culture itself, but the Catholic university is the exemplar and guide for what it means for something to be a "university." When the Catholic university loses its identity as something specifically Catholic, the country and the world lose something that not only confers great advantages on society and individuals, but (in a sense) part of its soul as well. The natural law is based on God's Intellect — reason — and when Catholic academia abandons its special character in an attempt to acquire wealth and popular fame, it gains the world — and loses its soul as well as its reason.
For this reason CESJ has made academia a special object of concern. Norm, while not a Christian, is an expert in Catholic social doctrine and sees Catholic academia as not only the most important part of the academic monolith, but the root source of the infection of the plague of relativism. The secular establishment, especially secular academia, has been at great pains to inculcate a sense of inferiority in Catholic academia, possibly out of guilt, but more likely out of envy.
If Catholic academia can be brought down to the level of the surrounding culture (as exemplified by secular academia), there will no longer be any objective standard against which the failings of secular academia can be measured. The damage they have inflicted — and continue to inflict — on western civilization will, within the mushy framework of moral relativism, be transformed by the downfall of the Catholic university into unquestioned benefits, and their relativism turned into the only absolutes. The irony in all this is the enthusiasm and active participation of Catholic academia in its own suicide.
3.
What can be done to correct this situation? First, while such things as the "Vagina Monologues" and the effort to reduce or remove the Catholicity of the faculty are serious, even extremely dangerous, we have to realize that they are "only" symptoms. The real problem is with the underlying institution. The equivocations handed out by the university administration whenever a specific symptom is protested are a sure sign of a badly-structured institution. The university has, whether through inertia, delusion, or intent, transformed itself into what Pope John Paul II called a "structure of sin."
Thus, while the university cannot be said to be sinful (any more than anything else that is not a natural person), the whole milieu of Notre Dame is such that deviations from the natural law are not only acceptable, they become the norm. Rather than being unfortunate exceptions that manage to circumvent the institutional structure and essential Catholicity of the university (as the administration attempts to characterize them), these deviations are protected and encouraged by the very institutional structure that (were it in conformity with the natural law and thus the demands of the common good) is designed and intended to prevent them. It thereby violates the essential human dignity of every student, faculty member, administrator, alumnus, and contributor, to say nothing of the effect that Notre Dame by its special character and position has on the whole of the common good. The common good of the University of Notre Dame has become flawed. It must be brought back into conformity with the natural law.
4.
How can this be done? The simple (and correct) answer is, through acts of social justice inspired and guided by acts of social charity.
Social charity is the virtue or moral habit (analogous to individual charity) that guides us in how we behave toward our institutions. It is the "soul" of social justice. Social charity inspires us to "love our institutions as we love ourselves," acknowledging their faults but seeking to help in their perfection and transformation rather than in their destruction. Social charity is the preliminary step of properly orienting and educating ourselves in order to organize with others in acts of social justice to restructure unjust or ineffective laws and institutions. Social charity is different from organized charity, which is a form of individual charity (i.e., directed at human persons rather than social institutions).
Social justice is the particular virtue whose object is the common good of all human society, rather than, as with individual justice, the individual good of any member or group. It is one of the basic social virtues in the field of social morality. Social justice guides humans as social beings in creating and perfecting organized human interactions, or institutions. It is the principle for restoring moral balance and harmony in the social order.
Social justice imposes on each member of society a personal responsibility to work with others to design and continually perfect our institutions as tools for personal and social development. To the extent an institution violates the human dignity of any person or group, organized acts of social justice are required to correct the defects in that institution. Actions such as "social justice tithing," for example, recognize a personal responsibility to devote a certain amount of time toward working with others to improve the organizations and institutions in which we live and work.
It is particularly appropriate that such an effort be made to save Notre Dame. Evidence suggests that Knute Rockne somehow had an inherent understanding of the principles of social charity and social justice, even before Pius XI articulated them. In his book on coaching, even in his 1925 juvenile novel, The Four Winners, as well as in hints contained in Harry Stuhldreyer's memoir, there are glimpses of Rockne's theories on football that he tried to extend to the whole of life, and which sound very much like the laws and characteristics of social justice as described by Father Ferree in his 1948 pamphlet, Introduction to Social Justice.
