In Part 1, I described the evidence of the importance of the Sacred Heart to the University of Notre Dame from its founding in 1842.

Turning to recent times: What was the situation on campus in 2021 and what was the situation this year regarding the commemoration of the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart, the First Fridays devotion, and the month of June? In 2021, it was complete silence. This year, it was mostly silence:

• the summer liturgy program this year for the Basilica has no vespers on any weekday, including that of the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart;
• there was no mention this year of any upcoming events, including the Solemnity, on the webpage of the Campus Ministry;
• there was no mention this year of the Solemnity or First Fridays on the webpage of university news; and
• the Basilica’s bulletin dated June 7 did not mention the Solemnity or First Fridays.[i]

But, but, mirabile dictu!, on June 1, the university posted a notice on Facebook and Instagram, the following:

This June, the USCCB will consecrate the United States to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Notre Dame joins in this act of devotion as we look to the Heart of Christ as the source of all hope and the model of a love that embraces every person.

Furthermore, the Basilica’s bulletin dated June 14 stated in a notice likely intended to be in the June 7 bulletin that the bishops would dedicate the Nation to the Sacred Heart on June 11 and included a prayer to the Sacred Heart. In neither the social media statement nor the bulletin is there any reference to the importance of the Sacred Heart to Notre Dame or to the Congregation of Holy Cross.

What is the situation on campus this year regarding the commemoration of Pride Month, also celebrated in June? Ah, much better than in 2021. In 2021, I counted four items for Pride Month and this year only one.

The first item in 2021 was the publicity Notre Dame gave to a proclamation by President Biden. An early June post by Cidni Sanders, “June Is Pride Month,” on ND’s “Diversity and Inclusion” webpage cited, and linked to, President Biden’s June 1 proclamation for “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Pride Month 2021.” This action by Notre Dame received unfavorable publicity in LifeSiteNews[ii] and the National Catholic Reporter.[iii]

This year there was no presidential proclamation on the subject for Notre Dame to publicize.

The second item in 2021 was that, on June 3 of that year, the webpage for University of Notre Dame Press carried this press release: “Book by LGBTQ+ Rights Activist Greg Bourke [ND MA ‘82] Announced During Gay Pride Month.” This announcement was obviously months (years?) in the planning. Bourke and his “husband” Michael De Leon were named plaintiffs in the 2015 Supreme Court Obergefell case which legalized same-sex marriage. According to the UND Press, the book, Gay, Catholic, and American: My Legal Battle for Marriage Equality, sends the “message to the Catholic LGBTQ community [] to remain strong in the Catholic faith and stay hopeful for change in the Church.” Bourke planned a book tour that included the ND Club of Pittsburgh (June 8), St. Mary’s College, Notre Dame, Indiana (Oct. 1) and the university’s Hammes Bookstore (Oct. 1 and Nov. 19). The June event was publicized by the Notre Dame Club of Greater Boston. This year, while the UND Press continues to offer the book, it offers no other title on LGBTQ+.

The third item from 2021 was the publicity about a Zoom meeting on June 30 conducted by Notre Dame’s Department of Human Resources in connection with “June Pride Month.” The speaker was Doug Bauder, who had retired in 2019 from a position he had held since 1994 at Indiana University Bloomington as founding director of the Indiana University Bloomington LGBTQ+ Culture Center.[iv] According to LinkedIn, he simultaneously had held a similar position at Indiana University-South Bend since 2011.

In connection with Mr. Bauder’s retirement honors, it was stated that he started his career as a Protestant minister. After five years of marriage and fathering two children, he “came out” and divorced his wife. He moved to Bloomington to be with a male professor there whom he later “married.” Bauder was a founding director of the Quarryland Men’s Chorus (“At every step from musical selection to performance, the Chorus strives to advance its mission. The Chorus provides a positive performance-based community for gay and bisexual men and their allies in South Central Indiana.”)

In the Zoom session, Eric Love, the ND Director of Staff (staff as distinct from faculty or students) Diversity and Inclusion since December 2014, and a former colleague of Bauder’s at IU, introduced Bauder. No more than 16 people attended the session. Among other things, Bauder discussed his new self-published book The Privilege of Being Queer. Bauder said Pope Francis “is a good example of the Church growing in Her understanding of this issue… The Church is coming to terms” with it. Mr. Love stated that he was excited that all sorts of committees and councils were “popping up” on campus. With respect to transgenderism, Mr. Love stated that he has used his preferred pronouns in his email signature for the previous two years and encouraged everyone to use them because it normalizes the practice and doesn’t draw attention to the transgender individuals.

This year, I see nothing online on the Human Resources webpage referring to Pride or LGBTQ+, and Mr. Love left the university in 2024.

