By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
An alumni group at Notre Dame announced yesterday that the university has lost nearly $14 million in donations from alumni and donors who feel disenfranchised by the trend of Notre Dame’s leadership to abandon its Catholic identity.
ReplaceJenkins.com, the online effort that asks alumni and donors to the University of Notre Dame to withhold donations, has received over 1,400 pledges from alumni and donors promising to withhold future donations.
ReplaceJenkins.com spokesperson David DiFranco (Class of ‘95) commented: “Most of the donors were at least loosely aware of the University’s trend away from its Catholic identity. But the invitation of President Obama to speak and to receive an honorary degree, combined with the weak responses presented by Father Jenkins as a defense to those who have criticized the decision, is what drives most alumni to our site.”
He added: “Unwittingly, Father Jenkins has brought national attention to a problem that is decades in the making. A shrinking percentage of Catholic faculty and the efforts of secular-minded board members has long been eroding the Catholic heritage and foundation that makes Notre Dame great. President Obama’s invitation represents the culminating scandal in this trend.”
Alumni and financial supporters of the University of Notre Dame launched the online effort in an effort to withhold donations from Notre Dame, until Rev. John Jenkins, CSC is replaced.
The coalition website – www.replacejenkins.com – urges supporters to withhold all contributions to the Notre Dame General Fund until President Jenkins is replaced with someone who is committed to the authentic identity of Notre Dame, grounded in the teachings of the Catholic Church.
“We have discovered, in no uncertain terms, that alumni did not need our suggestion to withhold contributions. In nearly all cases, those who have contacted us had already decided to cease donating. Our website merely tallies the sum of their collective decision” said DiFranco.
Further financial damage could be done to Notre Dame if efforts by the American Life League, the country’s largest grassroots pro-life organization, is successful in its attempt to have the university removed from the “Official Catholic Directory,” which will automatically disqualify Notre Dame from receiving Catholic foundational funding.
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