A funny thing happened the other day at the nation’s flagship Catholic university, Notre Dame. In the midst of a controversy over the university’s policies regarding homosexuals, the authorized student newspaper, the Observer, refused to print a description of the Catholic Church’s teaching on homosexuality by a regular columnist, Charles E. Rice, professor emeritus of the law school. The editor didn’t question what Mr. Rice wrote. He just thought the column wouldn’t contribute to a “productive discussion.” What’s going on here? Just a howler by some neophyte journalists? Well, no. Why hasn’t the administration told the students not to suppress church teaching? Why did the students think they could? The incident says something about secular forces at Catholic universities and the Catholic identity of Notre Dame.