Showing posts with label Catholic Education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Catholic Education. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Professor at the Catholic University of Munich is Sought by Police

Germany. Sheich Abu Adam (40) who is the Egyptian Imam of the Darul Quran Mosque in Munich is alleged to have beaten one of his three wives so that she suffers from many bone breaks.  This was according to the website of the 'Bayrischen Rundfunks'.  The victim is 31 years old.  She called the police by telephone.  These came and freed the woman and brought her to the hospital.  The Imam is wanted for the charge of causing dangerous physical harm.  He serves as the well regarded guest of the integration group of Munich's social services.  A week ago the Imam held at the Catholic University, a lecture which plays out the theme:  An Islam Which Distances Itself from Violence.


Read the original, here...Kreuz..net...

Friday, November 26, 2010

The Pope Directs Severe Criticism on Religious Instruction and Catholic Employees

Pope Benedict has criticized religious instruction in Germany in his book "Light of the World": "The Bishops must reconsider here how Catechesis can be given a new heart and a new face.

Rome (kath.net)  Pope Benedict has directed severe criticism against religious instruction in Germany in his new book, "Light of the World".  Peter Seewald asked the question how it is possible that with the responsibility falling at the end of the day to the Diocese that the children might know Buddhism, but on the other hand know almost nothing of the fundamentals of Catholicism:  "That is a question which I've also asked myself.  In Germany every child has nine to thirteen years of religious instruction.  How so little can come from that, as it is expressed here, is inconceivable. The Bishops must reconsider here how Catechesis can be given a new heart and a new face."

Benedict also criticized Catholics in official positions, who live by their Catholic confession [if nothing else].  Peter Seewald posed the following question: "Even in the ecclesiastical media there is the infestation of a 'culture of doubt' valued as chic.  Whole editorial staffs take up the usual uncritical catch words critical of the Church.  Bishops follow their media advisers, who recommend a shallow course, so that their liberal image won't suffer any damage.   Whenever a religious book is removed from the main line of goods by the still large church owned media concerns -- it is then not problematic, to speak still about the New Evangelization?"  The answer of Pope Benedict is clear: "These are all phenomena which one can only view with sadness.  That these are so-called Catholics employed in official positions who live from their confession as Catholics, but whose flowing springs of Faith are in public almost completely silent, effectively in single drops.  We must really therefore strive that it becomes otherwise.  I observe in Italy -- where there are fewer institutional ecclesiastical businesses --, that initiatives do not occur for that reason, because the Church built something as an institution, rather because the people were themselves faithful.  Spontaneous outbreaks don't come from an institution, rather they come from an authentic Faith."

The  letter published on  13. July by a  fifteen year old student  about abuses in religious education in a school in the Archdiocese of Salzburg have made an enormous echo with the readers of kath.net, who have been moved to write us.  Kath.net will then continue to publish further reports about religious instruction in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Kath.net asks its readers:  How is it with the religious education of your children?  How are things with your religion teacher? -- Please send us any short reports to redaktion@kath.net!  We would like to publish these extracts as well.


Read the original at kath.net...

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Is There a Safe Environment for Catholicism in Catholic Schools: Benilde-St. Margaret, Minnesota




Editor: A local story about a poorly written editorial in a school newspaper has gone national.  The whys and the wherefores of the newsworthiness of this piece are an open question, a sort of cognitive disease of the nation, but because someone in the school administration decided that it was unacceptable to continue airing an editorial attacking Archbishop Nienstedt and the Church's teaching about homosexuality,  attacking the leadership of the Catholic Church over a prudential decision to send out an educational DVD known as Preserving Marriage in Minnesota, hence, the "discussion" about "free-speech" and why it's so amazing to so many intelligent commentators that a Catholic Church institution would object to a student newspaper attacking it..  

Many of the editorials and coverage are concerned about "free speech", while at the same time condemning the Archbishop for exercising his own free speech.   One editorial asks if a safe environment is being created for homosexuals in Catholic schools.  A better question to ask is, "is a safe environment being created for Catholicism in Catholic schools?"   Archbishop Nienstedt and the school administration of this allegedly Catholic school seem to think that public opposition in defense for moral depravity on the part of its students to the Church's teachings and a safe environment for Catholicism  are mutually exclusive. 

This event even made the Washington Post:
ST. LOUIS PARK, Minn. -- Editorials in a Catholic prep school's student newspaper about same-sex marriage and gay teenagers are sparking debate about free speech in Minnesota.
Student-written opinion pieces in the newspaper at Benilde-St.
Margaret in suburban St. Louis defended gay teenagers and criticized a DVD by Minnesota's Catholic bishops that denounced same-sex marriage.

