Best of luck, but really, stick to local social causes. You’re way out of your IQ/EQ limitations here.

That’s not me being smug – that’s just me letting you in on the truth. I appreciate your desire to keep Catholicism/Catholic doctrine whole/pure/true. But this isn’t the issue, the venue, or the subject for that battle – that battle is fought across decades, across countries and across cultures. And sir, ND is not hurting Catholicism or “America”. Take a deep breath, look in the mirror, and figure out what you want to do. Now compare that to what you’re doing.

Now, go start over. Best – The Biscuit

And I truly hope this really is you, Matt, promote a “sense of fair play” that reminds me a lot of socialism. I wonder what church leaders would say about socialism and how it plays with Catholicism. Hmmm…
And really, aren’t you supposed to go around worrying more about your own faults, like, say, working for a company that advertises NaughtyOrNice.com than how Notre Dame Football operates in the United States’ market system?
Anyhow, my mind boggles that you harp on the idea that “Notre Dame’s football labors currently don’t merit a sweetheart deal from a network whose boss is sending members of his family to that very same university.” Matt, your current labors don’t merit the sweetheart deal that enables you to get paid covering college football. I see better analysis and commentary from the raving lunatic on the corner of Clark and Foster every morning on my way to work. Going by your system of determining “merit,” I’d say you should be getting a deal working inventory at the local A&P.
Anyway, I really do hope this was you, Matt, and I hope you really are done. You’re hurting America with your “work.”

Namely, that Notre Dame sees fit to play by its own rules, the rules that enabled the Irish to gain a place in the 1995 Fiesta Bowl with a 6-4-1 record.

Now, also consider that NBC Sports kingpin Dick Ebersol has family members attending Notre Dame.

Favoritism, anyone?

Catholic social teachings are often referred to as “Catholicism’s best-kept secret” for a reason: Church leaders and institutions–and Notre Dame is mighty prominent in the larger realm of American Catholicism–don’t live them out, much less teach them.

Catholicism is not exactly enjoying one of its better, healthier periods, with immigrants being the only group preventing Catholic membership from hemorrhaging. Maybe Catholic parishes and diocesan communities are seeing the larger Church for the hollow shell it’s become. As an activist at my Catholic parish in Seattle, I see these things; as a Catholic who continues to go to Mass regularly and participate in the life of my Catholic community, I’ve earned the right to say these things, being that I’m on the inside.

Notre Dame is a marvelous university that is doing and will continue to do many great things for humankind.

This does not mean that Notre Dame football–this separate entity–ought to enjoy different moral or ethical standards, or not face due scrutiny when it insults everyone’s sense of fair play, and thereby offends Catholic social teachings and documents such as RERUM NOVARUM, which talk about the dignity and value of labor.

Notre Dame’s football labors currently don’t merit a sweetheart deal from a network whose boss is sending members of his family to that very same university.

Need I say more?

Actually, yes.

Unfettered capitalism and the Gospel of Jesus Christ are oppositional forces.

Now, at last, you can stick a fork in me, because I’m truly done.

Matt Zemek
CFN

To be fair, I know for a fact that Mike Frank thinks that Zemek’s article is utter BS.