Spring 2000 online contents

Summer 2000 online contents

It should be pointed out, however that the events at Ruby Ridge - including the deaths of a federal agent and Randy Weaver's son, followed by the death of Mrs. Weaver — occurred in August 1992, three months before Clinton was elected President.

While I have barely accustomed myself to public confusion on this issue, I am astonished that both a Notre Dame-trained lawyer and an editor of Notre Dame's alumni magazine would overlook such an elementary fact.

I pray that all who share this misunderstanding will reflect how they came to this error, and on what the frequency of the error about an event less than eight years ago portends for our country's future.

Alexander Glockner '84
Mount Laurel NJ

As I read how Notre Dame's "financial aid [is] growing faster than tuition" (Spring 2000 issue), I didn't know whether to laugh, cry, or simply applaud the University's amazing spin on the situation. Tossing about facts and figures, the University painted a rosy picture of how "the good news for students" is that financial aid "continues to increase dramatically." If I were a student (or parent of one), I don't know how much more "good news" I could take.

Using the Fall 1998 undergraduate enrollment (7,875) posted on the University's website and your article's information, I ran some calculations. A 5.2% increase on tuition and room and board means students will pay a total of $229,162,500 to attend next year, an increase of $11,327,425. The "dramatic" 17 percent rise in aid to a total of $27.8 million, as the University states, is $4 million more than the previous year's aid. That vaunted 17 percent looks a lot smaller than the meager 5.2 percent when the total dollars are considered side by side.

Percentages can be impressive, but without all the pertinent information they can also be grossly misleading. I could do with less happy talk and more reality. The truth is a Notre Dame education is expensive and the University's available financial aid remains small.

Lisa Vrbin '84
Loves Park, IL

Allow me to preface my comments by stating that I am a fan of Notre Dame magazine. As expatriates, my wife and I rely on ND Magazine to stay connected with the university and the issues most important to its alumni.

So perhaps it was the hip, off-the-cuff manner in which the question was posed, or the disturbing graphic of a pep-rally megaphone with a swastika emblazoned on its side, but I found the "Wondering Out Loud" sidebar on page 14 of the Spring 2000 issue in poor taste. For the past three years, I have lived and worked in Poland, a country where six million people (half of whom were Jews) were murdered by the Nazis. As a Foreign Service Officer who has visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camps countless times, I can assure you there is nothing cute or banal about Nazism and its legacy.

Mark Toner `86
Krakow, Poland

I agree with Lawrence Cunningham that there is "a temptation toward deference to authority in institutional Catholicism that inhibits thought and action." I suspect that he does not recognize, however, that he and his progressive colleagues are that authority. It is hard to imagine a more prominent perch in "institutional Catholicism" than the theology department at Notre Dame. In the church bureaucracy, schools, and colleges, liberals dominate, and exercise their authority with a smothering zeal. For that reason, mainstream institutions like Notre Dame are very unlikely to be the source of the anti-authoritarian "thought and action" that Professor Cunningham seeks.

Frank Maguire ’76
Rockville, Maryland

Thanks for the articles by Peter Steinfels and Lawrence Cunningham on the shape and balance of Catholic academic life in the Spring 2000 issue of Notre Dame Magazine. Noting here simply in passing that it is not obvious that the intellectual life of Catholics is coterminous with the academic life of Catholics, let me pass on to more extended reflections.

It is more than passingly odd that both essays proceed to the accomplishment of their tasks without any reference whatsoever tp James T. Burtchaell, CSC’s recent and most directly relevant work, The Dying of the Light. That substantial and significant work does not deal directly r overtly with Notre Dame’s "shape" or "intellectual life," of course. But can anyone doubt where the former Provost had lines of his argument etched into his being? Even a blind reader can feel the raised dots between the lines of Butchaell’s text. The lament is extoned Super Flumina Babylonis; the song is sung for Jerusalem. It’s a second reflection on the articles: the more I reflect on my own undergraduate education at Notre Dame not quite half-a-century ago now, and on the shape of my own intellectual life and academic experience since then, the more settled becomes my conviction that those who taught me most effectually and lastingly there learned on their knees much of what they taught. I have known few such colleagues since then. Authority has receded to drear and dank places, too often to be replaced by raw experience viewed through the patina of libido.

