Reno on accommodation, capitulation, and marriage

In this First Things piece ("Catholic Capitulation on Marriage"), Rusty Reno addresses, among other things, the decisions by the University of Notre Dame, Creighton University, and other Catholic institutions to provide health-related and other benefits to legally married same-sex spouses of employees.  (I said a bit about that decision here.)  (This story, about the decision by the Law Society in British Columbia to deny accreditation to Trinity Western University's law school, could usefully be read as a companion piece to Reno's.)

Like Rusty, I do worry that the mission, character, and integrity of Catholic institutions -- and we very much need, in the Church and in the world, authentically and interestingly Catholic institutions -- are at risk and, in some ways, under attack.  One reason they are vulnerable is, as Rusty points out, "it's existentially painful" (not only for "upper-middle-class" Catholic leaders, but for most of us) "to be out of sync with dominant opinion."  At present, many of us in Catholic institutions (and in the pews of Catholic parishes everywhere) are finding that it is rapidly becoming "not enough", in the minds of those who contribute money, do accreditation reviews, hire graduates, fund research, and take out advertising to talk about (and genuinely believe in) the dignity of all persons and the importance of pastoral and charitable language and practice when it comes to matters of sexual morality and marriage. 

In his (inspiring) Inaugural Address, Fr. John Jenkins -- the President of the University of Notre Dame -- said, "Notre Dame is different. Combining religious faith and academic excellence is not widely emulated or even admired among the opinion-makers in higher education. Yet, in this age especially, we at Notre Dame must have the courage to be who we are. If we are afraid to be different from the world, how can we make a difference in the world?"  I agreed then and still do.  Now, though, it increasingly seems to me that the issue is not only one of wanting to be "different," and of "hav[ing] the courage" to be different, but of securing permission to be different. We hear and talk about diversity, but it seems increasingly that what John Garvey calls "institutional pluralism" is seen more as a threat than as a good thing or as a desirable state of affairs.