#TransTerrorism and Notre Dame

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Rev. John I. Jenkins, President of the University of Notre Dame

There was a weird synchronicity to the two events which indicated that the hand of God was at work.

On Monday March 20, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a statement condemning transgenderism. The Committee on Doctrine of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops condemned any intervention which involved “the use of surgical or chemical techniques that aim to exchange the sex characteristics of a patient’s body for those of the opposite sex or for simulations thereof.” That includes “the administration of chemical puberty blockers, which arrest the natural course of puberty and prevent the development of some sex characteristics in the first place.”1 “People need to hear the truth: we are created only male or female,” Mary Rice Hasson, the director of the Person and Identity Project and the Kate O’Beirne Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, told Our Sunday Visitor in response to the release of the bishops’ statement. Any attempt to transform “sex characteristics of the body into those of the opposite sex . . . do not respect the fundamental order of the human body and soul with a body that is sexually differentiated” because “bodiliness is a fundamental aspect of human existence, and so is the sexual differentiation of the body.” That means practically that: 

Catholic health care services must not perform interventions, whether surgical or chemical, that aim to transform the sexual characteristics of a human body into those of the opposite sex or take part in the development of such procedure. . .  . They must employ all appropriate resources to mitigate the suffering of those who struggle with gender incongruence, but the means used must respect the fundamental order of the human body.

The conclusion which the bishops drew from their statement is that “The human person is either male or female. There is no new, special category of human beings called ‘trans people’ who are supposedly born in the wrong body. That is impossible.”

On the same day the bishops’ issued their statement, the University of Notre Dame embarked upon Mission Impossible by sponsoring an on-line symposium on “Trans Care + Abortion Care: Intersections and Questions.” To help Notre Dame Students address “the intersections between trans care and abortion care,” Notre Dame’s Gender Studies Program enlisted the help of Ash Williams, “a Black trans abortion doula, public intellectual, and abolitionist community organizer.”2 The event was sponsored by:

the Notre Dame Gender Studies Program and the Reilly Center for Science, Technology, & Values, with support from the Initiative on Race and Resilience, the Center for Social Concerns, the Institute for Latino Studies, the Departments of American Studies, Anthropology, English, Film, Television & Theatre, History, Political Science, and Sociology, the St. Mary’s Department of Gender & Women Studies, the Indiana University-South Bend Women’s & Gender Studies Program, and the South Bend Civil Rights Heritage Center.3

The list of academic sponsors was certainly impressive, but it belied the fact that Williams had no academic credentials. She has written neither books nor articles and her claim to be a “public intellectual” is based largely on a fawning segment on NPR which described her attempt to assist as many women as possible to get abortions during the summer of 2022 after Roe v. Wade was overturned. Williams’ goal is “to get people the best abortion they can have because I know that it is possible.”

As her way of providing “gender-affirming care,” Williams “insists hospital staff address his [sic] clients by their correct names and pronouns” as they abort their offspring. Williams became a doula—the Greek word for slave, which normally means an assistant midwife—because “he” has “had two surgical abortions, one in 2016 and another in 2018. Williams has a tattoo on his [sic] left forearm of a tool used for manual vacuum aspiration – a type of abortion procedure. Williams said she loves the procedure because, “it’s one and done. It’s quick.”4

During her monologue, Williams stated more than once that “abortion is birth” without being questioned, much less contradicted, by her equally sexually ambiguous interlocutor. Before long, it became clear that the connection between abortion and transgenderism existed in her mind alone, which is why she was so essential to this discussion. Crippled by guilt after killing two of her children, Williams became obsessed with exonerating herself by becoming an avid promoter of abortion. Then, as if to make the further commission of that sin impossible, Ms. Williams decided to become a man, as the moustache on her otherwise feminine face testifies. 