5.
What can be done specifically to start the process?
First, circulate this memorandum among any and all groups who are concerned with the current state of the University of Notre Dame. This includes students, faculty, administration, alumni, contributors, even "subway alumni" and individuals of all faiths and ethical traditions who are concerned with the state of society, of which Notre Dame might serve as an exemplar. Most especially, this memo should be gotten to groups such as yours and the Sycamore Project that have been organized with the express intent of bringing the university back into conformity with its special traditions and Catholic orientation, a true "return to glory."
As the people in the Sycamore Project seem to be one of the better organized efforts with the most resources, they might be able to spearhead the effort. The principal characteristic of the act of social justice is organized activity toward the common good. An examination of the web site of the Sycamore Project appears to demonstrate the necessary degree of social charity and the will to engage in acts of social justice to preserve Notre Dame's special character and identity. They should thus be a special "target" in the opening stages of this initiative.
Second, anyone concerned with saving Notre Dame should read and study the basic documents, starting with Father Ferree's Introduction to Social Justice, available as a free download on the CESJ web site. Other useful documents will be Norm's "How to Win a Revolution," which contains specific applications of the principles of social change, albeit directed at the expanded capital ownership movement, but easily adapted to any movement for institutional restructuring. At one time, I believe, Norm met Saul Alinsky, and was impressed with the power that properly directed social activism could have. Alinsky's efforts have petered out, in large measure because the force was misdirected to ephemeral ends such as job creation and wealth redistribution instead of institutional change.
Third — get organized. Since it's better not wasting time trying to reinvent the wheel, the maximum effect can be achieved by slightly reorienting an existing organization. Project Sycamore seems the logical choice at this point, but another one may surface if they are unwilling or uninterested.
Fourth, locate "prime movers." That is, individuals who have high visibility in the community (in this case, the Notre Dame family), and who have the ability and power to influence the grassroots — the immensely powerful, if unorganized ordinary members of the Notre Dame family. As isolated voices, the administration can easily ignore them; a lone individual or small group can always be written off as a malcontent or aggregation of disgruntled and unimportant loonies. As an organized movement behind one or more prime movers, however, the administration must pay attention, or lose its cherished position.
At any time CESJ is available in the person of Norman Kurland to provide advice and guidance. CESJ at present lacks the resources to commit itself to providing anything other than that, as our people and resources are already fully committed (and in some cases, over-committed) to existing projects. The most efficient way to proceed, then, is first to locate a prime mover, and have him or her have a talk with Norm. If guidance or advice is needed in the effort of locating a prime mover (without expecting anyone in CESJ to be able to surface the prime mover), Norm will also be available. As an old hand at fomenting peaceful revolution, Norm often has the knack of picking out the key individual who must be swung around or convinced before an institution can be restructured.
6.
What methods are to be used?
Initially, the internet should prove extremely useful. If something starts happening, for example, I could report progress on our blog, "The Just Third Way," as an example of applied social justice in action. Until a prime mover and an organization can be located to provide logistical support, however, communications and the effort will have to remain somewhat informal. I prefer e-mail, as it leaves a written record, while Norm prefers the telephone or a face-to-face meeting.
Once there are resources, actual meetings become possible. For this reason, locating an existing organization becomes critical. CESJ cannot do this, as all our resources are, as I noted above, already fully committed. At this point, again, Project Sycamore might be the best bet. They're already working toward the same general goal, and should be open to gaining more committed people under their banner.
