God will guide and protect them. Notre Dame is in darkness. There will be good from this but time will be one of perseverance. Pray for the virtue on behalf of the Kirks.
Shameful. Notre Dame fires a man who stands for the University's values and who keeps students safe? I'm happy to no longer be on the payroll. I was honored to serve under Bill Kirk as an Assistant Rector for family housing for 3 years and found him to be an honorable and fair-handed man who did what was best for the University community.
Thanks for informing us of this. I had no idea about this situation. We will continue giving to the Center for Ethics and Culture but not to Notre Dame carte blanche.
I struggled with my son's desire to attend Notre Dame, and ultimately was happy with his decision to attend another school. I told him that if part of his attraction was its Catholic identity, then he would be sorely disappointed. Sadly, this story affirms that belief.
As a ND graduate, I'm embarrassed to tell people I went to the University.
That's what happens when you don't support the emperor, clothes or "invisible" clothes.Be that a lesson.
Sorry. Notre Dame is no longer Our Lady's university. It lost that distinction when it attacked defenders of life while lauding an architect of death. A univerity that was truly Catholic would not do that. It's time for ND to change it's name to something else, perhaps Apostate University.
Is it any surprise that two of the largest off-campus "busts" by South Bend authorities have taken place in the short time since Mr. Kirk's firing? Is it just that the increasingly nerdy ND student body (whose average SAT score is almost double that of students from the University's "glory days") knows how to party harder than its less academically-oriented predecessors? Or is something else going on? As a man of incredible integrity and values, Bill Kirk earned and retained the trust of enforcement authorities in the South Bend community. These officials knew him and trusted that students who got out of hand while boozing off-campus would be held accountable for their actions. Now that he's no longer around, are these authorities cracking down because they think ND (without Bill Kirk) won't? It's fairly obvious that South Bend is trying to send the University and its students a message. That message is one that alumni and certain members of the ND community like Bill Kirk have been trying to send for a while, namely, that the University needs to take a stronger stand for the values it professes to hold. Although taking such a stand may not score ND "prestige points," it would be invaluable to the process of both shaping students' character and putting the "fight" back in "Fightin' Irish." Unfortunately, as the firing of Mr. Kirk demonstrates, ND would rather silence and eliminate its critics than take constructive steps to restore its tradition of glory. Sadly, as headlines detailing recent arrests and citations show, the University's "going soft" hurts not only "Brand ND" but more importantly the students it proposes to shape in exemplary citizens.
Bill Kirk's firing is part of the ongoing tragedy that is Notre Dame's turning away from many of its original virtues.
"Wow. Another nail in ND’s coffin. The ND admin just continues to sink deeper and deeper into its own morass of unprincipled decisions." - Fellow Domer
This is what has become of the good ole' USA28 Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. Roman 1:28-32
Oh, poor Bill Kirk. The ethical man who got a Notre Dame Security Police badge a decade or so ago and went around hassling students by pretending to be an undercover NDSP officer. As far as I know, it's illegal in the state of Indiana to impersonate a police office. The same man who sat in the pressbox at football games with binoculars trained on the student section looking for any transgression. The same man whose signature appears on no trespass notices given out to alums who happen to trip over a curb in a crowd. He was fired for abuse of power when enough people finally let the powers know about the repeated abuses taking place, ad he was given the same unceremonious exit he gave som many others.
You staff members would do well to remember that these students are every bit as much a part of the Notre Dame Family as you are. Over a period of many years, Res Life at Notre Dame had become a punitive and bureaucratic agency. That is not good at allfor the long term health of the ND "Family". Ask any former student if they trusted Res Life to act with the wisdom of a caring parent. The answer is a resounding "No". As a parent, I have no faith in Res Life to treat my child with the care and wisdom of a parent. "En Loco Parentis" used to mean something. The heavy handed piety of today's Res Life belies something closer to an attitude of "Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out."You staff members need to realize there are very real fissures in the Notre Dame "Family". Perhaps it was not Kirk's personal beliefs about the protecting unborn children, but his very real record of punishing young adults with a little too much zeal not enough wisdom.
To fellow Notre Dame Alumni and those interested in restoring The University of Our Lady:Please support these groups - http://www.FreeTheND88.org and http://www.ProjectSycamore.com
Thank you for this article. It needed to be said--unfortunately, there are too many of us here who would dare not say something like this aloud, and that, it seems, is the real shame.
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