A ‘disastrous’ message from Notre Dame

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Dec 14, 2020

Since I have never seen a single episode of “The West Wing,” I was unaware of the damage that TV show has done to the cause of American Catholicism. This astute analysis by Elizabeth Lev explains how the series “played a role in evangelizing Catholics to the ‘personally opposed, but it’s a woman’s body’ position.”

The show was influential, Lev tells readers, especially because it was well written, well directed, well crafted: a sophisticated product in the wasteland of television broadcasting. And it appealed to Catholics in particular because the star, Martin Sheen, was—and was well known to be—a practicing Catholic. In 2008, not known after “The West Wing” concluded its successful 7-season run, Sheen was honored by the University of Notre Dame with the Laetare Medal, given each year to someone “whose genius has ennobled the arts and sciences, illustrated the ideals of the Church and enriched the heritage of humanity.”

As it happens I was in South Bend, for my son’s graduation, on the day when Sheen received that Laetare Medal. I distinctly recall that the citation referred repeatedly to his role in “The West Wing.” At the time those references mean nothing to me. But when I read Lev’s column in the Catholic Herald—which is entitled ‘The West Wing’ had a disastrous influence on Catholics—I understood. With the award, Notre Dame was testifying to the world that Sheen, by his participation in a show that advanced the “pro-choice” agenda, had “illustrated the ideas of the Church and enriched the heritage of humanity.”

So now I am also better equipped to understand the significance of the speech that Sheen delivered as he accepted the award. That speech itself was inoffensive; like many another commencement speaker, he urged the new Notre Dame graduates to go out and change the world. Even then, innocent as I was about the “West Wing” influence, I caught the implicit message that the world should be changed in a certain direction: to conform to the liberal secular agenda rather than the Catholic faith.

Maybe Martin Sheen does not understand the damage that he did in “The West Wing.” Maybe he does not recognize the dangers of liberal ideology. He is, after all, an actor, not a philosopher. But his talk helped to prepare the audience for the main speaker at that Notre Dame commencement: a man who should have fully understood both the Catholic faith and the dangers of secular ideology. That main speaker was a prominent Catholic prelate, a former university president, the recipient of 35 honorary doctorates on top of his own PhD. When that main speaker praised Sheen and explicitly praised “The West Wing,” surely he knew what he was doing when he doubled down on Sheen’s message to the graduating class.

The main commencement speaker was Theodore McCarrick. Twelve years later, the “disastrous influence” of Sheen’s television show pales in comparison with the impact of the McCarrick scandal. Notre Dame has subsequently rescinded the honorary degree conferred on McCarrick, but has never corrected the message that he and Sheen sent to their newly minted graduates that day.