While the ultimate objective is the restructuring of the institution to bring it back into conformity with the natural law, the symptoms cannot be ignored. Every instance of the university deviating from the natural law and from its nature as a Catholic institution should be (respectfully) protested — and both specific and long-term ameliorative measures suggested. That is, the immediate solution is to cease the offending act, while the long range solution is to reorient the university along more socially just lines so that similar offenses become not only less frequent, but unthinkable within the context of a Catholic university. This is a combination of individual and social justice: individual justice deals with the specific offenses, while social justice deals with restructuring the institution so that similar offenses are no longer an optimal choice for those within the milieu of that institution.
Once the effort is organized, with a prime mover or movers committed, along with logistical support, the media must be kept informed, and allies continually sought. A definite coup would be to get other denominational educational institutions to endorse the effort, as well as prominent individuals of other faith traditions. A statement supporting Notre Dame's return and adherence to its Catholic traditions and identity from Jewish, Muslim, Mormon, or Protestant institutions or spokesmen would be extremely powerful - and undercut the claim that there is something "second rate" about being a religiously affiliated institution, or that Catholics (or members of any other religion) are somehow not as good citizens as anybody else. I believe that CESJ could use its connections to get some endorsements of this sort.
For example, Dr. Ahmed Mansour, an Islamic religious leader in exile from Egypt, is a strong advocate of the natural law (he commented favorably on Pope Benedict's speech at Regensburg), and is a friend of CESJ. He might be willing to make a statement on an effort to reorient Notre Dame in accordance with the natural law.
I am reasonably certain that Social Justice Review, the official journal of the Central Bureau, Catholic Central Union of America, would publish articles on the effort. The editor is friendly, and the CCUA has a connection to Notre Dame, being run by the same order. We are currently in discussions with the president of the American Chesterton Society, Dale Ahlquist, who, in addition to being the publisher of Gilbert magazine, has an "in" at EWTN. I probably don't need to tell you that getting EWTN involved would do much to publicize the effort, as well as move it along.
7.
The ultimate goal is to save Notre Dame as a Catholic university. To that end, it might be extremely useful to consider bringing the effort, once organized (and, ultimately, Notre Dame itself), under the auspices of the in-formation "Abraham Federation," the groundwork for which was laid during the "First Social Justice Collaborative" held recently in St. Louis. The idea of the Abraham Federation is to bring together organizations (especially institutions of higher learning) under a single umbrella, but without losing in any way their autonomy, independence, or special character or identity, to forward the restructuring of the social order into a justice-based society in conformity with the natural law.
As expressed in St. Louis, the Abraham Federation is "a coalition of organizations that hold in common the idea that access to property ownership is the key to justice, and justice is the key to peace. We are a think tank and catalyst for social change comprised of Muslims, Christians, Jews and all who uphold the principles of natural law. We advocate limited economic power of the State, free and open markets, and the full rights of private property." CESJ is helping to get the effort organized (similar to the way it could assist the effort to save Notre Dame), and has located some potential funding sources.
* * * *
It may be providential that this opportunity presents itself at the beginning of the new academic year. The students haven't had time yet to sink into the pre-midterm panic, and since it is the Fall, the seniors haven't yet become obsessed with finding jobs. We might even get some support from the Observer, although Notre Dame Magazine might not have too much to offer. In any event "well begun is half done," as they say.
Donations to CESJ are tax deductible in the United States under IRC § 501(c)(3):
Dear Tom:
The delay in getting back to you was due to the fact that I have a couple of other demands on my time, such as saving the world, etc. As you will come to understand, however, saving academia is high on the list of tasks that (taken as an integrated whole) will result in the restructuring of the social order, the goal of Pope Pius XI, as expressed in Quadragesimo Anno (issued the same year that Knute Rockne died), and implied in almost every single encyclical, allocution, and letter he composed.
1.
Dr. Norman G. Kurland, president of the interfaith Center for Economic and Social Justice ("CESJ"), www.cesj.org (with whom I have worked for many years) is an expert in the fundamentals of restructuring institutions to conform them more closely to the demands of the common good, that is, to the principles of the natural law. He was active in the Civil Rights Movement in the early 1960s, but it was not until he discovered the work of Louis Kelso and Mortimer Adler that he was able to formulate a specific goal that would correct the root causes of injustice in our society. Perhaps not coincidentally, 2008 marks the 50th anniversary of the first book that Kelso and Adler co-authored, the misnamed, Capitalist Manifesto.
