In the same month as the deadly Hamas attack, students at Harvard University released a blanket statement blaming Israel for the atrocities perpetuated on October 7, 2023.
Forced to comment on the anti-semitic message of the student body, Harvard President, Claudine Gay, issued a statement in which she declared that “…our University embraces a commitment to free expression. That commitment extends even to views that many of us find objectionable, even outrageous. We do not punish or sanction people for expressing such views.”
In other news, the University of Notre Dame is hosting a drag show. School president, Fr. John Jenkins, is defending the perverse performance as a matter of “academic freedom” and “freedom of expression.” His statements on the matter continually point out that this is part of a one-credit course presented by the Film, Television, and Theater Department on the history of drag. As if any of that makes it acceptable for a premier Catholic educational institution in the country to embarrass its namesake. That it is a one-credit course? As opposed to what? Who cares?
Both institutions are wrapping themselves in the mantle of free speech and a dedication to academic freedom. But, with all due respect, that hardly passes the smell test.
Why doesn’t Harvard invite the Jewish Ben Shapiro to rebut the anti-semitic protests on Harvard’s campus?
Why doesn’t Notre Dame invite Catholic Matt Walsh to expose the truth about genital mutilation and castration of healthy human bodies, made in the image and likeness of God?
Would it even be safe for either of those Daily Wire personalities to appear on campus?
Are Joe Rogan or RFK invited for a forum to freely debate the covid vaccine and the response to covid?
Heaven forbid. These are heresies that are not allowed.
Both schools imposed Covid vaccine and booster mandates. Where was the concern for academic freedom and freedom of expression during those days of imposition? “We do not punish or sanction people for expressing such views”, says Gay. Well, what happened to those existing students or newly accepted students who opposed the view that the vaccine was safe and effective? Were they left alone with their academic freedom of expression, or were they invited to leave campus?
Boundless hypocrisy.
“Would Our Lady divert her eyes from the sacrilegious content?” That is the only germane question that Father Jenkins should have asked himself. Furthermore, in spite of a student and staff organized protest, Rosary and holy hour, dorm rectors still warned students not to pull down flyers advertising the cabaret. As a juxtaposition, what is Harvard’s opinion on those people pulling down the missing Israeli baby flyers?
Once a priest’s hands are anointed, are ordained, everything he does has a ritualistic significance, so the depravity allowed by Father Jenkins is in magnified error. His first obligation should be to defend tenets of the Faith and preserve the Catholicity of Notre Dame. It has been, until recent, expected, even by non-Catholics, that those concerns supersede everything else at a Catholic institution.
Moral equivocation cannot be applied between free expression and the Faith. Separation of State and Church runs both ways. The private, Catholic University has the ability and obligation to push back against any government or zeitgeist strictures which prohibit the free exercise of religion.
His response needed to mirror and paraphrase Sir Thomas Moore. “I do not care if I have against me all the students, NAMBLA, LGBTQI+, CNN, Campus DEI, or nattering woke crowds; I have with me the Saints and all the doctors of the Church.”
What kind of father tolerates his children being exposed to this? To allow them down this very wide and sinful path is a dereliction of duty. These young adults need him and his love to guide them to the truth. Even if this was a heterosexual cabaret, they need not be exposed to that. Corruptio optimi pessima, The corruption of the best becomes the worst. By allowing this at an establishment dedicated to Our Lady, who is the creature most conformed to Jesus Christ, is a stain. It is a tarnish like an oxidized, rusted, golden dome.
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