Declining Notre Dame
Good title. It’s the letter scholar and former US ambassador to the Vatican Mary Ann Glendon sent to Notre Dame president Fr. Jenkins. She published it through the media because of the likelihood that it would be misrepresented somehow by the unversity for their purposes.
But after it was printed in full on First Things, the site crashed. At least twice today. Insight Scoop reported that it was back up when, in fact, it went down again. There must have been an enormous crush of traffic to the site, since it was one of the stories of the day.
As Insight noted, Fr. Raymond de Souza put Glendon’s actions into pivotal perspective:
Father John Jenkins likely thought himself very clever. Professor Mary Ann Glendon just took him to school.
In declining to receive the Laetare Medal alongside President Barack Obama’s honorary doctorate of laws at next month’s commencement, Glendon has refused to participate in the shabby manipulation Father Jenkins attempted to engineer. It is a rare personage who could ennoble an award by refusing to receive it, but Professor Glendon has done just that. The Laetare Medal will now be known best for the year in which it was declined. Glendon chose, to use the apt words of Bishop John D’Arcy in this regard, truth over prestige.
The significance of Glendon’s refusal is enormous. The most accomplished Catholic laywoman in America — former ambassador of the United States to the Holy See and current president of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences — has refused to accept Notre Dame’s highest honor. It is a signal moment for the Catholic Church in the United States. It is a signal moment for the Church’s public witness. It is may even be a signal moment for Notre Dame. What Glendon will not say at Notre Dame will finally be a fitting response to what Gov. Mario Cuomo said there some 25 years ago.
Which is here. And respectully picked apart here, by a constitutional law expert and former student of Cuomo’s.
The scales tipped considerably today with the weight of this move by Glendon.