As the symposium’s long list of sponsors indicated, bringing Ms. Williams to Notre Dame to proselytize for unnatural acts was not some deviation from university policy put on by an overzealous graduate student in the gender studies program which caught Notre Dame unawares. The same ideology which the U.S. bishops condemned was promoted in a video aimed at incoming freshmen by Dean of Students, Rev. Gerard Olinger, C.S.C. in September of 2022. Rev. Olinger, who was also a member of the Board of Trustees as of June 16, 2018, not only accepts the entire ideology of transgenderism, but he took it upon himself to impose this ideology on incoming freshman. Unlike the U.S. Catholic bishops, Olinger affirmed in a video that freshmen had to watch that:

– A person’s gender identity may not match a person’s biological sex.
– Gender identity is a person’s inner sense of being a male, female, or differently gendered person.
– Transgender refers to someone whose internal gender identity doesn’t match their biological sex.
– Questioning refers to someone in the process of discerning their sexual orientation or gender.5

In addition to undermining the Church’s teaching on the God-given nature of sexuality, embodied in the phrase “male and female He created them,” incoming freshmen were also forced to watch a video which undermined the Church’s teaching on homosexuality by featuring a sympathetic account of a bi-sexual Notre Dame student “who has had a same sex partner in the past” and who calls upon students to “treat it like it’s no big deal,” thereby undermining the Church’s teaching that homosexual acts are “acts of grave depravity” that “under no circumstances can be approved.”6

ACE Co-Founders Sean McGraw (left) and Tim Scully (right)

The Sycamore Trust predictably condemned Notre Dame’s endorsement of transgenderism and homosexuality as “scandal of the first order,”7 but this is nothing new. This version of Kabuki theater has been repeating itself ever since the Sycamore Trust was founded in 2006 and gathered steam during the scandal associated with the university conferring an honorary degree on Barack Obama. This ritual dance has, in fact, been repeating itself ever since I published “Is Notre Dame Still Catholic?” in 1984. The Sycamore Trust, a conservative group of alumni which complains regularly about deviant behavior at Notre Dame, claims that Notre Dame has committed itself to airing both sides of the story, referring to some “Common Proposal of the Chairs of the College of Arts and Letters which specified that the university had the responsibility “to provide a forum for multiple viewpoints where relevant” but also “appropriate balance” to present the Catholic point of view.

When it comes to gender ideology, this is simply not the case. The psychology department uses the American Psychological Association’s Guidelines for Psychological Practice with Transgender and Nonconforming Gender People as their way of imposing acceptance of sodomy and transgenderism on Notre Dame students, many of whom are Catholic and some of whom feel that the department’s policy violates their conscience. Those who express reservations, even indirectly, are told in not-so-subtle ways that their adherence to the same principles which the bishops recently affirmed may prevent their advancement in the profession or their ability to graduate with a Notre Dame degree in psychology. The graduate student who told me this was so intimidated that she refused to let me use her name in this article. She was never confronted directly by the department, but a sympathetic professor who took part in her departmental evaluation told her that one of her professors claimed that she was “a problematic student” and refused to recommend that she continue in the program. Graduate students in the psychology department at Notre Dame are pressured into promoting behavior among adults and children that the APA itself condemned as mental illness before a group of activists changed the DSM in the mid-70s.

In the theology department, gender ideology is imposed on students not by appeals to the APA guidelines on gender but by the same Holy Cross priests who have been commissioned to maintain the Catholic character of the university. It is not some callow teaching assistant doing this. It is Holy Cross priests themselves. Rev. Paul V. Kollman, C.S.C. was also a member of the Notre Dame Board of Trustees as of June 2018. In his capacity as a professor of theology, he assigned a paper on gender to his class. When one student took the Catholic position in the paper he assigned, namely “male and female He created them,” Kollman threw it back at her, refused to grade it, and commented that she wasn’t smart enough to have written a paper like this on her own. At this point, the student took the paper to Theology Department Chairman John Cavadini, who said there was nothing wrong with what she had written but told her nonetheless to re-write it according to Kollman’s specifications. Cavadini has the reputation of being one of the few orthodox Catholics in the Notre Dame Theology Department, but he had no qualms in forcing that student to violate her conscience by requiring her to re-write the paper in conformity with the transgenderism Kollman had made normative in his class.

