Lou Holtz: Fath, Family And Service, 1937 - 2026

 

Honoring The Legacy Of The Great Lou Holtz

At the virtual 2020 Republican National Convention, Lou Holtz called out Joe Biden for being a "Catholic in name only."

RIP legend. pic.twitter.com/7pslrgDBcF

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) March 4, 2026

Don't Be Fooled By Notre Dame's Semantics!

A special message from the Cardinal Newman Society: They say the problem’s fixed. Not so! Instead, Notre Dame’s leaders are up to the same old tricks. Catholic families shouldn’t be duped. Last month, Notre Dame invited a barrage of criticism by dropping “Catholic mission” from its “Notre Dame Values”—standards which every Notre Dame employee must uphold. Now the university’s leaders have restored the words “Catholic mission,” but it’s no reversal. It’s a sleight of hand. The new language reads: “Catholic Mission: Be a force for good and help to advance Notre Dame’s mission to be the leading global Catholic research university.” Compare that to the language deleted last month: “Leadership in Mission: Understands, accepts, and supports the Catholic mission of the university and fosters values consistent with that mission.” The reference to Catholic “values” is gone. It’s replaced by the admonition to “be a force for good,” which would satisfy any atheist. It has all the Catholic piety of “happy holidays.” It certainly offers no hope that Notre Dame will enforce Catholic values on marriage, sexuality, gender, human dignity, and the sanctity of human life—and that, we believe, is precisely what Notre Dame wants to avoid.

Support FAITHFUL Catholic Education

Requiring employees to uphold Catholic morals would be hypocritical: Notre Dame covers contraception in its employee health plan. Same-sex "spouses” are awarded employee benefits. The university protects professors who promote abortion and same-sex marriage. It honors pro-abortion politicians and Catholic dissidents, such as former President Barack Obama in 2009 and Vice President Joe Biden in 2016. It welcomes campus speakers who openly oppose Catholic teaching. Imagine Notre Dame fighting an employee lawsuit, claiming it must enforce the same Catholic values it already flouts! We suspect attorneys made the call: better to drop all reference to Catholic values, lest someone take them seriously. Instead, under the guise of “Catholic Mission,” Notre Dame now admonishes employees to “help to advance Notre Dame’s mission to be the leading global Catholic research university.” Since when does “Catholic mission” mean secular prestige?   The haughty ambition of Notre Dame’s leaders is irrelevant to the Catholic formation of students. The new language treats “Catholic” as nothing more than a brand, without reference to Christ and salvation.   Employees no longer are required to “understand,” “accept,” or “support” Notre Dame’s Catholic mission. This is a far cry from the hope of Father Edward Sorin, C.S.C., that his university would be “the home of innocence and virtue.” It’s high time Catholics break free of Notre Dame’s storied reputation. That reputation was earned decades ago, when the university was a shining example of Catholic education. The luster is gone.   Catholic families should instead entrust their students to Newman Guide Recommended colleges. These colleges provide education that forms students in knowledge, wisdom, and virtue, in the light of our Catholic faith. That’s Catholic mission. Sincerely,

Patrick Reilly Founder and President The Cardinal Newman Society

Notre Dame Hasn't Been 'Catholic' For Quite Awhile

 

An Important Message From President Trump . . .

 

We've Never Been Big Notre Dame Fans, But . . .

 

Though it's still shocking that students at the nation's premiere Catholic university would prefer a right-to-life candidate by only a couple of points over one who favors abortion on demand right up until the time of birth.

An Open Letter To Notre Dame University . . .

Good afternoon:

Can someone please explain to me why Notre Dame, a Catholic university, invited Joe Biden to give the commencement address this year?
Joe Biden -- A "Catholic" who supports partial birth abortion, abortion on demand, abortion up till the time of birth and, presumably, even moments after birth. 