The editorials and the nearly 100 comments they generated were deleted from the newspaper's website over the weekend. The principal says they created confusion about church teaching and an intensity that made an unsafe environment for students.  [An unsafe environment for Catholicism]
 Link to Washington Post 

WTOL, Toledo, Ohio

National Public Radio

"There's so many suicides in the news. And I felt very frustrated that my voice couldn't be heard, and that there were all these things that I see as injustices all the time that I didn't feel like anyone else was recognizing," said Simonson.

The essay reads in part:

"You fear looking the wrong way in the locker room and offending someone," he continued. "Politicians are allowed to debate your right to marry the person you love, or your right to be protected from hate crimes under the law. Your faith preaches your exclusion -- or damnation. And no one does anything to stop it."

 Chicago Examiner

Sexuality is one of the most complicated aspects of human life. Let’s not further denigrate it, justifying it by a book written, sorted and edited, by males, in a cultural context worlds from our present cultural context. It’s just not an honest comparison. Who are we to judge?

[ David Thorsen, the author, says celibacy is too hard, all of those things related to sexuality just happen, why try to control it?  Indeed, according to his argument, why bother with prosecuting  any offense listed in the criminal code at all, since they're so common?  Why not just legalize pederasty?]

The Colorado Independent, here

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Cardinal Schönborn Downplays the Blogosphere

On the way to a Turning Point in Religious Instruction

Editor: The Danube Cardinal may discount the blogosphere, but one of his own Auxiliary Bishops doesn't entirely agree with him about the quality of religious instruction. Considering recent reports about Youth Programs it's very difficult to agree with him that there is only room for "a little improvement".

Cardinal Schönborn honored the job of teachers of religion and said: "I stand behind them. It can't be denied that even in religious instruction there is need of improvement and that critical voices must be taken seriously.


Vienna [kath.net/PEW/red] The subject of religion is, beside all criticism, a "completely central theme of society", exclaimed Cardinal Christoph Schönborn in the St Stephen's Cathedral with a Mass for religious instructors. In the last years the theme of religion has become significantly more central. The Viennese Archbishop is reported as saying: " This belongs to the minds of many people much more in daily life than we perhaps ourselves realize, even when it doesn't take the form of a church community." It brings to mind what the German Bundechancellor Angela Merkel said a little while ago: Not to talk too much about the dominant Christian culture, rather to live the Christian life authentically and happily.

Religious instruction has, for this reason a "much more certain place than is often supposed". At the same time one may not himself be satisfied with a "banal civil religion", "which is always appropriate and never offends anyone." The challenge of the Gospel is today even more looked for, said Cardinal Schönborn. At the same time the Viennese Archbishop thanked the religious instructors for their service -- "irrespective of the comments of some Internet Blogs". The religious instructors have overcome or simply lived through many difficulties in the last years. "I stand behind you", said Cardinal Schönborn. That isn't going to cease and that even in religious instruction there's room for improvement and that critical voices must be taken seriously.

Then he continued with a "word of encouragement", as the Viennese Archbishop put it and recalled simultaneously what in the first half of the discussion about abuse has irrupted in the Church. Things have gone poorly for him personally in this situation, but the religion instructors in the classroom are still much more direct with the questions which critically confront them. In the scholastic area it has certainly been handled circumspectly in past years, to avoid [talking about] abuse. At the same time it is excusable that Waltraud Klasnic -- who is 65 these days -- who has undertaken the task, to lead the "independent victim protection tribunal", says Cardinal Schönborn [Editor: This tribunal system, which is meant to offer a buffer to the issue of homosexual abuse, is often another stonewall, and predictably a cynical legal ploy to indemnify the Church from further abuse claims. Indeed, one of the advisers on this tribunal is even accused of abuse himself" It resembles in many ways other tribunals, like the one established in Collegeville, supposedly a pioneering event, at the beginning of the abuse crisis in earnest in the late nineties, which none the less has been ineffective in keeping homosexual predators out of circulation, and has even allowed the perpetrators to cover their tracks as was the case with Father Francisco Schulte. Documents on this man have disappeared.]

KLARTEXT: Auxiliary Bishop Andreas Laun promoted the reform of religious instruction: and it did not occur as it should have. Poorly formed, sometimes even not really believing teachers. The evil arose from the level of education of the teacher.