The "Nihil Obotat" and "Imprimetur" having been consigned to the ecclesiastical attic, it might be particularly difficult to design the printed equivalent of a genuflection, a token "submission" to be prefactorily inserted in works — particularly essays — among at alleged orthopraxis, let alone orthodoxy. And comparisons over time are notoriously difficult to carry out. Half-a-century ago I was, for instance, even more naive than I am now and, pace the burden of the analysis in The Dying of the Light, more "pious."

It would be impossible to argue that piety is an adequate alternative to intellectual rigor at a University. But I have come to know too many "masterless" men and women in the grooves of academe, persons who bend the knee only to the self-ratifying, self-authenticating, self-serving decrees of their own autonomous selves. Sic voto, each soup, sic jubeo. Superbia has disappeared from our vocabulary; the mind is left speculating amidst the smoke and mirrors of it own deconstruction.

To whom in our time has it been given to cherish the goodness of the givenness of creation, making all the distinctions forced on us by the Pandora’s Box of scientific research - while yet knowing Christ, and Him crucified? Is such a synthesis even imaginable anymore? Could it possibly be accomplished before we clever ones so modify the nature of human nature that it would be nonsense to propose that Christ died for the sins of those whom we genetically "re-manufacture" (while begetting them? Instead of begetting them?) As well as for our sins? I see little evidence of it. We have put nature (including human nature) to the torture - to use Francis Bacon’s inelegant phrase — and are making her tell us all her secrets, as the Chancellor proposed.... But by doing so, we put ourselves on the rack.

Perhaps, then ironically, pride may lead to humility, and autonomous intellect to a knowledge of Christ crucified. But it is not at all probable.

John Lyon ’54, ’55M.A.
Bayfield, Wisconsin

I know a Protestant theologian and also an Orthodox one that could have written Lawrence Cunningham’s "Vision of the Catholic Intellectual Life." The recently deceased Cardinal Kung spent 30 years in a Chinese prison for refusing to ignore the Pope. His was a Catholic vision. Cunningham’s is merely a Christian.

Peter Steinfels asks, "Can Catholic universities frame an integrated understanding of all we know?" The Pope has expressed that Catholic ideal. But first universities have to stop repudiating their Baptismal promises. The only way to stop that is to stop it. Maybe new laws can help, says Rome, if enforced. So the Bishops say "Save the anchor or the ship will drift anywhere." Steinfels says "Forget the anchor, it needs a total rehab." But it needs both.

Dick Rolwing, MA ’64
Reynoldsburg, Ohio

Your Spring 2000 issue was superb. I especially liked the long, thoughtful article by Steinfels, which led us through the struggle of U.S. Catholic Universities to live with the Vatican thought-control, and still maintain the core of a university’s purpose, which is free and unfettered research into the truth. And the profiles of your young ND professors were crisp and exciting. What wonderful assets they are!

But what caught my eye was the curious fact that in the Letters to the Editor response to the gun control article, fully three of the four letters opposing gun control were from people with J.D. degrees from Notre Dame. Of course, to an extent, that unusual number has something to do with the editor’s choice. But statistically it also must be related to the count of pro and con letters. I doubt it was because of Nobel Prize-quality writing, since the same old tired arguments of all gun huggers were regurgitated by those lawyers.

To me, it implied something else. The ND Law School must be a hotbed of conservatism. And it took me back maybe three decades, to a running debate I had in the letters to the editor column of ND Magazine, with Professor Charles Rice. The issue at the time was world population strategies, and my contention that the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, acting as intellectual clones to the Pope, were seriously responsible for governmental inaction in approaching the problem. It is important to recall that world population in 1960 was just over 3 billion people, and now, of course, is just over 6 billion.

Three times in those decades I have written to all 180-plus American bishops, wondering if they felt any personal responsibility for the world’s failure to address the issue. And also wondering just how many years this world could absorb upwards of 90 million net additional humans each year? Each time I got about 5 to 10 replies, with about half telling me I was going to hell, and the others with platitudes that "God will provide," or "This is a complex issue."

And this year, 2000, the world is adding people at the rate of a city the size of San Francisco EVERY THREE DAYS. Month after month after month. I presume that Charles Rice, if he is still proposing that there was no problem with world population increases at 3 billion in 1960, would still defend his position today? I do remember reading the works of Catholic demographers of the era, such as Colin Clark, who projected that the world’s carrying capacity was 16 billion.

I suspect that by now most of us know better, as any fool can see the massive impact of overfished oceans, entire depleted fish species, devastating droughts, untold soil erosions of our fertile Midwest, Ozone holes in the Antarctic, mineral and oil depletions, catastrophic pollution events, and clear projections of running out of fresh water worldwide. Just remember that every baby born in the U.S. will consume 20,000 gallons of gasolene in its lifetime. And the peoples of all the other developing countries want to grow up to consume just like up spoiled and profligate consumers in the United States.

This all might frighten me a lot, but at my age of 69, I won’t be the one who has to deal with this overpopulated earth. My children and all the children of the world are the ones who will have to deal with it. Several years ago, the Packard Foundation of California announced a grant of $375 million dollars over 5 years, to countries of the world to assist in population stabilization programs. It was intended to partially substitute for the abandonment of the U.S. Government Agency for International Development program funding which the Reagan and Bush Administrations withdrew, and which was continued under the Republican Congress of the Clinton era.

In their announcement, the Foundation noted that there are 175 million births a year on this earth. Counting deaths, that yielded an 87 million person increase. But, interestingly, of the 175 million births, 75 million were unwanted or unplanned. Any rational person can see an immediate conclusion in those numbers. Help those 75 million (mostly poor) potential mothers to avoid pregnancies and suddenly a big problem is a little one. I have no illusions that there aren’t many rational people in the Catholic hierarchy which see my same truths.

I can still recall my religion courses from 1948-52. God made man rational. God also said, "Go forth and multiply and fill the earth." He didn’t say to overfill it. Many of us have come to the pretty obvious conclusion that it is full. I know the argument that you could fit the world’s population into the stat of Texas if you used the density of Holland. But factor in resources, and it is indeed full.

Now, I’d like to hand off te solution of this number one problem of our world to your new graduates of ND. I did my best for some decades, and just bashed my head on the hierarchial wall. Church politics don’t allow much change, for the foreseeable future, but nothing lasts forever. Maybe God Will provide.

John L. Minck ’52
Palo Alto, CA

I read the most recent issue of N. D. Magazine with great pleasure. I was especially intrigued by Ed Cohen’s letter from campus, "Are you eating alright, dear?"

Wow! What a culinary wonderland the north dining hall has become! As Mr. Cohen strolled around the food lines, each a diverse epicurean delight, I could not help but think back to my own student days ‘59-‘63. There was but one food line. You stood in it, seemingly interminably, to be checked off by a fellow student who had that "clean job." Trays were pushed along a tubular console and other student workers, usually disgruntled workers, slogged spoons, scoops, spatulas and tongs of the daily fare. Comments along the trail focused on the ‘mystery meat, splashed potatoes and vegetables of uncertain origin’. Instead of Ed Cohen’s cobbled corner, a final stop featuring a spongy cake with questionable icing punctuated the meal.

Often, one would catch a glimpse of the infamous Ziggy, the cafeteria chief. Ziggy was the man we loved to hate. Never faltering, he would meet student’s derisive cheering with a broad grin and laughing eyes that seemed to enjoy having the last laugh. After all, we might criticize him for serving it, but we had to eat it. There were no choices, beyond abstinence. Rules abounded and we were supplicants at the altar of Ziggy.