In consequence, Norm was able to participate in what many people regard as his greatest accomplishment, assisting in persuading the late Senator Russell Long of Louisiana (son of Huey Long) to champion the passage of the enabling legislation for the Employee Stock Ownership Plan ("ESOP"), barely a year after Senator Long had been identified as the ESOP's chief opponent.
In 1984 Norm was introduced to the late Father William J. Ferree, S.M., Ph.D., then Chairman of the University of Dayton, and acknowledged expert in the social doctrine of Pope Pius XI. On his death in 1985, Father Ferree was referred to as "America's greatest social philosopher" by no less an authority than Father Andrew F. Morlion, O.P., Ph.D., founder of the International University of Social Studies in Rome, and special envoy of Pope John XXIII. Both Father Ferree and Father Morlion were on CESJ's board of directors.
Along with others, such as Dr. Geoff Gneuhs, a professor at Fordham and editor with the Catholic Worker, William Schirra (who introduced Norm and Father Ferree), and Col. Vincent J. McGrath, U.S.A. (Ret.), Norm and Father Ferree founded the interfaith Center for Economic and Social Justice in 1984.
One of CESJ's first major projects was the Presidential Task Force on Project Economic Justice under President Ronald Reagan (who, as everyone knows, played George Gipp in Knute Rockne, All American). Norm served as Deputy Chairman of the Task Force. The report of the Task Force was circulated throughout the United States Agency for International Development, and was the inspiration for the Alexandria Tire Company in Egypt, the first ESOP in a developing country.
CESJ had two audiences with His Holiness John Paul II, during the first of which in his private library, he encouraged CESJ in its work, thereby providing the inspiration for CESJ's first major publication for popular consumption, Curing World Poverty: The New Role of Property (1994), shepherded through the long process of development and editing by the late Father John Miller, C.S.C., S.T.D., then head of the Central Bureau, Catholic Central Union of America in St. Louis, and Father Matthew Habiger, O.S.B., Ph.D., at that time head of Human Life International in Front Royal, Virginia. The principles articulated in Curing World Poverty, described by The Wanderer as "the most succinct Catholic economic program ever formulated - period," have most recently been embodied in a more ecumenical and interfaith fashion in Capital Homesteading for Every Citizen: A Just Free Market Solution for Saving Social Security (2004).
CESJ promotes a free enterprise approach to global economic justice through expanded capital ownership. CESJ is a non-profit, non-partisan, interfaith, all-volunteer organization with an educational and research mission. CESJ's global membership shares a common set of moral values — the natural law — and works together toward a common purpose, transforming good ideas into effective action.
Building upon the ideals of the American Revolution, especially as articulated by George Mason of Gunston Hall in the Virginia Declaration of Rights, CESJ focuses on extending economic empowerment to all. Going beyond the mere rhetoric of empowerment, CESJ has developed a commonsense, comprehensive plan — the Capital Homestead Act — to liberate every person economically. To build equity with efficiency at the workplace, CESJ has developed a management system for corporations of the 21st Century known as "Justice-Based Management."
CESJ's macro- and micro-economic concepts and applications are derived from the economic theories and principles of economic justice developed by the late lawyer-economist Louis Kelso and the Aristotelian philosopher Mortimer Adler. Combined with the ideas of Social Justice developed by Pius XI and refined by one of CESJ's founders, the late Thomist philosopher Rev. William Ferree, these ideas offer a new paradigm for the world of the 21st Century. We call this new paradigm — which transcends the power- and ownership-concentrating wage systems of traditional capitalism and traditional socialism — "the Just Third Way."
2.
After that "brief" introduction, the question then becomes, "What has this got to do with saving Notre Dame?"
The answer is — everything.
