LifeNews and Thomas Peters at CatholicVoteAction.org 
have both reported extensively in the past couple of days on how Notre Dame’s long-time Associate Vice President for Residence Life, Bill Kirk was recently let go. Kirk was the only senior official in the administration who supported the pro-life rally held to protest Notre Dame’s selection of President Obama as commencement speaker last year. The story as also told by a Notre Dame prof in “So Long Captain Kirk” is a sad one on its own, but there’s something important which none of the publications covering the story were aware of—namely the time spent in Boston by the person who fired Kirk, Fr. Tom Doyle, Notre Dame’s new Vice President for Student Affairs. Fr. Tom lived at Our Lady Help of Christians in the rectory with Fr. Walter Cuenin for 3 years while he was at Harvard Business School. Bishop Rene Gracida on Abyssum has coined the expression “Boston Virus” to describe the goings on in Boston, and this is no exception. First, we’ll recap the main news, and then the rather disturbing Boston angle.
LifeNews and CatholicVoteAction both referenced a piece at National Review Online by Jack Fowler. Obama at Notre Dame: Golden Dome Bosses Serve a Cold Dish of Revenge Here’s a quick summary.
Notre Dame philosophy professor David Solomon posted a devastating analysis on his “Ethics and Culture in the News” blog on a troubling campus development: the sacking of long-time ND staffer Bill Kirk, the only man from the university administration who joined an on-campus pro-life “NDResponse” rally last year (also attended by South Bend Bishop John D’Arcy) protesting the selection of Barack Obama as the commencement speaker.
Kirk and his wife Elizabeth are prominent campus abortion foes (she was assistant director of one of the few institutes on campus that is avowedly pro-life and orthodox). Now their voices have been silenced, and by the same people who gnash their teeth and pluck their beards about living wages, unionization, fair treatment of employees, and the rest of the Catholic Left’s lobbying agenda. One can hear the college brass channeling Henry II: Will no one rid us of this troublesome pro-life Associate Vice-President for Residence Life?’
Catholic Vote Action says, “The decision to fire Bill Kirk was made by Father Tom Doyle, ND’s new VP for Student Affairs. I think it’s appropriate to email Fr. Doyle a brief note asking him to explain why he fired Bill Kirk. Fr. Doyle’s email is Thomas.P.Doyle.22@nd.edu.”
You can just follow the links above to get more of the story about the Kirks, so now we’ll cut to the chase on Fr. Doyle. He studied at Harvard Business School from 2001-2003 and spent another year there writing case studies, including one on financial reporting in the Catholic Church. While he was in Boston for 3 years from 2001-2004, he opted to live in the rectory at Our Lady Help of Christians Church in Newton, where the pastor was noted gay rights activist, Fr. Walter Cuenin.
This 2002 Boston Globe article reported, “After arriving at Our Lady in 1993, Cuenin rejuvenated the parish with a spirit of openness that appealed to Catholics of a liberal ilk. He openly questioned polices on gays and women, and told Globe West in 2001 that Our Lady welcomes “people who are very devout Catholics and people who are hanging on by their fingernails.”
In April of 2002, Cuenin submitted testimony to the Massachusetts Legislature in opposition to a bill that would have banned gay marriage. Cuenin and Our Ladys church were well known as being gay-friendly, and the Boston Globe cited the church in October 2003 as “one that welcomes gays and lesbians, and hosts a gay and lesbian faith sharing group.” The parish even marched several years in a row at the annual Gay Pride parade in Boston. Cuenin helped found the dissident group, Voice of the Faithful, in 2002. He was one of the founders of the Priests Forum, and he was led a group of priests who called for the resignation of Cardinal Bernard Law. This article from September 2, 2002 issue of The New Yorker magazine entitled “The Reformer” describes Cuenin in elaborate detail:
Father Cuenin was bothered by the Cardinal’s unyielding allegiance to the dictates of Rome….Our Lady Help of Christians is widely considered an excellent parish. Nonetheless, Father Cuenin’s pastorate has not escaped the chancery’s scrutiny. He hadn’t been long in the job when calls started coming in, from the Cardinal himself or from his subordinates, reprimanding him for, among other things, using translations of scripture that replaced such words as “man” with gender-neutral terms, and for giving a non-Catholic—specifically, the Episcopal bishop of Massachusetts—the Eucharist.