Joe Biden -- who has restored government/taxpayer funding of abortion full throttle. 
Joe Biden -- who thumbs his nose at settled Catholic teaching and doctrine, laughs in the face of Holy Mother, the Church and creates a scandal by his brazen and imperious defiance of the gospel itself, as it relates to abortion.
Joe Biden -- who seems to reduce Catholicism to carrying a rosary in his pocket, sort of like a good luck charm.
Can you explain why you would honor a man like this by inviting him to speak and giving him a platform at such a prestigious event at what is, arguably, the nation's pre-eminent Catholic university?
And please don't send me a canned, homogenized response full of politically correct code words.
PLEASE don't do that -- not while America's Catholic bishops are considering chastising Biden and denying him communion.
OK?
Thanks!
Dan Cirucci

 

The Treasured Heart Of A City -- And A Whole Nation!

The following is from Philadelphia Archbishop Charles J. Chaput:

M. Jean Duchesne cofounded the French edition of the Communio international theological journal and served as special assistant to the late Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger of Paris for more than 25 years.  The author of numerous books and articles on the faith, active in Jewish-Catholic dialogues, and a consultant to Lustiger's successors, he has been a friend to the Church in the United States for decades.  He and his family live in Paris.  I'm grateful for his willingness to offer his thoughts below on the Paris Holy Week fire.

IMPORTANT NOTE : Notre Dame de Paris is a symbol of faith that belongs to Catholics around the world.  Many of our parishes will be conducting a Second Collection on Easter Sunday to help repair and rebuild Notre Dame Cathedral.  Please be as generous as your means allow.

Please pray for the Catholic community in France, and may God bless all of us with a holy Triduum and joyful Easter.

+Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap.
Archbishop of Philadelphia

Seeing Notre Dame de Paris burning and threatening to collapse was a shock that left everyone voiceless – including President Emmanuel Macron, who canceled a speech dealing with the social unrest in France over the past few months.

The cathedral towering above the island on the Seine that was the cradle of the city is more than a venerable medieval building, more than an exceptionally beautiful architectural masterpiece. It has been for centuries the heart not only of Paris, but of the whole nation, the place where even atheistic presidents and ministers came to pray because they could not think of anything else to do when France was victorious (in 1918), defeated (in 1940) or liberated (in 1944). It was desecrated during the French Revolution and turned into a temple of the goddess Reason, but Napoleon realized he had to give it back to the Church and be crowned there if he was actually to become an Emperor.

It is also a vibrant reminder of the faith of our ancestors, which shaped the monument and inspired every detail as a facet of God’s revelation and gifts as well as the overall design. It was meant and has survived as a representation of the celestial abode that everyone openly hopes for or secretly dreams of. That something so ancient should defy time and remain so mysteriously meaningful is perceived as a miracle that no science can either deny or explain. This is why even non-believers feel affected. The Paris cathedral is the symbol not just of the Catholic faith, but of the fact that all humans have souls.

Rather strangely, non-Catholics lament more noisily than Catholics. They fear the damage is irreversible. Can it be repaired? How much will it cost? Can it be afforded? A fund has already been started to raise the money that is needed. But will this be enough to restore everything as it was? Is it possible to rebuild the roof’s oak framework that had resisted the elements since the 13th century? Will Notre Dame ever be the same again?

The faithful are less pessimistic, though they quite reasonably could be. The late Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger had centered the Paris Archdiocese’s life in and around the cathedral and refashioned the interior with an elegant modern altar in the middle. The loss of all this might seem to be the last blow after all the sex abuse scandals that have hit the Church recently, and all the sociological studies highlighting the plummeting numbers of baptisms, ordinations and religious vocations, or revealing that the younger generations are simply unsure what Christians commemorate at Easter or what a parish is exactly.

On top of it all, this happens just at the beginning of Holy Week, the most sacred time of year for Christians: Where will the Archbishop gather his priests for Chrism Mass? And finally, why did God allow this?

Notre Dame on fire and perhaps unusable for months if not years is undoubtedly a trial. But faith does not allow to see this as a punishment or the confirmation of a decline and fall. There is some comfort to be found in the massive sense of affliction and solidarity of non-believers, since it proves that for them, however irreligious they are, the visible Church is not a mere remnant of the past, but a vital part of the scenery, without which they themselves miss something. Yet, in the end, this support does not make that much of a difference.