As His Holiness Benedict XVI has pointed out on more than one occasion, the most serious problem in the world today is bad ideas. Bad ideas are the cause of the plague of moral relativism that has infected all levels of all societies, domestic, religious, and civil. Nowhere is this moral relativism more evident — and more damaging — than in academia. Nowhere is the damage more serious than in Catholic academia.
As Dr. Ralph McInerny has pointed out, the whole idea of the university was to reinforce and support the Catholic culture of Europe. The question as to whether a Catholic university can be a "real" university is a non-issue, an accusation invented by secularists and anti-Catholics who for centuries spread the lie that a Catholic could not be a good citizen, a lie once applied to Jews, and before that to all Christians, and now to Muslims. "Catholic university" is not an oxymoron; it is redundant.
Other faiths and sects have used the idea of the university to good and beneficial effect within their own respective cultures, as has the secular culture itself, but the Catholic university is the exemplar and guide for what it means for something to be a "university." When the Catholic university loses its identity as something specifically Catholic, the country and the world lose something that not only confers great advantages on society and individuals, but (in a sense) part of its soul as well. The natural law is based on God's Intellect — reason — and when Catholic academia abandons its special character in an attempt to acquire wealth and popular fame, it gains the world — and loses its soul as well as its reason.
For this reason CESJ has made academia a special object of concern. Norm, while not a Christian, is an expert in Catholic social doctrine and sees Catholic academia as not only the most important part of the academic monolith, but the root source of the infection of the plague of relativism. The secular establishment, especially secular academia, has been at great pains to inculcate a sense of inferiority in Catholic academia, possibly out of guilt, but more likely out of envy.
If Catholic academia can be brought down to the level of the surrounding culture (as exemplified by secular academia), there will no longer be any objective standard against which the failings of secular academia can be measured. The damage they have inflicted — and continue to inflict — on western civilization will, within the mushy framework of moral relativism, be transformed by the downfall of the Catholic university into unquestioned benefits, and their relativism turned into the only absolutes. The irony in all this is the enthusiasm and active participation of Catholic academia in its own suicide.
3.
What can be done to correct this situation? First, while such things as the "Vagina Monologues" and the effort to reduce or remove the Catholicity of the faculty are serious, even extremely dangerous, we have to realize that they are "only" symptoms. The real problem is with the underlying institution. The equivocations handed out by the university administration whenever a specific symptom is protested are a sure sign of a badly-structured institution. The university has, whether through inertia, delusion, or intent, transformed itself into what Pope John Paul II called a "structure of sin."
Thus, while the university cannot be said to be sinful (any more than anything else that is not a natural person), the whole milieu of Notre Dame is such that deviations from the natural law are not only acceptable, they become the norm. Rather than being unfortunate exceptions that manage to circumvent the institutional structure and essential Catholicity of the university (as the administration attempts to characterize them), these deviations are protected and encouraged by the very institutional structure that (were it in conformity with the natural law and thus the demands of the common good) is designed and intended to prevent them. It thereby violates the essential human dignity of every student, faculty member, administrator, alumnus, and contributor, to say nothing of the effect that Notre Dame by its special character and position has on the whole of the common good. The common good of the University of Notre Dame has become flawed. It must be brought back into conformity with the natural law.
4.
How can this be done? The simple (and correct) answer is, through acts of social justice inspired and guided by acts of social charity.
Social charity is the virtue or moral habit (analogous to individual charity) that guides us in how we behave toward our institutions. It is the "soul" of social justice. Social charity inspires us to "love our institutions as we love ourselves," acknowledging their faults but seeking to help in their perfection and transformation rather than in their destruction. Social charity is the preliminary step of properly orienting and educating ourselves in order to organize with others in acts of social justice to restructure unjust or ineffective laws and institutions. Social charity is different from organized charity, which is a form of individual charity (i.e., directed at human persons rather than social institutions).
