Check it out – an effort on the part of a group at Notre Dame dedicated to helping to "preserve the Catholic identity" of the school. Part of the effort involves a petition drive regarding a certain play that’s often performed on college campuses this time of year, even Catholic campuses, as noted by the Cardinal Newman Society which also notes a number of positive efforts underway to counter the message of the VM. So, at Notre Dame, we have the Edith Stein project, presenting a 2-day symposium in a couple of weeks:

As a group of women at the University of Notre Dame , we are organizing a conference to address healing. We all live in a world where women have been hurt, both in body and in spirit, and continue to be hurt, by practices, attitudes and cultural norms that are often taken for granted. Healing is needed on an individual level for those who have been victimized by real violence, and on a cultural level, for all who are negatively impacted by a society where eating disorders, pornography, sexual assault, and attacks on women’s sexual health are common concerns.

Edith Stein, our patron saint, celebrated women’s unique gift to act as instruments of empathy and healing, and wrote about empathy in some depth, from anthropological and philosophical perspectives. We feel that this social virtue of empathy must be re-emphasized by both men and women as we seek to turn away from cultural acceptance and even promotion of violence.

The conference will focus on the specific problem issues that require healing, as well as seek to provide a forum for discussing means to achieve this healing. Personal experiences magnified to a larger human scale will be approached with an attention to psychological, spiritual, societal and emotional aspects of victimization, and thus how these relate to the process of healing.

Since this event will take place at a Catholic University , there will be an emphasis placed on the forms of healing available to us through the Catholic Faith. The conference will seek to provide various perspectives on the holistic healing needed for us as integrated persons, drawing on the Catholic tradition which has always sought to minister to both the spiritual and physical needs of the world in past centuries.

We hope that this conference will encourage and empower both men and women to understand the types of healing that need to occur, and to be healers in their families, communities and throughout society.