What is decisive is the knowledge that Jesus Christ the Groom will never abandon his bride the Church – which does not mean that her faithfulness will never be tested. The Temple on Mount Zion was destroyed, rebuilt and destroyed again. St. Peter’s in Rome was plundered several times. The crusaders lost Jerusalem.   What ultimately matters is not the signifier (the cathedral), but the signified (God’s glory) which remains forever fertile and will forever inspire those who long for it.

LIVE Coverage Of The Inferno In Paris . . .

Absolutely Horrifying: An Inferno Beyond Belief . . .

La flèche est tombée 😱 pic.twitter.com/iU0bC5JgyB

— Solveig Godeluck (@Solwii) April 15, 2019

Renewal: A Youthful Journey Of Faith . . .

This week's column from Philadelphia Archbishop Charles J. Chaput:

With a world synod of bishops focusing on young people set for this fall, listening to the young and those involved in guiding them is important. So this week, as in recent weeks, I’m turning over my column to someone who can speak directly from the experience of a young adult.

Daniel Lindstrom, 21, is entering his senior year at the University of Notre Dame. A parishioner at St. Patrick's Church in Malvern, he’s also a graduate of Bishop Shanahan High School. I’m very pleased to offer his reflections here:

There has always been friction between heaven and earth, and throughout history the heat has been felt most by the institution that inhabits both. October’s synod in Rome will look to see exactly what it is in the modern world upon which the faith of young people hinges as the attending bishops explore the topic, “Young People, the Faith, and Vocational Discernment.” Discernment occurs as a result of one’s ownership of the faith, and I believe that ownership comes from a personal encounter with God in the Church. I hope to explain here why the synod should consider looking for more concrete ways to give the Church’s youth increased personal responsibility in their individual journeys of faith. 

On a Sunday night this past academic year, my friends and I filed into a dorm chapel for a 10 p.m. Mass in which another, recently graduated friend was playing guitar. There was an air of mourning on campus as one of Notre Dame’s residence hall directors, a religious Sister of the Incarnate Word, had unexpectedly passed away. The priest saying Mass was an older gentleman named Father Greg, and soon after he had begun Mass he walked in front of the altar and addressed the chapel with a soft, broken voice.
He said through wet eyes, “This past week has been…very difficult. Of course, you all know about Sister Mary, but a very dear friend from my home died as well, along with one of the members of my order. And so I just ask that you remember them in your prayers. These are the times when we have to remember how good God is, and how immense his love is for us, and so we entrust to his mercy those who have gone before us.”

The priest’s words and God’s grace caused me to switch perspective for a moment, and to imagine how I might rely on God’s embrace at my life’s end much differently from the way I do now, surrounded by fellowship at the Holy Sacrifice.

It’s a very exciting time to be a young American Catholic. With as much trouble as the Church faces today, much more hope is blooming (Rom 5:20). Organizations like FOCUS, the Culture Project, Lighthouse Catholic Media, and so many other works of discipleship have helped to establish and fortify pockets of young, faithful Catholic believers. Yet, Father Greg showed me that after all of the vitality of these young years, when we near the end of our journeys, our discipleship will depend on our own inner lives. There, we are vulnerable and exposed; there, we are in solitude, alone with Jesus.
Community is essential to the growth and establishment of a Christ-centered life, but we often overlook the fundamental connection between solitude and community. Theologian Hans Urs Von Balthasar writes in his book The Threefold Garland, “When giving her assent Mary was alone, since at receiving one’s decisive mission for life, everyone must stand alone before God and say yes; only after this, is one again inserted into community in a new way.”

It’s in listening to God with the ears of our hearts that we’re given the opportunity to say yes to God’s call. It’s by our personal yes that we embark on our own “decisive missions”-- our vocations -- and it’s our mission that makes life with Christ such a wonderful pursuit to be shared with others. This is how authentic, nurturing Catholic community is built, and this is how, with renewed focus and zeal on the part of the Church, young people can claim their faith and set off on faith’s great adventure.

Definitely Something That Needs To Be Shared

Vice President Mike Pence at the recent Notre Dame commencement.

How Notre Dame Struck Out Yet Again!

Following is a very special message from the Cardinal Newman Society:

Again! Tragically, Notre Dame’s doing it again… but so many others are not!