At dinner, everyone had to wear a tie. There were no women so that rule, among thousands of others, was simple. Most of my comrades had adopted the long tradition of wearing the same tie every night. It was your dining hall tie, affectionately known as a F.U.T. - a fat ugly tie. The wider, (thin ties were the style of the early sixties) and uglier the better. The truly distinguished F.U.T. would be festooned with remnants of previous meals endured over the preceding years. Senior F.U.T.’s were true works of first amendment art.

It’s funny. I often think about what I learned at Notre Dame. Not just the academic part, but the human, social, and spiritual wisdom that blossomed there, stuff our education system has seemed to forget about, like how one becomes a man, self esteem, honor, dignity, ethics, friendship and friendship of God during each day. Some would, no doubt, scoff at our dining hall behavior as being in opposition to these ideas and principles. As I recall, it was all part of being a Notre Dame man. It was the beginning of a student driven tidal wave of social change which would soon sweep the nation and shock middle America forever. Fr. Hesburgh called our class of ‘63 "the most controversial in the history of Notre Dame." Perhaps it was because we wore F.U.T.’s.

Lee P. Mulvihill ’63
Palm Coast, Florida

In The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn tells the story of a standing ovation proposed for Joseph Stalin at a provincial Communist Party meeting in the 1940's. As the applause went on for ten minutes, twenty minutes, a half hour, it became clear that an error had been made in not specifying a set amount of time honoring the great leader. No one had the temerity to be the first to stop clapping and sit down. Finally, after forty-five minutes of contrived applause, one of the local bosses did sit, and the rest of the room followed suit. Soon thereafter the man was sent packing for Siberia.

I thought of this story upon learning that once again Notre Dame has given the Laetare Medal to the outgoing Chairman of the University’s Board of Trustees. Each of the last four Chairmen has been so honored. At this point it appears that precedent has been set, and it would be a positive embarrassment for any Chairman to receive American Catholicism’s highest honor as a parting gift.

While I have no reason to doubt that our last four Chairmen are fine gentlemen and have served the University well, I find it hard to believe that the purpose of the Laetare Medal — to acknowledge the contributions of the most outstanding American Catholics - is served by doling out the Medal to Notre Dame’s own people. There are many others more deserving; one can only speculate as to why, for example, Cesar Chavez - whose Catholicism drove his tireless work for decent conditions for migrant farmworkers - was continually passed over for Notre Dame’s highest award.

In repeatedly giving the Laetare Medal to its own leaders, Notre Dame has once again fallen into the kind of buffoonish self-congratulation which has been almost habitual at the University in recent years. The ovation goes on, but I have stopped applauding and am sitting down. Would anyone like to join me?

Dr. William T. Cavanaugh ’84
St. Paul, Minnesota

In reading the current issue of the magazine, I came across the short article about changing the name of the College of Business Administration to Mendoza College of Business because of a donation of $35,000,000. I wonder if the University should reconsider its position in naming colleges and new buildings on the basis of donations.

The University has grown exponentially in the past forty years since our class graduated, even though the number of undergraduates has remained practically the same. While on campus with a former classmate around ten years ago and viewing the campus at that time, he wondered if the University was trying to build one building per student.

Unfortunately there seems to be a preoccupation with the accumulation of funds either in the endowment or through building construction as well as the desire to be in the top five or ten percent of the universities in the country, using whatever polling is fashionable. Obviously adequate funding of the University is necessary and over the past forty years it seems like this has been accomplished.

Perhaps it would be well to reconsider the naming of buildings and colleges on the basis of the greatness of the individual rather than the amount of money donated. Otherwise it seems that Notre Dame would be no better than the college bowl games or the new sports centers throughout the country. If Bill Gates gave $300,000,000 to the University, an amount which would not dent his resources, would we then become the University of Notre Dame Microsoft.com? Obviously not.

This letter is not meant to be a criticism of the Mendoza family in any manner, but rather to provide some food for thought on a bothersome issue.