Monday, September 27, 2010

Jesuit School, LMU establishes Office for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Student Services

[California Catholic Daily] It’s official. The Division of Student Affairs at Jesuit-run Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles has added an Office for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Student Services in what the student newspaper calls “a milestone in LMU’s history -- and the history of Jesuit universities.”

“Interim Director of LGBTSS Anthony Garrison-Engbrecht conducted a preliminary inquiry of what other Jesuit universities offer LGBT students on their campuses,” reported the Sept. 20 edition of the campus newspaper, the Los Angeles Loyolan. “Out of the 19 schools he surveyed, only two – Georgetown and Gonzaga – have LGBT centers with professional staff. While some schools have different support systems for LGBT students – such as the Gay Straight Alliance (GSA), a student club also present at LMU – or are considering the addition, most other Jesuit universities do not have a dedicated space for a center.”

The LGBT office has scheduled an open house on Oct. 6 at 4 p.m. in Room 403 of the Malone Student Center, according to the Loyolan.

Read further at California Catholic Daily...

And in a related story, Jesuit Canisius College Bans books, but not in a good way, here. Actually, it would be nice if they'd stop ignoring the perennial tradition of the Church's teachers, but that's not happening.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

German Chicanery Against Catholics: The Kulturkampf Against Germany’s Catholics Continues


The Kulturkampf Against Germany’s Catholics Continues

We'd already talked about this a few months ago and as we predicted it then, the School (Realschule) owned by the Don Bosco Schulverein and the German Province of the SSPX will not be able to continue operating thanks to the flimsy pretexts of the German authorities.

The Society of Pius X is going to lose a dormitory to a harmless error in filing out a form. Anti-clerical hate for the Church from judges have an opportunity to grab hold by the tuft.

[kreuz.net, Saarbrücken] The Priestly Society of Saint Pius X must close their School in Saarbrücken because their dorm will finally be closed.

This is according to the news agency 'DPA'.

The owners of the Dorm, the School and a Grade School in Saarbrücken is the Dom Bosco Educuational Society of SSPX.

The Upper Court Authority in Saarland has an appeal against the Society which is against the appeal to dismiss the closing.

The judgement is not revocable.

The Church-Hate is what decides in National Socialist Germany

Already in April the Social Ministry of Saarland withdrew the permission of operation for the school.

The pretense: In the dormitory there were more children housed than what were approved in 2007.

The reason: The Society renovated the Dormitories since 2007 according to the prescriptions of the Youth Office. They did this in order to make more living space.

The completed rooms were used by the dormitory, however were not reported to the authorities.

Because of this form error it was made known in April, it was found that the Dormitory had concealed too many children.

The Society made an appeal against the closing. As has been shown today, in vain.

In May the judicial authorities decided, that the Dormitory may only be opened till the summer vacation.

The Pedophile-Odenwaldschule was still opened though


In the most recent judgement the upper court determined that the closing will take place immediately.

The anti-clerical court has swelled the laughable form mistake into a "systematic deception" of the number of dormitory spaces.

The school operators have "deprived the children of State control" and "illegally operated" the dormitory -- so went the escalating accusations of the Judge.

For that reason the court refused the proposal of the owners of the School.

It goes without saying that the Society of Pius X can not operate the School without the dormitory can't continue to maintain the School.


Original article, kreuz.net...

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Franciscan University Graduates its Fourth Largest Class Ever


STEUBENVILLE, OH—Franciscan University of Steubenville sent the largest graduating class in the University's history into the world on Saturday, May 8, at the 62nd commencement exercises.

The 707 graduates of the Class of 2010 represent 11 countries and 46 states, with Ohio, Pennsylvania, California, Virginia, and New York leading the way. This year's class also included the first-ever graduates from the sacred music and international business programs.

"Congratulations on graduating from one of the finest Catholic universities, not only in the United States, but in the world," His Eminence John Cardinal Foley told the graduates gathered in Finnegan Fieldhouse for the Baccalaureate Mass on Friday, May 7.

Delivering his homily "from the chair," Cardinal Foley linked the graduates to centuries of Catholic tradition while exhorting them to take the fervor of their faith with them into the world.

About Franciscan

Friday, February 5, 2010

Archbishop’s Statement On Catholic School Education

Archbishop’s Statement On Catholic School Education,

Archbishop Wilton Gregory is one of the worst of the USCCBs spokesmen when it comes to religious indifferentism. He supported the revision of the USCCB statement on the Jews and the Old Covenant, saying that it is still salvific.