Social justice is the particular virtue whose object is the common good of all human society, rather than, as with individual justice, the individual good of any member or group. It is one of the basic social virtues in the field of social morality. Social justice guides humans as social beings in creating and perfecting organized human interactions, or institutions. It is the principle for restoring moral balance and harmony in the social order.
Social justice imposes on each member of society a personal responsibility to work with others to design and continually perfect our institutions as tools for personal and social development. To the extent an institution violates the human dignity of any person or group, organized acts of social justice are required to correct the defects in that institution. Actions such as "social justice tithing," for example, recognize a personal responsibility to devote a certain amount of time toward working with others to improve the organizations and institutions in which we live and work.
It is particularly appropriate that such an effort be made to save Notre Dame. Evidence suggests that Knute Rockne somehow had an inherent understanding of the principles of social charity and social justice, even before Pius XI articulated them. In his book on coaching, even in his 1925 juvenile novel, The Four Winners, as well as in hints contained in Harry Stuhldreyer's memoir, there are glimpses of Rockne's theories on football that he tried to extend to the whole of life, and which sound very much like the laws and characteristics of social justice as described by Father Ferree in his 1948 pamphlet, Introduction to Social Justice.
5.
What can be done specifically to start the process?
First, circulate this memorandum among any and all groups who are concerned with the current state of the University of Notre Dame. This includes students, faculty, administration, alumni, contributors, even "subway alumni" and individuals of all faiths and ethical traditions who are concerned with the state of society, of which Notre Dame might serve as an exemplar. Most especially, this memo should be gotten to groups such as yours and the Sycamore Project that have been organized with the express intent of bringing the university back into conformity with its special traditions and Catholic orientation, a true "return to glory."
As the people in the Sycamore Project seem to be one of the better organized efforts with the most resources, they might be able to spearhead the effort. The principal characteristic of the act of social justice is organized activity toward the common good. An examination of the web site of the Sycamore Project appears to demonstrate the necessary degree of social charity and the will to engage in acts of social justice to preserve Notre Dame's special character and identity. They should thus be a special "target" in the opening stages of this initiative.
Second, anyone concerned with saving Notre Dame should read and study the basic documents, starting with Father Ferree's Introduction to Social Justice, available as a free download on the CESJ web site. Other useful documents will be Norm's "How to Win a Revolution," which contains specific applications of the principles of social change, albeit directed at the expanded capital ownership movement, but easily adapted to any movement for institutional restructuring. At one time, I believe, Norm met Saul Alinsky, and was impressed with the power that properly directed social activism could have. Alinsky's efforts have petered out, in large measure because the force was misdirected to ephemeral ends such as job creation and wealth redistribution instead of institutional change.
Third — get organized. Since it's better not wasting time trying to reinvent the wheel, the maximum effect can be achieved by slightly reorienting an existing organization. Project Sycamore seems the logical choice at this point, but another one may surface if they are unwilling or uninterested.
Fourth, locate "prime movers." That is, individuals who have high visibility in the community (in this case, the Notre Dame family), and who have the ability and power to influence the grassroots — the immensely powerful, if unorganized ordinary members of the Notre Dame family. As isolated voices, the administration can easily ignore them; a lone individual or small group can always be written off as a malcontent or aggregation of disgruntled and unimportant loonies. As an organized movement behind one or more prime movers, however, the administration must pay attention, or lose its cherished position.
At any time CESJ is available in the person of Norman Kurland to provide advice and guidance. CESJ at present lacks the resources to commit itself to providing anything other than that, as our people and resources are already fully committed (and in some cases, over-committed) to existing projects. The most efficient way to proceed, then, is first to locate a prime mover, and have him or her have a talk with Norm. If guidance or advice is needed in the effort of locating a prime mover (without expecting anyone in CESJ to be able to surface the prime mover), Norm will also be available. As an old hand at fomenting peaceful revolution, Norm often has the knack of picking out the key individual who must be swung around or convinced before an institution can be restructured.
6.
What methods are to be used?
