sycamore trust

Alumni & Friends Protecting Notre Dame’s Catholic Identity

ABOUT US

Sycamore Trust is an independent organization of alumni and friends of Notre Dame who are fighting for the university’s Catholic identity. By reporting on signs of secularization under the Dome, facilitating collective action to defend the school’s religious mission, and promoting opportunities to support initiatives that embody Catholic teaching on campus, Sycamore Trust seeks to hold Notre Dame accountable to its own requirement of maintaining a continuing presence of a predominant number of Catholic intellectuals on the faculty, which ultimately determines its Catholic identity.

Established 2007
19,224 Subscribers

fighting for

Catholic ID

Sycamore Trust was organized by a group of Notre Dame alumni who, alarmed by signs of secularization at their alma mater, were determined that Our Lady’s University not lose her Catholic identity. Read more in our “What Would You Fight For?” brochure.

Symptoms of secularization

Sycamore Trust was born of intense concern over the loss by Notre Dame of its historic claim to a robust Catholic identity.

A number of events over the past decade have raised serious doubts in the minds of many about whether Notre Dame retains a vibrant Catholic identity. Those events began with the Vagina Monologues and the Queer Film festival and have included, to name a few, the University’s honoring of President Obama in opposition to the policy of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and in defiance of its own bishop, overturning long-standing policy by granting official status to a gay student organization, appointing to the board of trustees a pro-abortion alumnus publicly opposed to the school’s religious liberty claim in its lawsuit against the Obamacare abortifacient/contraceptive mandate, and according spousal benefits to “married” homosexual and lesbian employees. At the root of all of this is the dramatic shrinking of the Catholic faculty. While the school’s Mission Statement declares that its Catholic identity “depends upon the continuing presence of a predominant number of Catholic intellectuals” on the faculty, the erosion of Catholic faculty has been so great that this test is no longer met. Thus, measured by its own standard, Notre Dame has lost the Catholic identity that it nonetheless continues to proclaim.

Still, many of the school’s Catholic underpinnings remain, and it could over time regain its footing if those in governance were to act promptly and decisively. The time is opportune for alumni and others of the Notre Dame family to express both their intense concern and their support of actions designed to strengthen Notre Dame’s Catholic identity.

WHAT PEOPLE are SAYing

The Catholic culture on campus is improving, and I have no doubt that the leadership of the Sycamore Trust has been instrumental in this change. Knowing that there are alumni who support and pray for us gives us strength and courage.
Michael J. Bender, ’24
Grand Knight, Council 1477
Sycamore Trust is a model of calm and reasonable yet unrelenting friendly questioning of recent events on the South Bend campus.
Ralph McInerney
1929-2010
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Ryan Dyson

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