[After attending a Voice of the Faithful meeting in 2002] Cuenin said “But what they need and what we need”—he was referring to the Priests’ Forum—”is a community organizer like Saul Alinsky. Some way to put pressure on the hierarchy for change. We covered Our Ladys and Fr. Cuenin previously on this blog, and Fr. Cuenin’s ill-informed preaching on salvagion also discussed in our post “What I Believe” is Unbelievable.
Beyond Fr. Tom Doyle’s having lived at Our Ladys with Walter Cuenin, we do not know a lot about him. When he graduated from Harvard Business School in 2003, he was honored for leadership with a Deans Award. Some of our Newton readers who went to Mass at Our Ladys during the period of time when Fr. Tom was there sent us emails over the weekend with recollections of Fr. Tom as being youthful and energetic and giving homilies that were down-to-earth–but he also typically wore athletic attire under his vestments (ie short pants and sneakers in warm weather) when saying daily or weekend Masses. He started at University of Portland in 2004 as executive assistant to the President and advanced to Executive VP, and was apparently well-liked and popular during his six years there from 2004-2010. At Notre Dame, the 2010-2011 “Guide to Student Life” published by Fr. Tom’s office tells how “Student Affairs strives to create an inclusive, diverse, vibrant environment,” describing the “Spirit of Inclusion” and “Resources for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Questioning Students” (p.46) in a similar manner to the same guides of previous years with no mention of Church teaching in this area, so if he were bringing any new Catholic orthodoxy to Notre Dame, it is not apparent in the student handbook.
Fr. Tom’s choices to live at Our Ladys and to explicitly mention living at Our Ladys in his Univ. of Portland biography are curious ones that might cause anyone to ask a few questions. Priests faithful to Church teachings tend to prefer living in rectories with like-minded priests. And vice versa. There are a lot of churches within just a few miles driving distance from the Harvard Business School. The reputation of Fr. Cuenin and Our Ladys was well-established before Fr. Tom arrived in Boston and chose his living accommodations. Reasonable readers of this blog might ask the question, exactly what was it about Our Ladys and a known dissident like Fr. Cuenin that made Fr. Tom decide to live at that particular parish? If you were a priest faithful to Church teachings and lived in a rectory with a pastor who gave testimony opposing the Church’s teachings on marriage to the state legislature, would you want to keep living there when plenty of other rectories were nearby with space available? Given the range of Fr. Cuenin’s actions that undermined the Church during that time when Fr. Tom was living there, was there nothing that made Fr. Tom say, “I’m outta here”? If Fr. Tom was comfortable staying at Our Ladys which was permeated by Fr. Cuenin’s unorthodox ideology and sufficiently proud of being there that he mentioned it in his bio, through what sort of lens does Fr. Tom judge orthodox Catholics?
Oh, we nearly forgot to mention the Bryan Hehir connection. Next month, October 17-20, Fr. Hehir and Fr. Doyle are both scheduled to speak at Notre Dame’s “Program on Mission-based Leadership and Organization Development.” That’s just a week after Fr. Bryan Hehir is scheduled to keynote yet another Boston Social Justice Conference, this one featuring a BC prof as a speaker who publicly supported a pro-abortion politician as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. The “Boston Virus” continues…
Please God, send us an antibiotic to cure the Boston Virus. St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle.
Isn’t it strange Doyle chose to live with the the top cleric of training camps for promiscuious behavoir in the gay community in the Catholic Church.
Here is another coincidence: Cardinal OMalley thought it would be a good fit to put Cuenin at a college where his ideas about sex will influence 18 to 21 year olds. One step. Above a youth minister.
Here we find after his years living with Cuenin, Doyle was shuffled into a position in a college where he can influence 18 to 21 year olds.
Chilling.
I have it on good authority that Fr. Hehir played a role as an advisor in the Obama invitation at Notre Dame. Given Fr. Hehir is the author of the policy that threatens and de-funds schools that teach homosexual lifestyles are incompatable with Sacramental Grace, is it a stretch to wonder if guidance was also given to oust persons faithful to Church teaching?