Initially, the internet should prove extremely useful. If something starts happening, for example, I could report progress on our blog, "The Just Third Way," as an example of applied social justice in action. Until a prime mover and an organization can be located to provide logistical support, however, communications and the effort will have to remain somewhat informal. I prefer e-mail, as it leaves a written record, while Norm prefers the telephone or a face-to-face meeting.
Once there are resources, actual meetings become possible. For this reason, locating an existing organization becomes critical. CESJ cannot do this, as all our resources are, as I noted above, already fully committed. At this point, again, Project Sycamore might be the best bet. They're already working toward the same general goal, and should be open to gaining more committed people under their banner.
While the ultimate objective is the restructuring of the institution to bring it back into conformity with the natural law, the symptoms cannot be ignored. Every instance of the university deviating from the natural law and from its nature as a Catholic institution should be (respectfully) protested — and both specific and long-term ameliorative measures suggested. That is, the immediate solution is to cease the offending act, while the long range solution is to reorient the university along more socially just lines so that similar offenses become not only less frequent, but unthinkable within the context of a Catholic university. This is a combination of individual and social justice: individual justice deals with the specific offenses, while social justice deals with restructuring the institution so that similar offenses are no longer an optimal choice for those within the milieu of that institution.
Once the effort is organized, with a prime mover or movers committed, along with logistical support, the media must be kept informed, and allies continually sought. A definite coup would be to get other denominational educational institutions to endorse the effort, as well as prominent individuals of other faith traditions. A statement supporting Notre Dame's return and adherence to its Catholic traditions and identity from Jewish, Muslim, Mormon, or Protestant institutions or spokesmen would be extremely powerful - and undercut the claim that there is something "second rate" about being a religiously affiliated institution, or that Catholics (or members of any other religion) are somehow not as good citizens as anybody else. I believe that CESJ could use its connections to get some endorsements of this sort.
For example, Dr. Ahmed Mansour, an Islamic religious leader in exile from Egypt, is a strong advocate of the natural law (he commented favorably on Pope Benedict's speech at Regensburg), and is a friend of CESJ. He might be willing to make a statement on an effort to reorient Notre Dame in accordance with the natural law.
I am reasonably certain that Social Justice Review, the official journal of the Central Bureau, Catholic Central Union of America, would publish articles on the effort. The editor is friendly, and the CCUA has a connection to Notre Dame, being run by the same order. We are currently in discussions with the president of the American Chesterton Society, Dale Ahlquist, who, in addition to being the publisher of Gilbert magazine, has an "in" at EWTN. I probably don't need to tell you that getting EWTN involved would do much to publicize the effort, as well as move it along.
7.
The ultimate goal is to save Notre Dame as a Catholic university. To that end, it might be extremely useful to consider bringing the effort, once organized (and, ultimately, Notre Dame itself), under the auspices of the in-formation "Abraham Federation," the groundwork for which was laid during the "First Social Justice Collaborative" held recently in St. Louis. The idea of the Abraham Federation is to bring together organizations (especially institutions of higher learning) under a single umbrella, but without losing in any way their autonomy, independence, or special character or identity, to forward the restructuring of the social order into a justice-based society in conformity with the natural law.
As expressed in St. Louis, the Abraham Federation is "a coalition of organizations that hold in common the idea that access to property ownership is the key to justice, and justice is the key to peace. We are a think tank and catalyst for social change comprised of Muslims, Christians, Jews and all who uphold the principles of natural law. We advocate limited economic power of the State, free and open markets, and the full rights of private property." CESJ is helping to get the effort organized (similar to the way it could assist the effort to save Notre Dame), and has located some potential funding sources.
* * * *
It may be providential that this opportunity presents itself at the beginning of the new academic year. The students haven't had time yet to sink into the pre-midterm panic, and since it is the Fall, the seniors haven't yet become obsessed with finding jobs. We might even get some support from the Observer, although Notre Dame Magazine might not have too much to offer. In any event "well begun is half done," as they say.
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