Speaking of Notre Dame, an interesting little tempest.

If you watch college football, you know that during a broadcast, each college runs a spot touting itself. Most of them feature hi-tech labs and happy students sitting outside. The spot Notre Dame is running this year is…different.

You can watch it here, and I recommend that you do, in fact.

(Watch the 60-second version, not the 30)

The ad features a young woman who is seen entering a church, kneeling in front of a bank of candles, and lighting one. The scene is repeated two more times, the girl with a slightly different expression on her face each time – the last rather concerned. The last scene in the commercial takes us inside a mailbox. The girl reaches in, removes the letters, and her face lights up as she sees – you got it – the return address from Notre Dame. "A higher education," is the phrase that closes the ad.

The tempest relates to some elements of the ND community who don’t like the ad, as expressed in the student newspaper here:

It’s not the ad’s overwhelming Catholicism that’s the problem. It would be equally foolish to run a 30-second spot that focused only on the football team.

With so many powerful campus images to choose from – the Dome, the Basilica, Notre Dame Stadium, dorm events, pep rallies, tailgates, classrooms and yes, lighting candles in a chapel or at the Grotto – it’s disappointing Notre Dame chose not to show any of them in favor of filming a single prospective student in New Jersey.

The University also says the ad aims to attract a particular type of student – one who believes strongly in prayer and in uniting faith with academics. But that student doesn’t need to see a commercial to recognize Notre Dame’s Catholic identity – that student has likely been wearing blue and gold since diapers. The point of an advertisement is to lure those who weren’t previously interested in what is being sold to take a second look. By narrowing its focus so intensely on one already well-known aspect of the University’s offerings, the "Candle" ad fails to target students – for example, anyone non-white or non-Catholic – who may have assumed Notre Dame isn’t the place for them but whom a more multidimensional ad could have convinced.

Finally, the ad’s treatment of Catholicism undermines the very uniqueness it is trying to emphasize. True faith requires a lot more than lighting matches and waiting for prayers to be answered. The ad’s unsophisticated portrayal of religion detracts from the potentially clever phrase "A Higher Education" – words that ring especially hollow considering the constant and complex debates, here and elsewhere, about the role and nature of a truly Catholic university.

Well, actually some of us would take issue with that second to the last paragraph. No, it is most definitely not a given, not a widespread public perception that Notre Dame is the place to go for a young person who seeks to nurture their faith and intellect both.

And here:

In addition, when Julie Flory, an assistant director at the Office of News and Information, states, "It’s hard to craft a message so perfect that no one can dislike it," she neglects the minorities on campus. They are not Catholic, white or rich, and yet they have chosen to come to this school for the higher education opportunities it provides. They are part of the student body and yet they are not recognized by the administration. Indeed the majority of Notre Dame students are from white, Catholic, middle-upper class families; however, that does not mean Asians, Mormons, gays or people whose parents have three jobs just to keep them in school do not exist here. Oftentimes these marginalized groups are only seen but not heard on campus. In this case, they are not even seen in this commercial, as if Notre Dame does not approve of their presence.

(Actually the neighborhood looks sort of modest to me.)

As I said, the cost and exclusivity of ND are the problematic issues – but then, ND is a small university, something those of us who’ve graduated from large state universities four times the size of ND are always startled to experience when we walk around that campus. The obligation to legacy students versus the obligation to the wider American Catholic community is worth talking about, I’d say. But this ad has a particular focus – to underscore the religious nature of Notre Dame – that makes it unique, and is obviously a message the University is thinking it needs to get across to the country. Interesting.

Defenses of the ad have appeared in the paper here and here. From the second letter:

Although the ad doesn’t strike me as particularly brilliant, I think it does a fair job of demonstrating that Notre Dame is a school that recognizes that we are not self-made. It seems the editorial staff is too preoccupied with proving to their friends in the Ivies that Notre Dame isn’t just a "football school" and, unfortunately for them, all that religious stuff doesn’t come off as impressive either.

It’s too bad that Mr. Kearns and his friends in the theology department spend their time laughing at the simple piety of us "candle lighting" Catholics, but the Notre Dame I love recognizes that there is profound theology at work in a simple "candle." Maybe he should take a few classes with Professor Cavadini or Father Daley, I’m sure they at least can help him stop that nasty laughing habit, if not also helping him to see that theology is more than smarty pants sniggering.

The "Candle" ad may not show everything about Notre Dame. It was not meant to. I think it does show one thing brilliantly however, and that is that at Notre Dame we recognize more than just the academic and athletic success of our students, alumni and faculty. We recognize more than the rankings and statistics. We recognize more than the avant-garde academic (and theological) posturing. We recognize that all of reality, even getting into Notre Dame, is a sign of the Mystery who became a man continuing his saving presence in history.

And the author of that second letter? A blogger, you’ll be pleased to know: Stephen Sanchez of Being or Nothingness