Keeping the Faith at Notre Dame

On Sunday, I drove from Indy up to the University of Notre Dame in South Bend. I met once again with the staff of The Irish Rover a publication on ISI’s Collegiate Network. They are one of the best papers around, and always have a large and energetic staff. I had seen Tommy Forr, their Editor in Chief, and a few others from their paper at the ISI conference in Indy the day before, but I was able to meet a larger portion of their staff over a meal on campus. About 10 students showed up and they were all fired up.

This past year, these conservative Catholics (and a few "Prots", as they call them) were given some hope early on by the new President, Father Jenkins, over some of the cultural issues on campus, such as the "Vagina Monologues." But, in the past few weeks, they got some bad news as Father Jenkins and the Notre Dame administration had "given in" to the feminists on campus. Another victory for Far Left feminism - and at a "Catholic" university of all places. In this sense, Catholicism is not as full as it could be at Notre Dame. And from what the students tell me, the "in the classroom" experience is pretty slanted to the Left, though most of the professors generally profess their membership in the Catholic church (they’re not sure if they are practicing Catholics, but they associate themselves as members).

I would argue that The Irish Rover tries to stand athwart this progressivism and yell stop.
After I left the meeting, I had agreed to meet up with Tommy a couple hours later for a "dorm mass". Every dorm has a chapel in their building. Inside each of the men’s dorms, there are priests in residence and inside the women’s dorms are nuns. They are there for spiritual guidance and simple advice. Every Sunday night, each dorm celebrates the mass in their respective chapels. I attended mass on Sunday at 10pm in O’Neill Hall, where Tommy lives. There were about 80 people or so from the dorm in there and it was a very, very moving experience. If I can say anything for Notre Dame, the student life (particularly the Catholicity of the student life) is well and alive. I could feel it and again, "see" it. Charlotte Simmons would have done fine here (even if she was a "Prot").

After mass, I took a stroll by myself down to the famous "grotto" where students come and offer prayers in communion with Our Lady, and at night it really is an impressive sight as literally hundreds of candles are lit. Throughout the course of the day (or night) you can find students and faculty coming here to publicly offer their prayers and light a candle. On this night, as I walked up at nearly 11pm, there were hundreds of students out there, as one of the Sunday night masses was still taking place. A few minutes after I arrived, the mass was over and the students slowly dispersed back to their dorms giving me a chance to pray and reflect more quietly.

On Monday morning, I met with a graduate student in the history department, who has been involved with ISI and received an ISI Salvatori Fellowship towards his graduate work in history at Notre Dame. This was the one Ph.D. program I applied to this year (the only one I’ve found so far that I like) and I didn’t get in. But, Jonathan and I had a great talk and he gave me lots of helpful advice, including to encourage me to apply again (but of course, to find a good 4-5 other schools to apply to in addition so I could have more options). I think with many of the experiences I’ve had in the past week, I’ve certainly become more motivated to do so. Finding God, finding vocation, finding hope, and finding advice. All are here at Notre Dame.