Father Mike's memory is harmed by show
Conor Dugan
off-campus
A "triple-domer" and a graduate of Harvard University, Father Mike McCafferty was one of the five finalists in the search for the successor to Father Theodore Hesburgh as President of the University of Notre Dame. Father Mike was only 40 years old when he died on June 12, 1987, of lymphatic cancer. At the time, he served on the faculty and administration of the Notre Dame Law School.
Among the list of Father Mike's legacies are the Saint Thomas More Chapel, where the law school displays his stole and a rug from his room, as well as the traditional Sunday evening Law School liturgies. After his death, the Notre Dame Law School established a scholarship in his name. According to the Student Bar Association (SBA), raising funds for that scholarship remains part of the association's mission of service to the Law School family.
Although few current students had the opportunity to know Father Mike, the Law School remembers his legacy as a priest, a lawyer and a professor during the annual Father Mike show, which the SBA sponsors as its primary fundraising activity. The show is supposed to be a good humored mix of performances and skits that poke fun at law school professors and students alike. The jokes are often pointed and witty — everyone is fair game, and everyone is kept humble. The humor's often outrageous and even bawdy, but for the most part one would have to imagine that Father Mike himself is laughing along with the audience.
Anyone who has attended the Father Mike show in recent years, however, cannot help but wonder if it is the most appropriate way in which to honor the memory of a man who dedicated his short life to Notre Dame and the Roman Catholic Church. Despite the fact that the SBA reviews all of the evening's scripts and the Law School administration claims to be concerned about honoring Father Mike's memory of priestly service, this weekend's Show features references to "getting some," one night stands, casual sex, alcohol and drug abuse, John and Bobby Kennedy's "sloppy seconds" and a classmate's alleged breast augmentation. In lieu of intelligent humor, some performers chose to substitute profanities and bitter potshots at both students and professors, choosing the path of the lowest common denominator. In some places, cruel jokes and personal attacks created the impression that the performers were more mean-spirited than they were imbued with the spirit of Father Mike.
Humor — even sharp satire — is one thing, but in the name of common courtesy and ordinary decency, there is a line to be drawn. It's difficult to understand why the administration of a Catholic law school, which claims to educate "a different kind of lawyer," would have trouble finding the moral courage and clear-headedness to draw that line. Father Mike's memory deserves a little bit more respect, and a little bit less lip service.
To educate a different kind of lawyer means to educate young lawyers in virtue, to show them the path to holiness and sainthood through the daily sanctification of their legal work by teaching then how o draw closer to Christ. The Father Mike Show in its current incarnation fails this mission. If anything, it educates in the path of selfishness over self-giving.
Words have consequences. Language is a lawyer's stock and trade and in a sense, it is the tool with which members of the legal profession preside over the orderly and humane administration of society. Saint Thomas More, the patron saint of lawyers, was executed precisely because he refused to act as if words didn't matter. Would it be too much for the SBA and the Law School administration to require participants in the Father Mike Show to think before they speak? Otherwise one wonders if Notre Dame Law School's mission to educate a "different kind of lawyer" is nothing more than a hollow phrase.
Conor Dugan
off-campus
Michelle Chelvam
O'Hara-Grace Hall
law students
February 19, 2001
All Viewpoint Stories for Tuesday, February 20, 2001
