I have always enjoyed the challenge provided by that timeless pastime the jigsaw puzzle. The picture puzzle, to employ its alternate name, never remained a puzzle for very long. My patience was tested, but my resolve never dimmed. The result was that I was able to assemble the many pieces into a unified whole. I would not have undertaken the task of solving the puzzle had I not been serenely confident that all the isolated pieces would, indeed, form a dazzling picture. If life were only like that! If university education were only like that!

Several years ago, I wrote a book titled How to Remain Sane in a World That Is Going Mad. I did not hold much hope for arresting the madness that was proceeding at an alarming pace. But I did hope that things would not get worse. Well, they did! All the pieces in life, unlike those of the jigsaw puzzle, no longer fit. The situation was and continues to be maddening. There would be no unified image of culture or life but the disturbing image of sheer chaos.

One event is sufficient to document the current journey to chaos. Ash Williams is an abortion doula, which is to say she is a person who provides support for women before, during, and after their abortions. She is transgender and refers to herself with male pronouns. She has had two abortions herself and has a forearm tattoo depicting a tool used in the abortion procedure. 

Abortion, for Williams, in her words, is a “type of birth.” She complains that, since some states have tightened their restrictions on abortion, “trans folks have to travel farther and farther to get a doctor to use their pronouns.” Notre Dame University found her situation intriguing enough to invite her to deliver a “reproductive justice” talk. Her talk drew an audience of approximately 105 listeners. Notre Dame University found her situation intriguing enough to invite her to deliver a “reproductive justice” talk [i.e. being a trans identified abortion “doula”]. Her talk drew an audience of approximately 105 listeners.Tweet This

Here is a jigsaw puzzle in which none of the pieces fit into any other piece. Ash Williams is genetically a woman, but she claims she is a man who has had two abortions. Can men have abortions? She does not regard abortion as ending the life of the unborn child but as a “type of birth.” The act of disposing one’s uterine child is a source of pride and should be advertised in the form of a forearm tattoo. 

Notre Dame, ostensibly a Catholic university, by linking Williams to “justice,” is violating its own creed. Moreover, an institution dedicated to Our Lady, Mother of Jesus, in no way should be promoting abortion. This is a puzzle for which there is no solution. None of the pieces fit.

Williams contends that it is possible to consider birth and abortion as binary, like male and female. But, she argues, this binary notion is “worth busting” so that both factors, abortion and birth, as well as male and female, should be treated as one.  

One person of importance noticed the madness, namely, Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend. In his March 21, 2023, column for the diocesan newspaper, Today’s Catholic, Bishop Rhoades stated that he considered the decision “to feature such a speaker [Ash Williams] on campus to be both intellectually unserious and unworthy of a great Catholic research university.” He went on to say, “The lecture series appears to be an explicit act of dissent from Notre Dame’s admirable institutional commitment to promoting a culture of life that embraces and affirms the intrinsic equal dignity of the unborn, pregnant mothers, and families.”

It is not possible to maintain contradictory positions on everything. One can assert, as Williams does, that birth and abortion are the same, just as male and female are the same. But she reserves these contradictions for her peculiar ideology. In her presentation, she criticized police “violence.” But she is sensible enough not to break up the “binary” consisting of violence and peace and claim that they are the same.

Once nonsense is given a respectable forum, more nonsense follows suit. Then the pandemic arrives. We are now living in a pandemic of nonsense, and the universities are doing little to stem the tide. In fact, they are often guilty of giving it added momentum. It may seem liberal to some people to regard contradictions as breakthroughs, but it is sobering to remember that in the practical day-to-day world, no one can live this way. Eating is not abstaining from food; sleeping is not being awake; dressing is not undressing.

Bishop Rhoades was correct in stating that the purpose of academic freedom is “to create the space for free inquiry and the intellectual exchange in service of pursuing and sharing the truth in charity.” However, Williams’ lecture is “simply a conduit for activist propaganda.” Holy Cross Father and Notre Dame professor Wilson Miscamble stated, after watching portions of the program, that he was “struck by the vehement hostility aimed at the rights of unborn children.”

In putting together a jigsaw puzzle, the puzzle gives way to unity. This is the way things should transpire on a university level. We begin with a puzzle but are confident that all the pieces will ultimately, through patience and perseverance, illuminate the unity of truth. The puzzles that reign today are often more like enigmas that remain enigmas and discourage further thought. This infelicitous situation leads us either to accept nonsense or to despair.