Screening for morals is foolhardy
Letter to the Editor
This is in response to Ms. Sheryl Miller's letter of Feb. 29, "Big families should not be mocked." I am sure I am not alone in taking mild offense at this article.
Ms. Miller's initial response of support for Ms. Antkowiak is well-placed and welcome. Intolerance and yuppie snobbery are as common on campus as Abercrombie and Fitch, and the belittling of Ms. Antkowiak and her family was entirely wrong-headed and anti-Catholic.
Ms. Miller's gross over-generalization, however, of this incident into what seems to be a condemnation of a) those who do not primarily accept an image of "the gentler sex" as the ideal for women, and b) small families as un-Catholic or unholy, seems to me to be mistaken.
As I am uncertain that I follow her reasoning, I cannot respond as I would like. I will focus instead on her desire for admission criteria by which "good" applicants are Catholic, "or at least not opposed to Catholic practices," and "bad" applicants are otherwise. I believe that such a solution is foolhardy, as it will not accomplish what Ms. Miller hopes, namely, to identify people of strong moral character.
Apparently, due to the nastiness exhibited by a few women of Lewis 2-South, Ms. Miller would like us to be more strict in admitting only good Catholics. Perhaps on the admissions application we could have a small questionnaire. We could ask, for example, about Mass attendance, understanding of Church doctrine, commitment to service, participation in youth groups in an attempt to determine who has the appropriate Catholic character. (Maybe even a question on family size would be in order ...)
This approach won't solve much. I'd be willing to venture that some of those "non-Catholic" women who taunted Laura would pass the questionnaire with flying colors. I'm sure everyone can think of a person who was, say, a model citizen and active in her youth group, who is shallow and petty and thoroughly un-Christian though she has all of the right credentials.
And everyone can think of a quiet person who lives a humble, holy life but does not do all of the "right" things and would not pass the test. Effectively, a set of criteria which ask about actions and activities reveals little or nothing about the person's character. Holiness is a matter of the heart.
Moreover, such a limited questionnaire would eliminate those who are living good lives and are not Catholic. Two of my friends here are agnostic; another friend of mine is Muslim. My roommate is Episcopalian. These four people have contributed great things to my life and the University through involvement in various things — athletics, social work, even playing guitar at Mass. I believe that my Notre Dame experience would be worse if they had been denied admission because of a Catholic filter.
In fairness to Ms. Miller, she does acknowledge that non-Catholics are A-OK as long as they are not opposed to Catholic practices. My response to this is that Notre Dame, through its policy of keeping herself around 85 percent Catholic and her rules and regulations that we have all come to know and detest, already does a fairly decent job of maintaining a Catholic character here.
Perhaps the rules could be more stringent and more harshly enforced, but that is neither here nor there. The point is that selecting only "true" Catholic applicants will not solve Notre Dame's alleged moral crisis; on the contrary, such a policy runs the risk of exacerbating it.
Mary Beth Willard
Junior
McGlinn Hall
February 29, 2000
All Viewpoint Stories for Wednesday, March 1, 2000
