Brilliant addition to Bp. Doran’s letter… brilliant!

The official parodohymnologist of WDTPRS strikes!

Tim Ferguson wrote a brilliant comment under the entry about Bp. Thomas Doran’s letter to Fr. Jenkins of Notre Shame University.

Bp. Doran suggests that if Notre Dame won’t reconsider the invitation to Pres. Obama, they might at least have the decency to rename the University as the Northwestern Indiana Humanist University.

Tim responds:

Northwestern Indiana Humanist University? Good – but how about going a step further: Northwestern Indiana Humanist Institute of Learning, or NIHIL for short. No more insults to Our Lady and no more slander of the Irish – let the Fightin’ Nihilists take the field.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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19 Comments

  1. Thomas says:

    Haha! Excellent. But what will their new mascot be? A viper eating its own tail?

  2. New… mascot… hmmm…

    Replace “Touchdown Jesus” with a statue of Nietzsche snuffing out a cigarette.

    It’s politically correct too.

    The mascot/logo can be an ashtray with a snuffed out cigarette.

  3. Thomas says:

    Haha! Actually, if they’re Nihilists, wouldn’t they just not bother having a mascot at all?

  4. Supertradmom says:

    Do nihilists “fight”? Or, are they too negative to really stand up for anything, letting the trends lead them here and there?

  5. memoriadei says:

    I really like the good bishop! Now, pray for him and all our Magisterium daily! God bless them. Amen Amen

  6. Sieber says:

    Hmmmm
    We could don our hoods & burn a question mark on the front lawn.

  7. Immaculatae says:

    I think the school song needs to be done by Pearl Jam.

  8. Sieber says:

    Shame, shame on old Notre Dame,Ring down the thunder,ruin’d her name,
    while her loyal alums are marching, off with their checks in shreds.

    OK, somebody else take a crack at it to “On Down the Line.”

    On down the line,we’re goin’ to pray for Notre Dame…….your turn

  9. Janet says:

    Niiiiice. Major win points to both of them. XD

  10. Tim Ferguson says:

    Here’s the perfect nihilist school song Monty Python’s “Universe Song”

    warning, things get cartoonishly “risque,” from about 1:44 to 2:01 http://tinyurl.com/2gz9ua

    A much cleaner, but significantly Eric Idle-less version is here:
    http://tinyurl.com/clbynt

    I can see the Glee Club at N.I.H.I.L. singing this at graduation, as their classmates watch on disinterestedly smoking their cigarettes ala mode europeenne

  11. paul says:

    I am all for changing the name of the school- its called “truth in advertising”.

  12. phatcatholic says:

    Nihilism
    — noun: complete denial of all established authority and institutions.

    Wow, N.I.H.I.L seems to work rather nicely.

  13. Timbot says:

    The school mascots should be the German nhilists from “The Big Lebowski”!

    “Donny: Are these the Nazis, Walter?
    Walter Sobchak: No, Donny, these men are nihilists. There’s nothing to be afraid of. “

  14. Steve K. says:

    Timbot – LOL, man that is one of my all time favorite movies.

    “I mean, say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it’s an ethos.”

  15. Fr. Michael says:

    How very sad this post and these comments are. They don’t help the situation. I’m not here to defend Notre Dame’s invitation. Hardly. However, on this blog and elsewhere the singular fact of the great good, Catholic in nature, this university provides and does has been ignored.

    Folks seems downright “giddy” to see it fail. [I don’t think that is at all the case. I suspect that 99% of the people posting negative comments do so precisely because the want and hope the ND will be a great and unambiguously Catholic school we can be proud of on all accounts.]

    Rick Garnett of the Law School continues to comment that precisely because ND is a great Catholic university, it is worth fighting for.

    I’m not trying to take away from the fault that the original invitation might have been. No. Instead, I merely and respectfully ask that we put aside this whole train of thought that considers ND to be some sectarian enclave. Please, my brothers and sisters in Christ. Let’s work and pray to improve the situation, not drunkenly run it into the ground. [“drunkenly”? I think what is going on at ND is vey sobering indeed.]

    God bless.

  16. Tim Ferguson says:

    With respect, Fr. Michael, I don’t think that it is we who are “drunkenly” running Notre Dame into the ground. The authorities in charge of the once-great university who have invited the most pro-abortion and socialist President the United States have ever had, giving him a platform to preach his philosophy unchallenged to the graduating class and honoring him with a doctorate. It is not we have have given Fr. Richard McBrien a chair in the theology department. It is not we who have named Nell Newton as the dean of the law school.

    Satire has long served a role in our culture to try to turn grave situations around (I’ll not claim similarity to, but mere inspiration from Swift). We laugh and mock, because the other alternative is to cry at what has been done in Our Blessed Mother’s name to form the young skulls full of mush that should be getting formation and education as the next generation of Catholic leaders.

    I suggest your sadness and recriminations be directed not at the satirists, but at the failed leadership that has made the satire, sadly, believable.

  17. Ricky Vines says:

    Tim: I couldn’t agree more. If Fr. Jenkins will not face up to his faux pas, then he must be replaced. What is stopping the board, the fellows or the superior of his order? Do they put themselves above the bishops now? Can we not get to the major donors of the university to influence this poor decision. People want to be polite yet forget how God is being offended as a result of the policies that this pol has set. People are sensitive to human respect but forget the those murdered through abortion suffered a cruel fate. People want academic freedom but ignore the freedom of conscience that this POTUS is about to deny others. The prestige conferred by this American idol seems to be more valuable that the greater honor of God. If this evil is to continue however then something good might still come out of it, if those who love God make a firm stand and loud statement to ring throughout this nation and around the world. Cf. http://divine-ripples.blogspot.com/2009_03_01_archive.html#7605632313653357323

  18. Patronus says:

    I’m not going to understate the gravity of this situation, and the great error Notre Dame is perpetrating. However, along the lines of what Fr. Michael said, I believe that there is actually a higher percentage of Catholic critics than generally acknowledged who do relish seeing Notre Dame struggle, for various reasons — some less justifiable than others (e.g. a picture of the Theology Department stuck in the 1980s, a desire to promote another “more orthodox” school to ND’s detriment, etc.). I say this as one who has been very involved in the Catholic higher education during this decade.

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