At the eleventh hour, the Alumni Association has forced us to change critical arrangements for our June 4th Annual Breakfast at Alumni Reunion Weekend.
SOUTH BEND, IN — The Alumni Association has directed the Morris Inn to close down our Annual Breakfast at 9:45 a.m. — almost an hour earlier than the set time of 10:30 a.m. under our agreement. No one from the AA has interfered with our meetings on campus during the five years we have been holding them and no one from the AA has spoken to us directly about this extraordinary imposition.
Apparently the AA wants to to make sure that our guests are able to migrate to a 10:00 a.m. Reunion presentation. But despite our assurance that we would encourage those who wanted to attend the AA presentation to leave our program at 9:45, it was not enough.
One may perhaps wonder whether the AA has some other purpose in mind. Two years ago, by ending its long-standing practice of including in the official program presentations by various alumni groups, the AA put an end to the panel discussions on the Catholic identity of the University that we had presented for the past several years.
Because we have no choice in the matter, we have adjusted our schedule and program with the help of the Morris Inn, which doubtless is in the habit of honoring rather than breaching contracts but which had no option in this case.
Here are the changes. We will meet the Alumni Association’s demands while still holding what we know will be an outstanding program.
- The venue will be the Morris Inn rather than the McKenna Center. We will meet in the Notre Dame Room down the stairs on the left of the elevator.
- The meal will be a simple Continental Breakfast.
- The buffet line will open at 7:45 a.m. so that we can begin the session at 8:15 a.m.
- There will be no charge. A basket will be available for those who would like to make a tax-deductible contribution.
- The meeting room has an 80-person limit, so it is especially important for all who wish to come to make reservations promptly. To do so, please visit our event page at Eventbrite.
- We are sorry for the inconvenience caused those who have already paid. You are entitled to a refund, and if you will speak with George Heidkamp, our Secretary/Treasurer, before or after the program, he will take care of it. If you do not want the refund, you should treat the amount as a tax-deductible contribution for tax purposes.
One minor advantage of this unfortunate development is that we will be able to accommodate last minute guests provided the room limit has not been reached. Accordingly, we hope you will encourage those you meet before the breakfast to attend unless we have advised you that there is no room.
Fellows Silent on Appointment to Board of Contributor to Pro-Abortion Organizations
In our recent bulletin we reported on the startling appointment to the Notre Dame Board of Trustees of a Chicago businesswoman who had made substantial contributions to prominent pro-abortion organizations. We want to share with you Bill Dempsey’s letter to Notre Dame’s Fellows on behalf of Sycamore (click here to download a copy).
Neither Bill nor, as far as we know, anyone associated with Sycamore has received a reply from the Fellows, nor has the University issued a statement. As long as this board member serves, she will serve as mute but telling testimony to the feebleness of the University’s pro-life commitment and the emptiness of its rhetoric.
If the University is determined to keep Mrs. Martino on the board and does break silence, watch for a statement attempting to exculpate her. Some sort of self-serving declaration of Mrs. Martino’s fealty to Church teaching notwithstanding her support of pro-abortion causes would scarcely serve, and any suggestion that she didn’t know what she was doing in donating to Emily’s List would be transparently bogus. As Bill wrote:
It is, I trust, unnecessary to add that this cannot be a case of innocent mistake on Mrs. Martino’s part. [Her contributions] are substantial — some $6,000 a year for at least three years — and Emily’s List is a single purpose organization loudly dedicated to the election of pro-choice Democratic women and one of the largest and most powerful — probably the largest and most powerful — of the pro-abortion forces in the country. No one at all familiar with current affairs could be ignorant of what Emily’s List is about, and certainly not anyone who gives these sums of money to it.
Try to imagine how it could be otherwise. A person would have to write checks for thousands of dollars each year for a number of years without reading any of Emily List’s solicitation literature, for I guarantee that every piece of it highlights the organization’s mission. One cannot even get to the organization’s homepage without passing through one that declares its mission, nor can one even go to the Internet contribution site to make a donation without being greeted by a message to underscore the purpose of the contribution.
Let not a deep yearning for a robustly pro-life Notre Dame blind anyone to the sobering facts of this appointment.
END NOTE
ND 88 Litigation Continues
The ND 88 litigation is not over after all. Tom Dixon has filed a suit for damages against Notre Dame and St. Joseph County on behalf of a demonstrator who was arrested and jailed but never charged. She alleges she was arrested while Obama supporters were demonstrating nearby — indeed, that she got out of her car and lifted her sign when she saw them displaying theirs. She did not sign the agreement pledging not to sue.
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