Does your stomach turn every time commencement season rolls around? Mine does. The annual showcase of dissent and scandal at several Catholic colleges isn’t even shocking anymore—but it’s still destructive.

The big picture, however, is bright and getting brighter!

For every poor choice of commencement speaker that disregards Catholic values in the quest for secular prestige, there are many well-deserved honors to Catholic religious and lay leaders. Often the best are, of course, at the faithful Newman Guide colleges. Good for them!

We’ll bring you the good and bad news as it rolls in. Matt Archbold’s Report Card column this week has something of both.

First, the good news:

Saint Mary’s College, which is just across Indiana Route 933 from Notre Dame, provided a powerful witness to students when it rescinded its commencement speaker invitation to feminist author Jean Kilbourne.

After inviting her, the leaders of Saint Mary’s learned that Kilbourne had been honored by Planned Parenthood with a “leadership award.” So they quickly and courageously did the right thing.

On behalf of Catholic families, thank you Saint Mary’s College!

Meanwhile, the University of Notre Dame has made the opposite choice. After awarding its Laetare Medal for exemplary Catholics to pro-abortion Joe Biden last year, Notre Dame this year will be honoring a publicly dissident priest.

Father Gregory Boyle’s good work with Los Angeles gangs is admirable. But how can a Catholic university ignore his public advocacy for same-sex marriage? Even Father Boyle has acknowledged that he doesn’t toe “the party line” when he suggests that God disagrees with the Catholic Church.

Father Boyle has also publicly dissented on priestly ordination and withholding the Eucharist from Catholics who are married outside the Church.

What is the motivation behind Notre Dame’s honor to an unfaithful priest who has reportedly alleged that his “own sad, tragic church” is “just about power and privilege and secrecy and sometimes even a willful wandering away from Jesus and the living of the Gospel”?

There’s a lot more reported in Matt Archbold’s Report Card column this week, both good and bad. I strongly recommend a quick read.

Clearly the work of The Cardinal Newman Society is very much needed. This Lent, we could really use your prayers and donation.

May God have mercy on you, me, and the whole Church as we prepare for Holy Week! And may Easter remind us of our hope in the Resurrection that restored all things to Him.

 

Patrick Reilly  President The Cardinal Newman Society

A Worthy Choice But, What's Going On Here?

Here is a special message from www.catholicvote.org: Notre Dame has invited Pence. Passing on the custom of inviting the newly elected President, Notre Dame announced this morning they will honor Vice President Mike Pence at their 2017 Commencement. (The only other president not invited in the last 40 years was Bill Clinton.) Mike Pence is an honorable and worthy choice. But Notre Dame’s decision does raise some legitimate questions. As we noted last month: “If Obama was ok, why not Trump? Or would they have worried about a ‘circus’ had Hillary Clinton been elected?” Or would they have invited her Vice President instead? In 1960, Dwight Eisenhower would become the first of six presidents to speak at Notre Dame. In the years following World War II, Catholics were assimilating into American life and cementing their place in the middle class. The challenge then, as it had been in preceding decades, focused on proving that American Catholics could be reliable American citizens. The tradition of Notre Dame inviting the President may have been necessary during the aspirational Catholic era of the 1950’s and 60’s. But this tradition strikes us as a distraction from the real challenge facing Catholics today. Catholics no longer must prove we can be good citizens. On the contrary, the challenge before us is whether we can be good Catholics. The record speaks for itself. We as Catholics have failed our country in living out the demands of the Gospel. Catholics number nearly 70 million, and make up nearly 25% of the American electorate. Yet abortion remains legal, for any reason, during all nine months of pregnancy. Meanwhile so-called same-sex ‘marriage’ is the law of the land -- having been championed by Catholic legislators across the country including our country’s first Catholic vice president. Detractors once said we were too Catholic to be American. Perhaps the bigger problem today is that we are too ‘American’ to be Catholic.   Brian Burch, Catholic Vote

Society Fights For Religious Liberty, Catholic Values

A very special message from the Cardinal Newman Society:

September 5, 2014 Connect with Us       Donate to Support Our Mission Dear friends,This is what religious persecutionlooks like. As we reported last week, California Gov. Jerry Brown's administration is violating federal law by forcing two Catholic universities and other religious employers to include "elective abortion" coverage in their health plans. Now we've exposed their hypocrisy!  Your Cardinal Newman Society broke the very important story that California's own health plans for state employees cover only "medically necessary" abortions—even while claiming that similar Catholic employers' plans are discriminatory and unconstitutional! California's abortion mandate is an outrageous attack on the religious freedoms of Catholic educators.  We've done our investigative research, and with the attorneys at Alliance Defending Freedom and the Life Legal Defense Foundation, we're doing everything we can to fight back.  Please pray for us. Meanwhile, the University of Notre Dame has again undermined its own lawsuit against the Obama administration's HHS mandate by renewing a student health plan that covers contraceptives, including some that cause abortion.  A student plan! Perhaps that's a selling point for prospective students in Notre Dame's pre-college summer course on "Gender and Culture in American Society," which seems intended to dispel the Christian understanding of male and female. Now contrast that with the vision for student life presented by Father Sean Sheridan, TOR, president of the Franciscan University of Steubenville, at The Cardinal Newman Society's conference of student affairs professionals.  Or Pope Benedict XVI's vision for Catholic higher education as described by Dr. George Harne, president of the College of St. Mary Magdalen. And there's much hope in the expansion of classical, Catholic schools and plans for a Catholic high school for students with special needs.  Blessed John Henry Newman, pray for us! Sincerely, Patrick J. Reilly President

First Things First

Cartoon by Scott Stantis - TownHall.com

Obama Champions Relativism

Michael Sean Winters writing about President Obama's Notre Dame speech in the journal America:
The speech handed the President’s opponents plenty of ammunition and showed the extent to which the Obama White House is tone deaf to Catholics and our concerns.
During the campaign, when asked about when human life begins, candidate Obama said the question was "above my pay grade." But, he had no difficulty doing a theological riff on Sunday afternoon as he spoke at some length about the relationship between faith and doubt. "But remember too that the ultimate irony of faith is that it necessarily admits doubt. It is the belief in things not seen. It is beyond our capacity as human beings to know with certainty what God has planned for us or what he asks of us, and those of us who believe must trust that his wisdom is greater than our own," the President intoned. "This doubt should not push us away from our faith. But it should humble us. It should temper our passions, and cause us to be wary of self-righteousness."
If that was the President’s best impersonation of Augustine, he gets an F. For starters, there is nothing ironic about faith. Secondly, a Catholic university is an odd place to give an essentially Protestant interpretation of what can, and cannot, be "known" by faith. Finally, it is not doubt that invites humility. It is faith itself - faith in a God who has not finished with His creation, faith in a God who counseled us to humility in His scriptures and who gave an example of humility if His own life when He walked the earth - that leads us to humility. And, I would have thought even a rudimentary knowledge of human psychology would suggest that self-righteousness is a temptation as well known to the doubters as to those possessed of true faith.
One wonders why the president’s speechwriters could not find a quote from the Pope appropriate to the occasion. Needless to say, the way to the heart and mind of Pope Benedict is not with a paean to relativism. Yet, the President did precisely that. "The soldier and the lawyer may both love this country with equal passion, and yet reach very different conclusions on the specific steps needed to protect us from harm. The gay activist and the evangelical pastor may both deplore the ravages of HIV/AIDS, but find themselves unable to bridge the cultural divide that might unite their efforts. Those who speak out against stem cell research may be rooted in admirable conviction about the sacredness of life, but so are the parents of a child with juvenile diabetes who are convinced that their son's or daughter's hardships can be relieved." Alas, I am counting the minutes until some smart operative for the GOP makes sure a copy of this passage finds its way to the Vatican.
What disappoints here is that the President was at a university, a place dedicated to the search for truth. He could have moved beyond the debate about "values" that has afflicted our contemporary discourse about the intersection of religion and politics and echoed Pope Benedict’s insistence that faith and reason together seek the truth, a truth that is worthy of the human person.
The speech was typical Obama: It sounded good on the surface. But on closer inspection it proves to be fuzzy and evasive; hopelessly imprecise and artificial.

Notre Shame Turns Ugly!

