Promotion of God's Marriage Gets Cheers and Jeers at Notre Dame
Report
April 25, 2014
As TFP Student Action volunteers unraveled their banner and began handing out fliers outside DeBartolo Hall at the University of Notre Dame on April 25, many students approached and enthusiastically thanked them for standing up for Catholic doctrine. "There are many here who don't agree,” said a young man. "I agree with you and I'm not even Catholic, I'm atheist."
Pointing to our banner, which states, "God's marriage = 1 man + 1 woman," others claimed that our message was too "dogmatic."
Talking about the growing animosity towards the truth in our wayward culture, one student said:
“I know I will be martyred. By that I mean I will likely loose my job, be calumniated, and hated for my Faith." Peter Miller responded: "Yes, even Our Lord died as a Man of sorrows, despised by men. ‘know that if you are hated, I was hated first.’” But we must also remember that He overcame the world. Evil doesn't stand a chance.
Lively discussions on campus
In another conversation, a student insisting that “two men can have a child.”
Oliver Plunkett responded: “No they can’t, it's biologically impossible. Besides, mothers shine in certain virtues and they have an irreplaceable role in the family and in society. They have special qualities, such as the ability to be mothers, that no man will ever have or replace.”
He had no comeback.
"Love is love," shouted another student who was carrying a skate board. "Any two people who love each other can get married."
James Donlon asked: "If a father loves his son, can he get married to him?”
"No."
“So what about two women?”
“Yes, that's ok.”
“How do you discern right from wrong?"
"Look, you're just on the wrong side of history, man!”
“As a matter of fact, on the marriage issue, you are in the minority. Way more people are for traditional marriage than against it.”
“Well, having the majority isn't everything!”
“Then why did you start telling me I was on the wrong side of history?"
“Well I guess you're right.”
“Even your community, the black community, is overwhelmingly in favor of traditional marriage. That is good. But more importantly, right is right even if nobody does it and wrong is wrong even when everybody does it. And same-sex 'marriage' will always be morally wrong.”
Another pro-homosexual student stated how she wants to abandon her parents' "restrictive" morals. “I agree that same-sex 'marriage' may be wrong but it's not for me to judge anyone. My church and my family would agree with you but I don’t," she said. "Stop talking... You're changing what I want to believe.
Meeting a Liberal Professor
"Who gave you permission to be here?!" asked a professor, visibly upset, clutching pen and paper. "Don't you know that your presence out here is interfering with my students inside the classroom? They can't study because of you."
A TFP volunteer answered her politely. She wrote down his answers on a sheet of paper. It was difficult to understand how a table peacefully and quietly promoting true marriage could be disruptive to students who could neither hear nor see us in faraway classrooms.
"What is so disruptive about our message?" the TFP volunteer asked.
"This is wrong because you stand for inequality!" she said.
"Yes, God, Who created a wonderfully hierarchical universe, is infinitely unequal."
Quick One-liners
ND student: “Please don't inflict me with your ignorance.
”TFP volunteer: "I won't. Just read the flier, I didn't write it."
ND student: “You're on the wrong side of history!”
TFP volunteer: "But don't you know what happens at the end of history?
ND student: "There are no moral absolutes."
TFP volunteer: "Are you sure?"
ND student: "Yes, I'm positive."
TFP volunteer: "Does 2 + 2 = 4?"
ND student: "We don't necessarily know because people are conditioned by other people to think that 2 plus 2 equals 4."
ND student: “I can't believe this [table for marriage] is happening.”
TFP volunteer: "This is simply Catholic doctrine."
ND student: "Not for long. Pope Francis will soon change it."
Your Table Has Permission But You Don’t
As more students approached and read fliers and were happy with it, the pro-homosexual group on campus, as expected, was not pleased and immediately began organizing. They made calls to have us removed.
I should mention that yesterday the police asked us to leave campus because our written authorization to be on campus was apparently not approved by upper Notre Dame management.
So today, at about noon, when two policemen appeared, Charles Sulzen asked them: “Is this a repeat of yesterday?”
They responded, "Yes, pretty much."
“What’s the problem this time?”
“You're permission isn't official enough.”
“But before we came today we called the police department and we have all the emails we need to confirm that we have approval. Do you want me to show you the email?”
Charles playfully asked the lieutenant: "The next time we come, would it help if we brought a stone tablet with permission etched in it?”
“You and I both know that that still won't work,” he said. “My hands are tied.”
Then the order came: “Cease and desist! Stop talking to students. Close up!” John Ritchie explained how we went through the proper channels. We had the emails from the Student Activities Office. The police department itself had the activity on their roster. However, the police officer said we only had permission for a table, and that nobody could man the table. It sounded so silly.
As we peacefully followed orders to dismantle, we noticed that a group of Notre Dame students had formed a line. In their midst, they carried a blue trash can with a sign on it, saying: "Notre Dame supports equal rights for all people,” and they coaxed students to discard the TFP handouts instead of allowing a free exchange of ideas, as a normal university would. Even so, we didn’t see anyone put our fliers in their trash can.
As we departed, a grateful student said: “Thank you for witnessing to the truth.”
At the end of the day, despite being closed down on two consecutive days, the event was successful because it got students thinking and discussing a Catholic viewpoint based on natural law that is probably not often discussed in the "sophisticated" halls of academia -- sadly, not even at Catholic Notre Dame.
May God protect the future of the family in America.