Eventually word of Ash Williams’ transgender, pro-abortion proselytizing got to the bishop, who published a condemnation of sorts in the diocesan newspaper, at which point the Sycamore Trust praised Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades, ordinary of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, for his defense of the Catholic Faith. After all of the actors in this drama had played the parts assigned to them, one more scandalous violation of Catholic doctrine at the hands of Holy Cross priests was allowed to fizzle out unpunished by the end of the semester. By the time Notre Dame students return in the fall, the incident like so many in the past, will be totally forgotten, setting the stage for another bout of transgressive behavior from the gender studies revolutionaries who are determined to make transgenderism the official ideology de jure of a university where it already enjoys that status de facto.

In his condemnation, Rhoades claimed that Notre Dame provided “an abortion facilitator” with no academic credentials whatsoever with “a platform for unanswered pro-abortion activism.” Rhoades, however, leveled the accusation in a way that implied that the sponsorship of the symposium was a slip up of some sort, by saying that it appeared to be at odds with “Notre Dame’s admirable institutional commitment to promoting a culture of life that embraces and affirms the intrinsic equal dignity of the unborn, pregnant mothers, and families.”8 If Notre Dame were committed to promoting a culture of life it would have abolished the gender studies program decades ago. In fact, Notre Dame University has been committed to overturning Church teaching ever since Father Hesburgh collaborated with John D. Rockefeller, 3rd and his Population Council in putting on a series of secret conferences from 1962 to 1965 with the express purpose of undermining the Catholic Church’s teaching on contraception. Bishop Rhoades was evidently unaware of this tradition at Notre Dame, because in his statement he claimed that “Notre Dame’s mission statement puts the point beautifully,” when it claims that:

The University is dedicated to the pursuit and sharing of truth for its own sake. As a Catholic university, one of its distinctive goals is to provide a forum where, through free inquiry and open discussion, the various lines of Catholic thought may intersect with all the forms of knowledge found in the arts, sciences, professions, and every other area of human scholarship and creativity. … Notre Dame’s character as a Catholic academic community presupposes that no genuine search for the truth in the human or the cosmic order is alien to the life of faith.9

How is it possible to square those “beautiful” thoughts with the reality of the actual situation which involves showcasing someone who promotes abortion and the mutilation of children by someone who “is not a scholar or even a prominent public intellectual”? The answer is simple. The university has been playing a double game ever since Father Hesburgh alienated the university from the Catholic Church by issuing his Land O’Lakes statement in 1967. The double game involves publicly proclaiming the university’s Catholicism while secretly undermining anyone or any idea which would inhibit government or foundation funding. The hidden grammar of the rhetoric at Notre Dame is duplicity, which makes a mockery of Hesburgh’s vaunted claim that no institution outside of the university should determine what gets taught there. This caveat was clearly aimed at the Vatican and the local bishop but not at John D. Rockefeller, the big foundations, the government, and the APA, all of which espouse doctrines which contradict the teaching of the Catholic Church. Bishop Rhoades is aware of this situation because I brought it up in his presence, but his awareness derives from other sources as well.

On March 22, 2021, Rita Scheidler Lyden wrote a letter to Bishop Rhoades stating that over a period of about eight years, her husband James Patrick “Packy” Lyden “had endured various forms of sexual harassment, abuse, and assault from his direct supervisor, Rev. Timothy R. Scully, C.S.C.” Those actions included “photographs of his body, fondling, full body massages, and simulated anal intercourse, which in my understanding rises to the level of criminal sexual assault.”

Lyden’s testimony to his wife in front of a therapist, anticipated the McCarrick Scandal by only a few days. And three months later the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend would release the names – not including Scully’s – of three Holy Cross priests “credibly accused” of sexually abusing minors.10 After a year, the Congregation of Holy Cross itself would list “15 of its former members as credibly-accused sexual abusers,” only two of which were “removed from ministry.”11 However, Mrs. Lyden then said that her husband did not file a sexual harassment suit because he felt “overly vulnerable and threatened with the loss of his livelihood because of Fr. Scully’s influence in both the Congregation of Holy Cross and at the University of Notre Dame.” Instead, the information leaked through the Scheidler family grapevine to Professor John Cavadini and to an assistant of Bishop Rhoades. Cavadini took the accusations to Notre Dame alumna Marianne Corr who “was elected vice president and general counsel for” Notre Dame in 2008, the same year Scully hired Packy Lyden. Corr oversaw all “University legal matters, including those related to human resources and employment...”12 Corr happened to be a friend of Scully who, as executive vice president, had overseen human resources.13

Scully was a power broker at Notre Dame who was being groomed for “university leadership positions,”14 was on all of the crucial committees, and bragged openly about being responsible for the Rev. John Jenkins being chosen as president of the university. But with each increase in his power, Scully became more arrogant and his behavior more reckless. Scully’s career hit a speed bump on May 2, 2003, when he was forced to resign as executive vice president of the university because of the Chad Sharon incident, which occurred the same year the Boston Sex Scandal was throwing the “sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy into the national spotlight” and landing priests in prison.15

Chad Sharon, a first semester freshman who resided on the third floor of Fisher Hall with Father Scully went missing after the last day of fall semester classes after purposely being left behind at an off-campus Fisher Hall party on the evening of December 12, 2002. Two months later, his body was dragged from where it had lodged underneath the Angela Boulevard bridge.16 Tim Corbett, commander of the St. Joe homicide unit, said, “He had on a … choker. We have a picture of him wearing the choker that we used for comparison.”17 Sharon was an only child who was in daily contact via instant messaging with his mother, who “had chatted online with him the day he disappeared”18 but had no reason to suspect despondency or anything else associated with suicide…

 

[…] This is just an excerpt from the May 2023 Issue of Culture Wars magazine. To read the full article, please purchase a digital download of the magazine, or become a subscriber!

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Endnotes

1  Katie Yoder, “Experts applaud new Catholic instruction against transgender interventions,” Our Sunday Visitor, March 21, 2023, https://www.oursundayvisitor.com/experts-applaud-new-catholic-instruction-against-transgender-interventions/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_email=Omeda&utm_campaign=NL-Our+Sunday+Visitor+News+Now&utm_term=6900G5442178D7A&oly_enc_id=6900G5442178D7A
2  Timothy Dempsey, “’Abortion Doula,’ at Notre Dame,” Sycamore Trust, March 20, 2023, https://sycamoretrust.org/abortion-doula-at-notre-dame?vgo_ee=bOa8zPkODWXdGUsHnCn2EDSa0RG0KBcgvY%2FAbltL%2BnE%3D
3  “Trans Care + Abortion Care: Intersections and Questions,” Gender Studies Program, University of Notre Dame, March 20, 2023, https://genderstudies.nd.edu/events-and-news/events/2023/03/20/trans-care-abortion-care-intersections-and-questions/
4  Destinee Adams, “What it’s like being an abortion doula in a state with restrictive laws,” NPR, Oct. 19, 2022, https://www.npr.org/2022/10/19/1123778633/abortion-doula-north-carolina 
5  Sycamore Trust, “An Open Letter: To Rev. Gerry Olinger, C.S.C., Vice President for University of Notre Dame Student Affairs: With copies to Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades, Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., Rev. William M. Lies, and John J. Brennan, https://sycamoretrust.org/take-action/petitions-open-letters/break-the-silence-on-cbnd/
