[su_highlight background=”#fffd99″]Please join Father Wilson Miscamble, C.S.C., Mary Frances Myler (’22), and Bill Dempsey (’52) for a discussion of Notre Dame’s Catholic identity in light of the challenges presented by extraordinary wealth, contemporary wokism, and a declining representation of practicing Catholics on faculty.[/su_highlight]
Saturday, June 4, 2022
Smith Ballroom (and streamed live)
Complimentary breakfast opens at 7:15 a.m.
Program 8:00 am – 9:30 am
In an August 3, 2020, First Things article, Father Miscamble notes with his usual lucidity the implication of Notre Dame’s naming Pete Buttigieg, South Bend’s former mayor and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, a 2020-21 faculty fellow at its Institute for Advanced Study. Given the former mayor’s radical opposition to Catholic moral teaching and his active involvement with the Biden campaign, the Buttigieg episode is an example of the willingness of Notre Dame’s leadership to “appease the dominant cultural forces of the day.” It illustrates that those in charge have “embraced a defective understanding of Notre Dame’s Catholic mission…[and] undercuts efforts to provide an integrated intellectual, spiritual, and moral formation for Notre Dame students.” Moreover, it “does nothing to convey where students and scholars at a Catholic university should ultimately put their trust.” With episodes like this occurring routinely on campus, it is no wonder that, as Father Miscamble observes, “There are ‘troubled hearts’ at Notre Dame these days.”
Rev. Wilson Miscamble, C.S.C.
Father Miscamble is an award-winning historian and former chair of Notre Dame’s History Department and Rector of Moreau Seminary who has been engaged for decades in discussions about Notre Dame’s Catholic identity. In his recent book, American Priest, he gives us a clear-eyed and capacious portrait of Father Ted Hesburgh with his many praiseworthy qualities and contributions but also his tireless quest for the acclaim of secular academe that has led to a major weakening of Notre Dame’s Catholic identity. In his presentation for our Annual Breakfast, “Wealth, Wokism, and a ‘Neighborhood’ in Decline: Notre Dame’s Challenging Future,” Father Miscamble, will review recent developments at Notre Dame and comment on some of the major challenges the university confronts in maintaining its Catholic identity in the immediate future.
Mary Frances Myler (’22)
Mary Frances Myler has recently completed her undergraduate degree in the Program of Liberal Studies with minors in Theology and Constitutional Studies. During her Senior year, she was the Editor-in-Chief of The Irish Rover, an independent, non-profit, student publication devoted to preserving the Catholic identity of Notre Dame. She was also a Sorin Fellow with the deNicola Center for Ethics and Culture and Vice President of Notre Dame Chorale. Among her many achievements, she helped to establish the inaugural 2022 Catholic Leadership Summit for students who take inspiration from Notre Dame’s Catholic identity and make its community more Catholic by their presence. Mary Frances has been a brave champion of Notre Dame’s Catholic identity for which she has been recognized as one of the recipients of our Michael L. and Nancy A. Hansen Student Awards and as this year’s recipient of the Sycamore Trust Award for Outstanding Catholic Student Leadership.
William Dempsey (’52)
Bill Dempsey is the current and founding president of Sycamore Trust. He graduated from Notre Dame as class valedictorian, received his law degree from Yale University, served as chief law clerk to Chief Justice Earl Warren, and practiced law in Washington when not serving as President of the Association of American Railroads and Chairman of the National Railway Labor Conference. Following Father Jenkins’s reversal of his tentative decision to bar the student on-campus performance of The Vagina Monologues, he established Sycamore Trust.
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For more information, please get in touch with us at info@sycamoretrust.org
