NOTRE DAME, Ind. – After the University of Notre Dame announced on Wednesday that it will extend employee benefits to “same-sex spouses,” as reported by NBC News, professors and alumni criticized the University for its apparently “easy compliance” in making the policy change.

The laws in Indiana and several other states now recognize same-sex marriage following the U.S. Supreme Court’s refusal on Monday to hear appeals of lower court cases striking down same-sex marriage bans.

Notre Dame reportedly stated in an email: “Notre Dame is a Catholic university and endorses a Catholic view of marriage. However, it will follow the relevant civil law and begin to implement this change immediately.”

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The NBC article also reported that Boston college “has offered same-sex benefits since the state became the first in the country to legalize gay marriage a decade ago.”

Sycamore Trust, a group of Notre Dame alumni that support the institution’s Catholic identity, shared a statement from Notre Dame law professor Gerard Bradley, who noted that the University has ignored “the solemn warning of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith.”  Bradley quoted the Congregation’s statement that:

In those situations where homosexual unions have been legally recognized… clear and emphatic opposition is a duty. One must refrain from any kind of formal cooperation in the enactment or application of such gravely unjust laws and, as far as possible, from material cooperation on the level of their application. In this area, everyone can exercise the right of conscientious objection.

Bradley lamented the fact that the University, despite its status in the Church, “should so nonchalantly, and without a whisper of resistance or even protest, rush to comply with such an unjust law.”

“Notre Dame’s easy compliance will scandalize many Catholics and demoralize even more,” he continued, according to the Trust. “Those who are fighting to evict the truth about marriage from our country’s laws are no doubt celebrating Notre Dame’s action this morning.”

Sycamore Trust President Bill Dempsey also questioned the University’s apparently easy compliance with the law.  According to the Trust, Dempsey put the following questions to Notre Dame:

Why has the university not interposed a religious liberty objection to that law, whatever it is? Why has not the university, for example, asserted that such a law infringes its “free exercise” of religion and “interferes” with its “rights of conscience” under Article 1, Section 3 of the Indiana constitution?

Notre Dame history professor Father Wilson Miscamble, C.S.C. also criticized the University’s decision.

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“The haste with which it was done and its being announced without serious consideration of the legal implications is not only deeply troubling but also revelatory of the direction of the current Notre Dame administration,” Fr. Miscamble reportedly said.

“Notre Dame has made no effort to stand for truth about marriage but has supinely conformed to a deeply flawed understanding of this crucial institution,” Fr. Miscamble concluded.

Authored by CNS Staff
Originally published here by Catholic Education Daily, an online publication of The Cardinal Newman Society

Published with permission