Jerry has it exactly right. Unless the slide into secularism is halted, Notre Dame will wind up with the worst of all worlds: A Catholic gloss too superficial to attract top scholars on that score and insufficient appeal to compete with the top secular universities on their own ground. As Dr. Brad Gregory -- a real "catch" as a tenured Stanford historian who defected to ND -- put it in a Wall Street Journal article, a scholar would have to be crazy to come to ND rather than Harvard or Yale or any of the top tier secular universities but for ND's religious character. And so the future holds a weakly secular, second-rank university as matters stand at the moment. Surely Father Jenkins and at least some of of the Fellows and Board members must know this. But the reckoning is a long way off-- well beyond their tenures. One is reminded of CEO's whose overriding concern is the next quarter 's profit.