What did the President expect?
What did Notre Dame expect?
Why did they invite him?
Why did he agree to attend?
Sad. Deceitful, Hypocritical. Disgraceful!

Notre Dame's Disgrace

I had to chuckle when I saw the picture of this young man from Notre Dame proclaiming on his tee shirt: "Please don't ruin MY graduation."
Yeah, I get it.
It's a Big Day for him.
I can appreciate that. I understand. It is his day.
But Notre Dame should have thought of that before the University invited Dear Leader to come and speak and accept an honorary degree on a day that should have been free of controversy.
Where were the sensible heads at Notre Dame? Where were they? They knew of Obama's record on what the Catholic Church considers the paramount moral issue of our time. And they sure as hell knew of the Church's teaching on abortion.
What were they thinking?
Certainly, they weren't thinking of their own graduates. They weren't thinking of this fella and his family and all the others who have to face the spectacle of the school becoming Notre Shame.
So, this graduate learns a a new lesson, today.
He learns (we hope) that attention and notoriety are more important to his Alma Mater then he is. He learns that perceived power is more important to Notre Dame than principle. He learns that prestige means more to Notre Dame than honor. He learns that at Notre Dame fame comes before faith. He discovers that Notre Dame has been seduced by all that is cheap and glitzy and transitory.
It's a sad lesson.
It's a tough lesson.
It's a hard lesson.
But it's one worth learning.
And BTW: The President could have saved this young man and his family the embarrassment of the day by simply deciding not to come to Notre Dame.

Gallup: Americans ARE Pro Life!

On the eve of the sorry spectacle we are about to witness at Notre Shame, the highly respected Gallup Organization is out with a new poll and stunning new results on the abortion issue.
Here's the latest from the AP's David Crary via Yahoo News:
A Gallup Poll released Friday found that 51 percent of Americans now call themselves pro-life rather than pro-choice on the issue of abortion, the first time a majority gave that answer in the 15 years that Gallup has asked the question.
The findings, obtained in an annual survey on values and beliefs conducted May 7-10, marked a significant shift from a year ago. A year ago, 50 percent said they were pro-choice and 44 percent pro-life — in the new poll, 42 percent said they were pro-choice. . . .
The findings echoed a recent national survey by the Pew Research Center, which reported a sharp decline since last August in those saying abortion should be legal in all or most cases — from 54 percent to 46 percent.
Taken together, the two polls have elated anti-abortion activists, who had been stung by the November election results that placed President Barack Obama and other abortion-rights supporters in power in Washington.
"Ironically, Obama's radical abortion policies and nominees may have helped make America more pro-life," said Wendy Wright, president of the conservative advocacy group Concerned Women for America.
The Rev. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, said the poll findings demonstrate that the anti-abortion cause "is a vibrant, growing, youthful movement."
"We are winning the battle for hearts and minds in our culture on the life issue," he said. . . .
The Gallup poll's release came just ahead of Obama's scheduled commencement speech Sunday at the University of Notre Dame, where he also is to receive an honorary degree. Those plans by the Roman Catholic university have sparked a wave of protests by anti-abortion activists, who contend Notre Dame should not honor a such a prominent supporter of abortion rights.
Gallup said its new poll showed an increase in the pro-life position across Christian religious affiliations, including an eight-point gain among Protestants and a seven-point gain among Catholics. It also reported a 10-point shift toward the pro-life category among Republicans but said there was no significant change among Democrats.
In the new poll, men identify as pro-life, 54 percent to 39 percent, while women also tilt pro-life 49 percent to 44 percent. A year ago, Gallup found more women calling themselves pro-choice than pro-life, by 50 percent to 43 percent, while men were more closely divided: 49 percent pro-choice, 46 percent pro-life.
"It is possible that, through his abortion policies, Obama has pushed the public's understanding of what it means to be 'pro-choice' slightly to the left, politically," according to the Gallup analysis. "While Democrats may support that, as they generally support everything Obama is doing as president, it may be driving others in the opposite direction."
Message to Notre Shame: You're not only out of step with Catholicism; you're out of step with America!
Message to Obama and Democrats: Keep moving further and further to the left; see where it gets you!