Our exclusive report on the USCCB's emergency meeting to address l'affaire Weis:

Chicago, Dec. 3 The Administrative Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) will convene an emergency meeting here today to discuss the University of Notre Dames decision to retain its embattled head football coach, Charlie Weis.

The bishops are, by all accounts, divided internally on how to proceed. Some bishops believe that aggressive steps are needed to shake up the complacency that has settled in at South Bend. They fear that, unless decisive and courageous action is taken, Notre Dames program will soon be indistinguishable from the rest of the college football landscape. Francis Cardinal George, USCCB president and archbishop of Chicago, said, Three quarters just to get one first down against USC? Notre Dame football is in danger of becoming an exhausted project. Its not a matter of whether we are Holtz fans or Parseghian fans or, heaven forbid, Weis fans, but rather that we are simply Notre Dame fans united in our one father, Knute Rockne, in his only begotten son, George Gipp, and in the four evangelistsI mean, the Four Horsemen. I am disappointed that Notre Dame did not take the actions needed to restore its football program to fidelity and, therefore, greatness. Cardinal George later clarified these remarks, stating that he was speaking only in his own name, and not as USCCB president.

Read the rest of Christopher Ruddy's story right here.