Paul Perona, ’60
Peru, IL

What’s wrong with this picture? On my dining room table sit two periodicals, the Franciscan Way, from Franciscan University in Steubenville, with a cover story called "The Eucharist and the Culture of Life," and the Notre Dame Magazine with a cover story rntitled "Ambition." Is it too cynical of me to ask which Catholic university, in its soul, lives ex corde ecclesiae and which, ex corde mundi?

Phil Krill, ’71
Grand Rapids, MI

I am writing to share some thoughts about Notre Dame Magazine. Perhaps I am the only one who feels this way, but I once looked forward to reading the magazine. It offered both interesting articles and informative pieces on the University. Under the current editorship the magazine has undergone significant change. It is far more political, far more negative, and - most important - far more narrow. The University represents a wide range of activities beyond service learning, student activism, and general angst over the state of the world, the state of the church, and the state of the institution.

The magazine gives little sense, e.g., of the research activities within the University and little sense of its growing position as a national institution. These are great days for Notre Dame. Reading the magazine, however, one has the feeling that a cloud has descended over the school and the globe and all that we can do is rend our garments and face down our guilt.

As an individual with 36 years of experience as a college professor and administrator I do not shun serious thought or rigorous debate. I am not complaining that the magazine has become too weighty or too intellectualized. I am suggesting that it has become, increasingly, too social-political and it is basically - to use the slang of my generation - a downer. From the letters to the editor which see their way into print I sense that I am not alone in these feelings. I would certainly not recommend a magazine filled with puff pieces and propaganda, but a magazine of almost unremitting gloom is hardly the best form of connection with the bulk of the University’s alumni/ae.

I would expect such a magazine to expand one’s imagination and offer both intellectual and spiritual sustenance. It should report good news as well as bad and it should convey a sense of the institution in its totality. It should also, at points, inspire. The current magazine, in my opinion, does not do such things. It lacks balance and it fails to represent faithfully the realities of the institution which produces it.

Richard B. Schwartz ’63

I think it’s time . . . time you heard how much Notre Dame Magazine means to me and, I feel certain, most /all of the regular readers.

I read your inside-the-front-cover piece first and, often, the last 1-page article. I next read the series of fine stories and, then, the lead/main stories (which are usually related to the issue’s theme). University and people news usually are last of anything that catches my eye as I page through.

Naturally, some N.D. Magazine themes intrigue me more than others, though none fail to interest.

You wrote that you hoped we’d find the latest N.D.M. friendly, comfortable and invigorating. It is indeed — and more.

Over the years, your magazine has become like a cherished friend — I may see it/him/her several times a year (if I’m lucky!) And the experience is unfailingly positive. In fact, my pleased surprise at finding your magazine in the mail can be summed up in a single word: Delight. Thank you.

Michael E. O’Donnell
Wise, VI

I am 70 years old. My families, of both of my parents, have always had guns around the house.

I went to military grammar school, military high school, was on the Notre Dame Rifle Team, am a Marine Corps Expert Rifleman, and have had the guns I wanted. As my children grew out of their cradles, I determined to protect then while continuing to enjoy my guns.

I bought several Master Gun locks, ALL KEYED ALIKE. (Forgive me, but that was the KEY to the solution).

I put all but one of the extra keys in my bank safety deposit box, because nothing can be hidden in the home. Kids will find anything.

The one key, I added to the chain around my neck, which I had been using for my religious medal since I was 14 years old. It has never been a nuisance.

No one could use the one key but me and I can use a gun within 2 to 3 seconds. If that is not fast enough, may God save me.

But because the guns are perfectly safe, I could have them as handy as I wished.

To me, this is proof that there is a way to enjoy guns and safety.

I feel so strongly about both, that I favor using the negligence laws, both civil and criminal, to scare the hell out of any person who might allow a child, or adult, to get unauthorized possession of a deadly weapon; even to the point of inflicting the same injuries caused by the negligence, upon the person responsible for such negligence.

I urge gun owners to follow my example before we lose our precious rights. Our country needs a responsibly armed populate.

R. Emmett Cater ’52 Ph.B.
San Antonio, TX 

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