The fourth item in 2021 was a letter by two new MBA graduates published on LinkedIn urging LGBTQ+ individuals to obtain their MBA degrees at a school other than Notre Dame because of alleged systemic discrimination at the university.[v] The two had served as co-leaders of the “Notre Dame Mendoza LGBTQ and Allies Club.” They cited two acts of alleged discrimination: Notre Dame had denied their request to change the name of their organization to “Pride@Mendoza” and Notre Dame’s revocation of a partnership with Reaching Out MBA (or “ROMBA”), which offers monetary fellowships to MBA students. Mike Mannor, associate dean of the Notre Dame MBA program, replied in part, “We do financially support our MBA students in attending the Reaching Out MBA (ROMBA) conference [and] provide administrative support to our LGBTQ+ student club…” By my research, there are currently no complaints of discrimination under investigation.

Although I found nothing this year on the university’s webpage concerning Pride Month, WNDU (a South Bend TV station founded and owned by the university, 1955-2006) reported on June 3 that the university, in connection with Pride Month, hailed that same day on its Facebook page the university’s Christian-rooted “spirit of inclusion.” The full statement was:

In keeping with Notre Dame’s Spirit of Inclusion and in light of Pope Leo XIV’s call for a Church that ‘strives to be close’ to our LGBTQ brothers and sisters, we embrace our LGBTQ students, faculty, staff, and alumni.

Let us continue to work together to ensure that every person in this community experiences a true sense of belonging.

[With a rainbow over the Golden Dome and Sacred Heart Basilica in the background:] The University of Notre Dame strives for a spirit of inclusion among the members of this community for distinct reasons articulated in our Christian tradition. We prize the uniqueness of all persons as God’s creatures. We welcome all people…[in orig.] precisely because of Christ’s calling to treat others as we desire to be treated. We value gay and lesbian members of this community as we value all members of this community.

I’ll point out that the June 1 statement on the Sacred Heart was 47 words and this June 3 statement on Pride Month was 130.

In connection to “inclusion,” let me say that there have been people who have argued that the university is not as welcoming — to the LGBTQ+ community — as the statue of the Sacred Heart with its outstretched arms and “Venite Ad Me Omnes” would indicate. They have argued that the university is hypocritical in pretending that it is. This was the argument made by Estefan Lenares, Class of ’21, on Oct. 3, 2019, in his essay “What the Sacred Heart of Jesus Statue Should Mean to Us,” in the student newspaper, The Observer. Lenares was a member of the school’s Diversity Council, with this mission: “The Diversity Council of Notre Dame advocates for awareness, understanding and acceptance on issues of race, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status and other intersectional identities in the Notre Dame community.” I refrain from discussing the current state of DEI initiatives at the university as beyond the scope of this essay.

Conclusion

In 2026, the University of Notre Dame almost totally ignored the Sacred Heart, the patron of its founding religious Order[vi] for whom its Basilica is named and a statue of which is prominently displayed on campus for all visitors. In 2021, the university did totally ignore the Sacred Heart.

In 2026, the university’s promotion of Pride Month was greatly scaled back from 2021, but much of that is due to having no presidential proclamation and no new book published by UND Press on the subject.

[A link to Part 1 is here.]

[i] Sacred Heart Parish celebrates its Masses in the crypt of the Basilica. The parish has its own bulletin. Its bulletin for June 7 had four mentions of the Sacred Heart:

• the Scripture readings for the Solemnity;
• a notice of the bishops’ dedication with a link to the Novena to the Sacred Heart;
• a sacred music concert at a nearby parish to celebrate the bishops’ dedication; and
• a talk on sacred art associated with the Sacred Heart

In addition, the June 14 parish bulletin announced the showing of a film promoting the canonization of Brother Columba O’Neill, C.S.C. (1848-1923), who was devoted to the Sacred Heart.

[ii] Doug Mainwaring, “University of Notre Dame Embraces ‘Pride Month,’ Touts Biden’s Pro-LGBT Statement,” June 8.

[iii] Joe Bukuras, “Notre Dame University Website Celebrates ‘Pride Month,’” National Catholic Reporter, June 9. And the same report appeared at Catholic News Agency, June 9.

[iv] Tracy Zollinger Turner, “Doug Bauder: LGBTQ+Educator,” Bloom Magazine, March 18, 2020.

[v] Marc Ethier, “In Scathing Letter, Newly Graduated MBAs Criticize Notre Dame’s ‘Systemic LGBTQ Discrimination’,” Yahoo.com, May 24.

[vi] The Order continues to play a leading role in teaching, campus ministry, and administration.