6  Sycamore Trust, “An Open Letter: To Rev. Gerry Olinger, C.S.C., Vice President for University of Notre Dame Student Affairs: With copies to Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades, Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., Rev. William M. Lies, and John J. Brennan, https://sycamoretrust.org/take-action/petitions-open-letters/break-the-silence-on-cbnd/
7  Sycamore Trust, “An Open Letter: To Rev. Gerry Olinger, C.S.C., Vice President for University of Notre Dame Student Affairs: With copies to Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades, Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., Rev. William M. Lies, and John J. Brennan, https://sycamoretrust.org/take-action/petitions-open-letters/break-the-silence-on-cbnd/
8  Kevin J. Jones, “Notre Dame ‘abortion doula’ talk was unworthy of Catholic university, local bishop laments,” Catholic News Agency, March 22, 2023, https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/253912/notre-dame-abortion-doula-talk-is-squarely-contrary-to-catholic-principles-bishop-rhoades-laments
9  Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades, “Reproductive Justice Series Promotes Injustice of Abortion and Provides Platform for Abortion Activists, in Opposition to Notre Dame’s Commitment to Culture of Life,” Today’s Catholic, March 21, 2023, https://todayscatholic.org/reproductive-justice-series-promotes-injustice-of-abortion-and-provides-platform-for-abortion-activists-in-opposition-to-notre-dames-commitment-to-culture-of-life/
10   Observer Staff Report, “Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend publishes list of 18 priests ‘credibly accused’ of sexual abuse of a minor,” The Observer, Sept. 18, 2018, 
11  Observer Staff Report, “Three former Notre Dame-affiliated priests named as having sexually abused minors,” The Observer, June 13, 2019.
12  “Marianne Corr,” https://www.nd.edu/about/leadership/council/marianne-corr/
13  Elliott Argue, “Rev. Timothy Scully, C.S.C.: priest and professor serves as trustee,” The Irish Rover, Sept. 3, 2010, https://irishrover.net/2010/09/rev-timothy-scully-c-s-c-priest-and-professor-serves-as-trustee/
14  Thomas E. Blantz, CSC, The University of Notre Dame: A History, p. 566.
15  “Sexual abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston,” Wikipedia: The Catholic Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_abuse_scandal_in_the_Roman_Catholic_Archdiocese_of_Boston
16  Ed Cohen, “Mystery of Freshman’s Disappearance Ends Grimly,” Notre Dame Magazine, Spring 2003, https://magazine.nd.edu/stories/mystery-of-freshman-s-disappearance-ends-grimly/
17           Gwen O’Brien and Margaret Fosmoe, “Sharon’s Body Found,” Notre Dame News, February 12, 2003, https://news.nd.edu/news/sharons-body-found/
18  Ed Cohen, “Mystery of Freshman’s Disappearance Ends Grimly,” Notre Dame Magazine, Spring 2003, https://magazine.nd.edu/stories/mystery-of-freshman-s-disappearance-ends-grimly/
19   The Observer, January 17, 2003, https://archives.nd.edu/Observer/2003-01-17_v37_075.pdf
 
