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This is Episode 32 of Ethics and Culture Cast from the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture.

Welcome to a very special episode 32 of Ethics and Culture Cast. I'm Ken Hallenius, communications specialist at the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame. On April 26 2019, we were joined by His Eminence Timothy Cardinal Dolan, the Archbishop of New York for a special Mass in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, as we formally dedicated the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture. In this episode, we share the Cardinal's homily at that Mass, in which he speaks about the mission of a great Catholic University like Notre Dame, and the role that the de Nicola center plays in advancing that mission to share the richness of the Catholic moral and intellectual tradition. Let's sit down in the front row of the Basilica and listen in.

Timothy Cardinal Dolan  1:22  
"If we are being questioned today, about a good deed done, then all of you should know that it was done in the name of Jesus Christ, whom God has raised from the dead." Those are words of St. Peter, in this evening's Gospel, spoken only days after the resurrection, spoken in temple square in Jerusalem. Provide, do they not, the motive that brings us together as friends of the Center for Ethics and Culture? We're grateful to God indeed, we gratefully acknowledge as well the foundation put in place by Professor David Solomon. And we salute the energetic and bracing leadership of Professor Carter Snead and his sterling staff. We salute Notre Dame University. How appropriate that this Center for Ethics and culture would grace the campus of this university. As the college's sacred mission, since the days of Father Edward Sorin is precisely to do what St. Peter did that first Easter week in Temple Square in Jerusalem. Namely to preach and teach Jesus Christ: the way, the truth and the life in the public square in an engaging and compelling way. So a tip of the zucchetto to you Father Jenkins, to your brother Holy Cross priests, to you Father Peter, the rector of this magnificent Basilica, and to this grand Catholic university for encouraging and welcoming this center. Father Jenkins would indeed join me in thanking our benefactors, led by my cherished friends Tony and Christie de Nicola, who are here with their family: Tony's mom; Christie's mom and dad; Ted; C.J.; and the royal couple Alex, Kaylee with their soon to be born baby, and so many family and so many friends. I congratulate Alex and Kaylee. And I've got to share with you I just heard the good news on, at Holy Saturday that my niece Caitlin Dolan Elfman had given birth to their firstborn, Timothy Michael. How about that? She and her husband, Mike, I asked them when they had chosen the name. And they told me they had chosen the name Timothy Michael, a couple months ago, when her obstetrician had observed that even in the womb, the baby seem to be putting on a lot of weight. 

Another woman whose own pregnancy stands literally at the crossroads of history looms over this campus. And I'm confident she will inspire the efforts of the de Nicola Center. She stands there golden on the Dome. She waits in a grotto that is very much the real 50 yard line of this great university. I remember gratefully a half dozen years ago, I was deeply honored to receive an honorary doctorate. Father, Father, John, you gave me that you gave me that doctorate. Remember? And as he did, he reminded me that I was now an alumnus, and gave me a pledge card. Anyway.

And to receive the doctorate and to give the commencement address here at Notre Dame, and at that time, I, I related an encounter that I had with a Jewish alumnus of Notre Dame on the Acela train from New York to Washington, a couple of weeks prior to that event. And I was most attentive when this gentleman whispered to me, "Let me tell you the secret of Notre Dame. The secret of Notre Dame is a person. A person we Jews call Miriam, and you Christians call Mary. She's there on that campus from the dome to the Grotto." That Jewish woman's last recorded words in the gospel they're simply--remember?--as she directed the waiters at the wedding feast of Cana pointing to Jesus her son, "Do whatever he tells you." That happens to be the mission of Notre Dame University. That's the vision of our de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture. For the words of Pope Saint John Paul II, as we anticipate this Sunday the fifth anniversary of his canonization, "Jesus Christ is the answer to the question posed by every human life." 

This de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture plays an indispensable role in Notre Dame's mission by sharing the richness of the Catholic moral and intellectual tradition. As an interdisciplinary center it contributes to dialogue across every field of human knowledge, bringing together the various methods of research and inquiry, in a spirit of fellowship. The de Nicola Center's efforts to build and maintain a joyful community of academic inquiry is a blessing to this university as it is to me and as it is to my brother bishops, as Bishop Cahill and Bishop Wauck will testify.

In the ongoing conversation about human dignity, the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture will be at the forefront of creating and supporting a true and vigorous culture of life, both in the United States and beyond. Through initiatives like the Notre Dame Vita Institute, a mini version by the way of which I was pleased to invite to New York, a year and a half ago. The de Nicola Center has built a network of leaders in the national and international pro-life movement. Later on in this event, the de Nicola Center will present, on behalf of the university, the Notre Dame Evangelium Vitae Medal to the Women's Care Center for their decades of service to women, children and families welcoming new life into their hearts and homes. 

And, of course, the students. The connection of a student's education to his or her personal vocation, even at a great Catholic University such as Notre Dame, today requires intentionality, no? Here, at this University, where our blessed mother, Notre Dame, looks down from her perch atop the golden dome, with the bells of the Basilica ringing the hours, with crucifixes in each of the classrooms, chapels in each of the dorms, with the Blessed Sacrament and daily Mass and Sacred Heart, the sacred art displayed in the quads. Even among all these signs of faith, students still need the personal invitation to become disciples of Jesus Christ in and through his Church. Well, through its Sorin Fellows Program, the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture helps form students who then go on to make vocations of their education, as theologians, philosophers, as scientists, accountants, engineers, and attorneys. But even more importantly, the de Nicola Center's student Sorin fellows graduate with their eyes fixed on their eternal vocations as men and women of the Church, called to live faithfully as loving wives and husbands, single people, priests and religious. Boy does that give us a lot of hope that the Catholic faith that we've received from the apostles continues to be handed down from generation to generation, until Jesus Himself returns in glory. 

Let me conclude by noting that this whole project of the de Nicola Center is very daring, very daring. In a culture that is suspicious of the first lung in the phrase "faith and reason" that is at the heart of all human progress, that wants to sideline faith as only a spectator, not a partner in any university's mission. In a culture that seems to join St. Thomas, the Apostle, the doubting apostle, as we'll hear in Sunday's gospel in scoffing at faith and finding credible only what is empirically evident, what is useful, pragmatic, profitable, or deemed correct at the time. 

Notre Dame University, Carter Snead, Tony and Christie and many friends have taken that dare, conscious of the mandate of Jesus to his apostles in this evening's Gospel, "cast out to the deep!" No coasting, Jesus says, no shrinking away, no drifting, no fear, no retreating. Duc in Altum, cast out into the deep. Tony and Christie believe wholeheartedly in the importance of this service to the Church, for the salvation of the world. And today we celebrate their generous support for the Center's work on behalf of this University's Catholic mission at Notre Dame and in the wider public square. May Notre Dame, Our Lady, intercede for the work of this university dedicated to her, and may she obtain from her divine Son a rich supply of graces for every benefactor and every endeavor of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture as we "cast out to the deep."

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Thank you to His Eminence Cardinal Dolan for that beautiful homily. The readings from the Mass, as well as video of the Mass and dedication ceremony are linked in the show notes. Subscribe to Ethics and Culture Cast so that you can always get the latest episode by visiting ethicscenter.nd.edu/podcast. We would love your feedback. Please give us a review wherever you get your podcasts and email your suggestions to cecpodcast@nd.edu. Our theme music is "I Dunno" by grapes licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution license. We'll see you next time on Ethics and Culture Cast. Until then, make good decisions.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai