Following an IRS complaint by a secularist group and a wealth of other criticism, 95 members of the University of Notre Dame faculty have called on Bishop Daniel Jenky of Peoria to resign from the University’s board.
The call comes in response to Jenky’s homily in which he denounced President Obama’s “radical, pro-abortion and extreme secularist agenda,” comparing his approach to that of Hitler and Stalin.
“Jenky’s comments demonstrate ignorance of history, insensitivity to victims of genocide and absence of judgment,” the faculty said in a letter to the university’s president and the chairman of the university’s board of trustees.
“We accept that Jenky’s comments are protected by the First Amendment, but we find it profoundly offensive that a member of our beloved University’s highest authority, the Board of Fellows, should compare the president’s actions with those whose genocidal policies murdered tens of millions of people, including the specific targeting of Catholics, Jews and other minorities for their faith.”
“We request that you issue a statement on behalf of the University that will definitively distance Notre Dame from Jenky’s incendiary statement,” they added. “Further, we feel that it would be in the best interest of Notre Dame if Jenky resigned from the University’s Board of Fellows if he is unwilling to renounce loudly and publicly this destructive analogy.”
Bishop Jenky is a member of the Congregation of the Holy Cross, which founded Notre Dame, he is a Notre Dame alumnus, a former director of campus ministry and is the sole bishop on both Notre Dame’s board of trustees and board of fellows.
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