“Treat Women with respect.”

– Coach Brian Kelly’s locker room poster

NOTRE DAME, IN — In this bulletin we recount a recent highly publicized escapade of a Notre Dame football player with a porn star that brought discredit to Notre Dame and the university’s response. We have no interest in this student’s behavior as such, and we have no wish to morph into the National Enquirer of Catholic higher education. But it is necessary to relate this episode in its essential details in order to show how the reaction of the university reflects on its Catholic identity. In a subsequent bulletin, we will discuss how the university’s attitude toward moral formation plays into the alcohol-fueled hookup culture that in turn is the seedbed for sexual assault.

The Facts

A few weeks ago, Notre Dame’s touted freshman wide receiver Justin Brent went on an eye-catching New York frolic with notorious porn star Lisa Ann that brought discredit to the university. The story and photos of the couple at a Knicks game and then, out of uniform, so to speak, in bed exploded on the Internet. Notre Dame was prominently featured.  “Notre Dame wide receiver Justin Brent bagged legendary porn star Lisa Ann.”  The episode has made it into Wikipedia’s account of Lisa Ann’s rise to hard-core renown through  her portrayal of Sarah Palin in “Who’s Nailin’ Palin.”

Amid the widespread  “boys will be boys” chortling, a sports commentator introduced a discordant note by citing  Notre Dame’s rule against extramarital sex. The implication was that the university might pay some attention to the rule. He was met with a tsunami of scorn.

The University’s Reaction

The skeptics were right.  The university is letting this pass. We checked with the university spokesperson to see if he wanted to dispute the press disclosure of the university’s inaction. He did not respond.

According to one of the reports, university officials said “there is no proof” that Brent had sex. It seems fair to say they had a rather high standard of proof. But evidently they suspected something other than bed-warming had gone on, since Brian Kelly met with Brent to “resolve” some undescribed “issue.”  More, “administrators”  “warned [Brent]to be more careful with media channels.”

Our interest, as we said, is not in the sexual adventures of some football player or the risible efforts of some administrator to wish away common sense, but rather in what this episode says about the Catholic identity of the university.

To begin with, consider how the current administration has refashioned the school’s policy respecting fornication. (“Fornication,” suggestive of sin, is the Church’s term, not the university’s.)

When Father Jenkins became president, the rule called for “disciplinary suspension or permanent dismissal” of unmarried students found to have engaged in extramarital sex.  (du Lac 2007-08 p. 103) As revised by the Jenkins administration, such students “may be subject to referral to the University Conduct Process.”

Still, Mr. Brent could have been cited and disciplined. (The Rules of Conduct list a wide range of sanctions.) And the university could have issued a statement to the effect that Mr. Brent had not lived up to the standards expected of Notre Dame students.

But by remaining silent and forgoing the disciplinary procedure altogether in this egregious case, the university has consigned the rule against fornication to the dustbin. Surely discretion and judgment has always been employed by university administrators in these matters, but from now on the possibility of discipline as a deterrent will be remote indeed.

More importantly, the university has signaled that it really doesn’t take its standard of conduct seriously. The school’s inert disciplinary arm barely twitches even at the spectacle of a torrent of gleeful illustrated reports of the bedding of a porno queen by a Notre Dame football player.

The trifling significance the school accords the rule against fornication — gravely sinful in the eyes of the Church — is highlighted by its strikingly different attitude toward cheating. Last year star quarterback Everett Golson was suspended for cheating, and just a few weeks ago several other players received the same penalty for the same offense. In contrast, Mr. Brent’s transgression, which brought embarrassment to the school, brought him  a talk with Coach Kelly and a warning about incriminating “selfies.”

It is instructive that this scale of values, while not the Church’s, is doubtless that of Notre Dame’s “peers,” both academic and athletic.

Surely moral formation is an essential element of the Catholic identity of a Catholic school. Father Jenkins has put it well: “We must send forth graduates who will be intellectual and moral leaders for our time.” We have discussed in an earlier bulletin (Moral Theology 000)  the many reasons for Father Mark Poorman, then Vice President for Student Affairs at Notre Dame and now President of Portland University,  to have said: “We really need to do a whole lot more with regard to moral formation and ethical training and reasoning.”

We realize that in today’s culture the virtue of chastity is not exactly riding a wave of popularity, but even those who think little of it should concede that, if Notre Dame holds itself out to parents and others as a Catholic school, it ought to give more than lip service to the moral formation of its students in accord with important Church teaching.

If, like us, you want to see an authentic Catholic renewal at Notre Dame, please take a few minutes to read our Annual Letter and consider making a tax-deductible donation to Sycamore Trust.

 

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