An Anniversary from Hell

St. Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, California

Today is the 50th anniversary of the Land O' Lakes Conference.  Isn't Land O' Lakes a kind of butter? Not that Land O' Lakes although that's what I thought of when I first heard about the infamous event years ago.

No, the Land O' Lakes conference was organized by Holy Cross Father Theodore Hesburgh who was the president of Notre Dame University. It's purpose? To revamp the idea of a Catholic University and bring it into the "modern world."

Actually it was more about being accepted by the world and getting a hand in Uncle Sam's generous pockets. The way to do that was to separate the idea of Catholic education from Catholic authority which their statement did.

Fr Theodore Hesburgh, Enemy of the Catholic Faith, on 2017 Postage Stamp

       In 2017, the United States Postal Service will celebrate an enemy of the authentic Catholic Faith on one of its postage stamps. Fr. Theodore M. Hesburgh (1917-2015), a leading proponent of the liberal agenda and the one-time President of Notre Dame University, was not a model Catholic educator. Not only was Fr. Hesburgh not a model Catholic educator, but he was actually PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER ONE in the Catholic community for almost single-handedly being responsible for the elimination of orthodox Catholic teaching in our once Catholic Universities, and destroying their commitment to authentic Catholic education by fostering their conversion to a university status, completely independent of Catholic control. Consider that:

• Fr. Hesburgh was the leading promoter of the LAND O’LAKES document in 1967, which was the “Declaration of Independence” of Catholic Universities from Church authority at that time, and remains so to this day. As a result of Fr. Hesburgh’s influence, once proudly Catholic Universities, such as Notre Dame, Georgetown, Fordham, and Boston College have lost their essential Catholic character.