Bob Burkett, Editor-in-Chief
Michael Bradley, Executive Editor

The decision to form a GLBTQ student organization is one of the most momentous decisions Father Jenkins has made in his tenure as president. On December 5, 2012, Notre Dame formally announced its establishment of the GLBTQ organization along with the pastoral plan “Beloved Friends and Allies” (http://friendsandallies.nd.edu/). The pastoral plan was formed in response to a repeated call to address the needs of the GLBTQ community led by campus groups like the 4 to 5 movement and Progressive Student Alliance.

“Beloved Friends and Allies” outlines a plan for the creation of a student GLBTQ organization. The student-run organization would draft its own constitution and gain formal university recognition. It was created to serve the needs of the GLBTQ community and allow straight allies to participate in the group. Additionally, a Student Development Professional will be hired to oversee the group, promoting group autonomy and accountability. Finally, the Core Council will be dissolved and replaced with a diverse committee of students and faculty serving as an advisory body on GLBTQ issues to the Vice President for Student Affairs, Erin Hoffmann Harding. None of these newly-formed elements may formally contradict Catholic teaching, and the student organization will not be allowed to program political or social activities compromising Notre Dame’s Catholic identity, according to the plan.

The plan is admirably addresses the complexities of homosexuality. According to the Church, “homosexual orientation cannot be considered sinful” (Always Our Children, USCCB 1997). It is important to note, however, “the distinction commonly drawn between the homosexual condition or tendency and individual homosexual actions” (The Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons, 1986, #3). Homosexuality becomes sinful only and always when one chooses to act, through participation of the will, on such inclinations. GLBTQ individuals, like all persons, are therefore called to chastity in accord with their state in life, and the organization should ideally assist its members in living chaste lives. If the group is to be truly successful from a Catholic perspective, the image and likeness of God and innate human dignity of every person must be considered alongside “the disciplined development of the theological virtue of charity, the cardinal virtue of justice, and the moral virtue of chastity in lives of self‐giving love” (Ministry to Persons with a Homosexual Orientation, USCCB, 2006).

The pastoral plan quotes, in one paragraph alone, three pastoral documents from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and the Catechism on the essential need for “respect, compassion, and sensitivity” with regards to these issues. Whatever it may be on these issues, the university is neither unsympathetic to nor ignorant of the range of challenges which students face in struggling with their sexuality—and students struggling with homosexual attraction are not the only students struggling to live chastely by any stretch. The pertinent question is this: Is Notre Dame willing to embody the plan’s lofty rhetoric by making concrete efforts to promote it even when such promotion would be countercultural and unpopular, especially amongst its own campus family? As we argued in a previous Rover editorial on the “hook up culture” at Notre Dame, the answer to this question is not clear.

Indeed, there will be a number of challenges in maintaining the Roman Catholic authenticity of the club. The first of these challenges is the club’s agreement to “avoid any political or social activities that might compromise Notre Dame’s Roman Catholic allegiance and commitments.” It is unlikely that all leaders of the new organization agree with Church sexual teachings. Furthermore one can hardly say that Notre Dame will be able to censor the speech at every meeting when topics such as gay marriage come into discussion, as they surely will, nor should Notre Dame be able to do so. These concerns are not unique to Notre Dame—a similar club proposal at the Catholic University of America, CUAllies, was recently rejected on the grounds that it might become an advocacy group and that CUA could not fairly “police” the club because to do so would be to infringe on its freedom of self-governance.

Alasdair MacIntyre expresses another concern best in his well-known After Virtue. MacIntyre holds up the therapist as a paradigmatic relativistic profession. The therapist—or counselor—is not tasked with orienting their patients toward the good, but rather is employed to help the patient achieve whatever end upon which that patient has decided. The therapist is not concerned with ends but with means, not with rightness or virtue but with efficiency and achievement.
One can fairly wonder whether a similar dynamic might not come into play with the counseling and broadly supportive services as defined in the pastoral plan. Despite the pastoral plan’s official language, one wonders whether “questioning” students will be encouraged to live chastely, or whether they will be encouraged to embrace a self-identity—and the adoption of identities always begets actual choices—counter to the call to chastity and charity expressed in the pastoral plan.

Whatever one’s perspective on the pastoral plan, this is certain: the choice of the Student Development Professional will be crucial. The Professional will be one “who embraces the University’s Catholic mission…with other campus units providing programs and initiatives for GLBTQ and heterosexual student support, holistic development, and formation, and with the officers of the new Student Organization.” This Professional is essential in ensuring that the plan’s implementation matches its goals on paper. We hope that the designated students and university leaders assigned to the task will select the right person for the job.

We do not condemn the pastoral plan on its face but are cautious and even wary of how it will be implemented. We, along with our local Bishop Kevin Rhoades (whose published statement in response to the plan can be found online), constructively challenge the university and its students to uphold the integrity of the plan’s mission and we pray for its faithful execution. We hope that the plan will fulfill its dual purposes in making Notre Dame more respectful of the inherent dignity of every human being while simultaneously providing the resources necessary to encourage GLBTQ individuals, and indeed all students, to live out chastely their vocations of charity.

Bob and Michael enjoy the late Rover nights much more now that there is a Pizza Hut in LaFortune and the Les Mis movie soundtrack is on Youtube. Contact them at rburkett@nd.edu and mbradle6@nd.edu.