Not for this gal.
I am for fair treatment of employees, unionization and living wages. Does that make me liberal? I am also pro-life and I thought the people who protested President Obama at Notre Dame were the correct ones. Does that make me conservative? Actually I think those views make me Catholic.
While I applaud Bill Kirk’s Pro-Life position, and his participation in the anti-Obama protests, I would not be too quick to blame his firing on those activities. This issue is more complex than that.
Tom,
Valid points–we do not know the specific reason why Bill Kirk was fired. As you can see in our post, we did not blame the firing on Mr. Kirk’s participation in pro-life activities or the anti-Obama protest (though the posts we cited may have done so).
In view of Bill Kirk having been fired, we were letting readers know a bit more about the background of the person who fired him, since it is unlikely someone blogging or reporting from outside the Boston area (or even those closest to the situation at Notre Dame) would have known this information.
Notre Dame University is a focal point of the betrayal of the Catholic doctrine on birth control. The honor of this betrayal falls on the shoulders of Fr. Theodore Hesburgh, UND president from 1952 to 1987. From http://www.catholiccitizens.org/platform/platformview.asp?c=47929 :
“Among Notre Dame’s vocal dissenting theologians was Fr. John A. O’Brien, C.S.C. When Rockefeller’s Population Council and Planned Parenthood invited him to a conference to discuss ways to promote contraception, the invitation was answered from the assistant to Fr. Theodore Hesburgh, Notre Dame’s president, who offered Notre Dame’s campus as the venue for the conference, provided it was funded by a foundation grant. Rockefeller agreed to the funding on condition that only Catholics who believed as Rockefeller did were to be invited, a condition to which Notre Dame brass readily agreed.”
Fr. Hehir deserves to be honored as a successor to Hesburgh for his undermining of the Church’s opposition to abortion. Is it surprising to know that Fr. Hehir was a 2008 speaker at UND’s “14th Annual Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., Lectures in Ethics & Public Policy”? Or to know that Fr. Hehir has been a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), a Rockefeller organization, since 1992?
The Church has been infiltrated, just as Pope St. Pius X warned us. Fr. “Seamless Garment” Hehir, and those who give him any credibility, are working for the enemy.
Jerry,
Thanks for the post.
Interesting insights in
“So Long Captain Kirk: A Personal Reflection”
http://www.irishrover.net/archives/399
I’m sorry, but I see no actual evidence presented in this article to prove that Fr. Doyle is a liberal, a bad priest, or a cafeteria Catholic. Just this morning I attended Mass at the Notre Dame basilica, and Fr. Doyle gave one of the most stirring and beautiful homilies in defense of life that I have ever heard. Since I had only heard about him with respect to the firing of Bill Kirk (which, as a previous poster pointed out, is a complex issue on which very few are qualified to pass judgement), I looked him up and found this post.
Please, give Fr. Doyle the benefit of the doubt! Did it occur to you that perhaps he went to Our Lady Help of Christians to attempt to quietly change the parish from within? Perhaps the “resources” his office has for gay and lesbian students are in fact Catholic resources for their healing. Take care what slant you give to actions when you are ignorant of their motivation.
There is far to much of a tendency in the Catholic community to regard everything relating to Notre Dame with deep prejudice, regardless of facts (see the blogs talking about the recent arrests of students at house parties as “disgraceful” to Notre Dame, without mentioning the terrible reputation of the South Bend Excise Police.)
Please look into the facts more thoroughly before making the very serious suggestion that a priest is flouting Catholic teaching.
Recently, there were two deaths associated with the football team: Declan Sullivan and Elizabeth Seeburg. The campus revolves around football and uses Our Lady’s name to generate support. This same football squad has been terrible of late and inept and disorganized. This reflects the attitude and direction of the university community and teaching. The “tip of the iceberg” is melting and causing plenty of concern.