20             The Observer, May 16, 2003
21                                            BroadCasting & Cable Staff, “Notre Dame investigates pushy priest, Broadcasting+Cable, January 24, 2003, https://www.nexttv.com/news/notre-dame-investigates-pushy-priest-97632
22             https://www.nexttv.com/news/notre-dame-investigates-pushy-priest-97632
23   The Observer, January 22, 2003, https://archives.nd.edu/Observer/2003-01-22_v37_078.pdf
 
24   The Observer, January 24, 2003, https://archives.nd.edu/Observer/2003-01-24_v37_080.pdf
 
25  https://www.nexttv.com/news/notre-dame-investigates-pushy-priest-97632
26  B+C Staff, “Notre Dame investigates pushy priest,” Broadcasting+Cable, Jan. 24, 2003, https://www.nexttv.com/news/notre-dame-investigates-pushy-priest-97632
27  B+C Staff, “Notre Dame investigates pushy priest,” Broadcasting+Cable, Jan. 24, 2003, https://www.nexttv.com/news/notre-dame-investigates-pushy-priest-97632
28  Andrew Soukup, The Observer, May 16, 2003.
29  Andrew Soukup, The Observer, May 16, 2003.
30  Eric Prister, “The Founding of the Alliance for Catholic Education,” Alliance for Catholic Education, University of Notre Dame, https://ace.nd.edu/blog/founding-alliance-catholic-education
31  Andrew Soukup, The Observer, May 16, 2003.
32  Meghanne Downes, The Observer, May 16, 2003.
33  Emma Dudrick, “End Hate at ND,” Protests Parietals, The Irish Rover, Dec. 6, 2019, https://irishrover.net/2019/12/end-hate-at-nd-protests-parietals/
34  Mary Steurer and Tom Naatz, “Students gather for sit-in against parietals, hate speech in Stanford Hall early Sunday morning,” The Observer, Nov. 18, 2019, https://ndsmcobserver.com/2019/11/students-gather-for-sit-in-against-parietals-hate-speech-in-stanford-hall-early-sunday-morning/
35  David Phillips, “Parietals criminalize gender itself, but we already knew that,” The Observer, Nov. 17-18, 2019, https://ndsmcobserver.com/2019/11/parietals-criminalize-gender-itself-but-we-already-knew-that/
36  David Phillips, “Parietals criminalize gender itself, but we already knew that,” The Observer, Nov. 17-18, 2019, https://ndsmcobserver.com/2019/11/parietals-criminalize-gender-itself-but-we-already-knew-that/
37  Emma Farnan, “Parietals are not the problem,” The Observer, Nov. 25, 2019, https://ndsmcobserver.com/2019/11/parietals-are-not-the-problem/
38  Sycamore Trust, “Jenkins Praises Alumnus for Same-Sex Marriage High Court Win,” Sycamore Trust, October 8, 2021, https://sycamoretrust.org/fr-jenkins-praises-gay-alumnus-for-winning-supreme-court-same-sex-marriage-case-huh/
39  Sycamore Trust, “Jenkins Praises Alumnus for Same-Sex Marriage High Court Win,” Sycamore Trust, October 8, 2021, https://sycamoretrust.org/fr-jenkins-praises-gay-alumnus-for-winning-supreme-court-same-sex-marriage-case-huh/
40  Patricia Lefevere, “Notre Dame priest resigns over policy on gays,” National Catholic Reporter, April 10, 1998, https://natcath.org/NCR_Online/archives2/1998b/041098/041098d.htm
41  Arthur Jones, “Down and out in Hollywood,” National Catholic Reporter, https://natcath.org/NCR_Online/archives2/2001a/011201/011201g.htm 
“Garrick taught in the program of liberal studies, the Great Books seminars, until the late 1980s, when he asked to go for a doctorate in performance studies. He began teaching drama at Notre Dame in 1992, completing his dissertation for New York University that year. During this period, Garrick told his superior he was gay and celibate.” 
42  Colman McCarthy, “Time for a Church to Search its Soul,” The Washington Post, Feb. 4, 1992, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1992/02/04/time-for-a-church-to-search-its-soul/bfab7aa0-c87e-43ff-9567-a46e8e8dc05c/
43  Congregation of Holy Cross Indiana Province Corporate Title: Priests of Holy Cross, Indiana Province, Inc., Residence Directory and Community List, 1978-1979.
44  “An Interview with ’69 Domer Dan Saracino – Admissions of a Former Notre Dame Admissions Director,” The University of Notre Dame Class of 1969 Blog, June 11, 2017, Updated July 25, 2017, https://notredameclassof1969blog.blogspot.com/2017/06/an-interview-with-69-domer-dan-saracino.html
45  Jason McFarley, “Recovering rector takes time off,” The Observer, Jan. 28, 2002.
46  Holy Cross, U.S. Province, “Funeral Mass for Rev. David Scheidler, C.S.C.” YouTube, June 15, 2020, youtube.com/watch?v=-ZZ6pN56Ln8
47  Dennis Brown, “Father Lies elected provincial superior for U.S. province of Holy Cross, Notre Dame News, June 14, 2018, https://news.nd.edu/news/father-lies-elected-provincial-superior-for-u-s-province-of-holy-cross/
48  Alex Seitz-Wald and Mike Hixenbaugh, “Some on the right blame gender identity and not guns for Nashville shooting,” NBC News Digital, March 28, 2023,  https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/right-blame-gender-identity-not-guns-nashville-shooting-rcna76969
49  Tucker Carlson Tonight, “Tucker: The Nashville school shooting happened due to deranged ideology,” Fox News, March 28, 2023, https://www.foxnews.com/video/6323560299112
50  Tucker Carlson Tonight, “Tucker: The Nashville school shooting happened due to deranged ideology,” Fox News, March 28, 2023, https://www.foxnews.com/video/6323560299112