In February and March I wrote at length about the University of Notre Dame and the shockingly bad and shockingly good news from that campus on the subject of its Catholic identity (see the link below). This essay continues in this vein with a narrow focus: the university’s treatment of the Sacred Heart and Pride Month.

On the third Friday after Pentecost, this year June 12, the Church celebrated the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Devotion to the Sacred Heart has a long history that both precedes and follows Christ’s visits to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque in 1673-75; most notably, in an 1899 encyclical, Pope Leo XIII promoted First Friday devotions and the dedication of the entire month of June to the Sacred Heart.[i]

Associated with this year’s commemoration of the Solemnity were several events:

• On June 9, the mighty powerful French movie Sacred Heart: His Reign Has No End was released in the United States. The trailer is here.
• On June 10, the bishops of the United States voted to advance the cause of John Rick Miller (1948-2015), an American layman who promoted worldwide the devotion to the Sacred Heart.[ii]
• On June 11, the U.S. bishops consecrated the nation to the Sacred Heart as part of the country’s 250^th anniversary of independence.

When I was a student at the University of Notre Dame, I knew of course that its large church, with a capacity of 1,000, was named after the Sacred Heart. I did not know that a wooden “Church of the Sacred Heart” had previously occupied this site from when it was built 1848-1852. I did not know that Mass was first celebrated in the current building in 1875.[iii] I did not know that the current building had been consecrated in 1888 or that it had been consecrated that year on the Feast of the Assumption. I also did not know that there was any specific reason why the church was named after the Sacred Heart. I learned this last point in 2021 when researching how Notre Dame treated June as dedicated to the Sacred Heart and June as dedicated to Pride Month.

Before I talk about 2021 and contrast it with 2026, let me mention additional references to the Sacred Heart on the campus. There is the 1893 statue of the Sacred Heart in front of the Main Building on the Main Quad. The base of the statue mouths the words of Jesus as the statue shows His arms outstretched: “Venite Ad Me Omnes” (Come to Me, all of you).[iv] In addition, inside the basilica, there are:

• two stained glass windows, and relics, of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690) who received the visits of the Sacred Heart and was told by Jesus of First Fridays;
• relics of her confessor St. Claude de la Colombiere, S.J. (1641-1682); and
• a stained glass window of St. John Eudes (1601-1680) who promoted the commemoration of the Sacred Heart in the liturgy.[v]

Now, turning to the reason why the university’s church was named after the Sacred Heart: When Blessed Basil Moreau, C.S.C. (1799-1873) founded the Congregation of Holy Cross in France in 1837, he named the Sacred Heart as the new Order’s patron for its priests.[vi] Paragraph 29 of The Constitutions of the Congregation of Holy Cross describes specific feasts to be celebrated by the Congregation, including that of the Sacred Heart.

I have found a document that illustrates how important the Sacred Heart was to this religious Order which founded the university in 1842. The Notre Dame Archives holds a “Circular Letter” from Father Edward F. Sorin, C.S.C. (1819-1893) who was the founder of the university, its first president, and its religious superior. It is dated June 20, 1879, and refers to the destruction by fire of the multipurpose Main Building on April 23, 1879. Here is the opening of the letter:

JMJ

Circular

[handwritten: June 20]

Notre Dame, Feast of the Sacred Heart, [June 27] 1879

Rev. Fathers and Beloved Children in Jesus Christ:

            I cannot let the first Titular Feast of the Congregation pass without addressing you a few lines, were it only to invite you all to thank the Sacred Heart for the many precious blessings we have drawn already from this inexhaustible centre of all graces, since the 23^rd of April, and to deepen and widen still more, if possible, your confidence, to such a degree as to secure all we need, to come out in time from a calamity to ruin us, had we relied only on human wisdom and ordinary resources.

            These two months, I may say for myself at least, have been months of severe trial; but, judgment of the future from the past—knowing now better than ever before the devotedness of our Religious, as a body, and the personal value of each one (for adversity is a crucible in which a community test almost infallibly the real mettle of each of its members), as also the true sentiments of our friends and well-wishers at large,–judging, I say, of the immediate future, from our recent and extremely touching experiment, I should be blind and alike ungrateful to yield now to doubts and apprehensions. More than ever, let us place our hopes and prayers and needs in the Sacred Heart—the primary Patron of our Congregation; above all, let us try to honor It by this faithful observance of our Rules; and whilst our glorious and loving Patron is failing us in nothing; let us not fail first in duty, but endeavor to deserve an increase of graces and blessings.

Let me add that the Archives also has a picture from 1939 of Pat O’Brien in front of the statue of the Sacred Heart while he was filming Knute Rockne: All-American (1940).[vii]

Having provided this background, in Part 2 I will describe what the situation was on campus in 2021 and this year regarding the commemoration of the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart and of Pride Month.

[For my Feb/March essay on the shockingly bad and shockingly good news coming out of the University of Notre Dame, click here.]

[i] For more on this devotion, see Paragraph 2669 of The Catechism of the Catholic Church (under the heading “The Way of Prayer…Prayer to Jesus”) and Paragraphs 166-173 of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacrament’s Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy (2001).

[ii] Tessa Gervasini, “U.S. Bishops Vote to Advance Beatification Cause for Catholic Layman John Rick Miller,” EWTN News, June 10, 2026.

[iii] Thomas J. Schlereth, The University of Notre Dame A Portrait of Its History and Campus (1976), pp. 39-40.

[iv] Annie Harton, “Sacred Sites of Notre Dame: Sacred Heart of Jesus Statue,” April 20, 2021.

[v] “St. Margaret Mary Alacoque,” Explore the Saints, University of Notre Dame Alumni Association, FaithND.

[vi] Rev. David T. Tyson, C.S.C., “On the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.”

[vii] Found 5 Results | ArchivesSpace Public Interface  (Identifier GVOC 1/02 and GABM 1/09.04). (A companion picture is O’Brien by the statue of Father Sorin.)