Our Lady Help of Christians in Newton, MA was cited in Paul Wilkes book, “Excellent Catholic Parishes,” as one of the oustanding Catholic parishes in the country. Fr. Doyle neither went there to quietly change it from within nor to be at home with heretics. The parish itself has an oustanding reputation for superb preaching, social justice, a vibrant, faith-filled community and uplifting worship. Doyle has received awards for outstanding preaching and by any reasonable account, and I submit probe into his soul, is a fine priest. The scurroulous innuedo here and in Bishop Gracida’s blog is that he felt more at home among gay activists or people who are at odds with orthodox teaching or the institutional church. Apart from bearing false witness, it simply isn’t consonant with his public ministry and associations. That he wore gym wear under his chasuble during summer weekday masses seems a fairly lame, uptight indictment. The worst that can be said of him is that he is excessively self-pleased. He is a Notre Damer and a CSC. What else should we expect?
I was a parishioner at Our Ladys in Newton and was there before and while Fr. Tom was there. Yes the parish was named in Wilkes’ book and has a reputation for being a “vibrant, faith-filled community” with “uplifting worship.” I have the book, and recall Fr. Tom or someone else mentioning that may have been a factor in him going there. Here in Boston, that “vibrant community” often translates to a Voice of the Faithful-style faith, as was the case there under Walter. The book also says gays and lesbians are an integral part of the community. That meant Dignity-style (e.g. you are encouraged and supported in living a sexually active gay lifestyle) rather than Courage-style (you are accepted but asked to lead a chaste lifestyle). The social justice ministry at Our Ladys was stacked at the time Fr. Tom came with gay and lesbian radicals, like Larry Kessler, who headed the AIDS Action Committee which produced a vile book on gay sex called “The Little Black Book.” Walter was well known across the archdiocese for dissent from church teachings, including in his preaching, and shall I say, gay biases. If Fr. Tom went there not realizing any of this and thinking he was just going to a “vibrant community” that had “uplifting worship” and great preaching, he would have realized the rest of the story within a week after living there. He stayed.
M Cantu, Fr. Tom may have given a stirring pro-life homily, and that is nice. He never gave such a homily at Our Ladys, at least at Masses I attended. No offense, but its rather naive to think that he went to Our Ladys as a young priest whose focus was on getting an MBA at Harvard to try and quietly change the parish from within or evangelize a much more senior, gay-biased very liberal pastor.
If either of you know him, why don’t you ask him why he stayed there under a pastor regarded as one of the most heretical in the archdiocese, especially after he scandalized the Catholic Church with his testimony in support of gay marriage. I for one would love to hear the response.
Since you are the one with questions about him and would love to know the answers to them, I suggest you ask him. I do not know him personally but am not aware of anything that would suggest he is anything but a fine, if not exemplary, priest based on his public actions and ministry. If Our Lady’s was just a hotbed for heresy why didn’t you choose to go to Mass elsewhere?
Angela,
I lived nearby Our Ladys and do not drive. Public transportation in suburban Newton to go elsewhere was a much less practical option than walking to church. Eventually I couldn’t take it any more and “bit the bullet” to take the bus to another parish.
By the way, your response to me is contradictory. You say you do not know him personally, but then you say he is a fine, if not exemplary priest based on his public actions and ministry. You read how he lived with a heretical priest in a place that was a hotbed of dissent from Church teachings, yet are not aware of anything that suggests a concern. Based on what you know of the place now, would you, yourself, have found Our Ladys a fine place to worship and comfortably call it your faith community?
No, my thoughts are not contradictory. I do not know him personally. I have heard him preach on numerous occasions. That, coupled with the positions of highly responsible leadership and no awareness of scandal or impropriety enable me to have no reason to think him other than a fine or exemplary priest.
I have no need to debate with you the values of Our Lady’s or even the definition or scope of dissent. Suffice to say I think the great Boston scandal was Cardinal Law, who had he not been exiled and protected in Rome, may well have gone to prison for his complicity in allowing children to continue to be sexually abused and exploited by pedophile priests.
Any light I could lend or receive from this conversation is complete. God bless.
Interesting that it now has a name (Boston Virus). You have just documented a well defined “underground” of dissidence. This Father Doyle has been given plenty of help and resources to make his way “up the ladder”. Captain Kirk was not the real target. It was his wife. Radical gays and women are holding hands and “dancing around the mulberry bush”.
Fr. Doyle has now been fired.