His address here about Catholic schools is interesting for one reason, he doesn't make a single mention of the Catholic Faith.

Catholic schools remain at the heart of the church. Within our schools, the primary focus must remain an unyielding commitment to strong Catholic identity and sound moral teaching. This is the mission of our Catholic schools and therefore absolutely central to their existence. As the Archbishop, I am proud that the Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Atlanta continue to provide strong faith formation for our youth.


In view of this statement, we find it hard to be comforted, although he's not exactly speaking to Catholics either, all the more reason to be emphatic about the Catholic Faith. Ultimately, given the current state of Catholic education in America, it's easy to see his words as so much hot air.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Catholic Students More likely to Oppose Church teaching.

The title is misleading, actually, most Catholic students do stray from the Church when it comes to the Church's teaching.

Study: Catholics at Catholic colleges less likely to stray from church

By Chaz Muth
Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- A new study finds Catholic students at Catholic colleges are less likely than Catholics attending public colleges to move away from the church's teachings on a variety of issues.

However, on the issue of same-sex marriage in particular, newly released research from the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate found that many Catholic students at Catholic and public colleges disagree with church teaching.

CARA, which is based at Georgetown University, presented the results of its "Catholicism on Campus" study Jan. 31, during the annual meeting of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities, held in Washington.

The CARA report relied on national surveys of the attitudes of 14,527 students at 148 U.S. colleges and universities, conducted by the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California at Los Angeles.

The data was collected from students when they were freshmen in 2004 and again when they were juniors in 2007.

"We measure whether students, regardless of their incoming attitudes and behavior, move closer, stay the same, or move further away from the church while in college," the study said.

CARA classified its research into two groups. The first covered beliefs and attitudes about social and political issues, including abortion, same-sex marriage, the death penalty and reducing suffering around the world. The second focused on religious behavior, such as frequency of attendance at religious services, prayer, reading of religious texts and publications.

On pro-life issues, the results indicated a "mixed pattern," it said. A majority of Catholic students leave college disagreeing that abortion should be legal but they number fewer than those who entered with that opinion, it said. Overall 56 percent said they disagreed "strongly" or "somewhat" that "abortion should be legal."

Regarding same-sex marriage, the study said there is no other issue on which Catholic students -- regardless of where they attended school -- moved further away from the church. Only one in three Catholics on Catholic campuses disagreed "somewhat or "strongly" that same-sex couples should be allowed to marry. Catholics on non-Catholic campuses were slightly less likely to disagree.

"This issue more than any other may be strongly affected by the millennial generation's post-materialist view regarding marriage and sexuality," said the study's authors, Mark Gray and Melissa Cidade.

They said their analysis showed that while Catholic students at Catholic colleges may move away from the church on some issues, they move closer to the church on others.

Like Catholic students at most public colleges, they moved toward agreeing with the church's position on the need to reduce the number of large and small weapons and its view that federal military spending should not be increased.

On the death penalty, 49 percent of Catholic students on Catholic campuses agreed "strongly" or "somewhat" with the church's opposition to the death penalty and were more likely than Catholic students at public colleges to agree with the church's social justice teaching on the need to reduce suffering in the world and "improve the human condition."

The study found that as Catholic students at Catholic colleges advance in their education, they often "remain profoundly connected to their faith."

In their junior year, 87 percent of them said following religious teachings in everyday life was "somewhat important" to them, and 86 percent said their "religiousness" did not become "weaker" in college.

But the study also found that Mass attendance declined during the college years among almost a third of Catholics at Catholic colleges, but at non-Catholic colleges, the percentage jumped to nearly 50 percent.

"Disturbing as these figures are, they should not be a surprise and should not be interpreted as a specific outcome of students' attendance at a Catholic college or university," said Richard A. Yanikoski, president of the Washington-based ACCU.

Yanikoski said the decline in Mass attendance and religious identity is often caused by weakened family life and diminished religious activity among Catholic families, ineffective catechesis in parishes, understaffed faith formation programs for youths, a sexually provocative culture, and reaction to the sex abuse scandal.

"Catholic campuses serving a broad cross-section of students can only do so much to redress such a collection of antithetical influences," he said. "We know full well that our own capacity in some ways is weaker now than it was when priests and vowed religious were more numerous on our campuses."

Though this study does not dispute many of the findings from a 2003 study commissioned by the Cardinal Newman Society -- a Manassas, Va.-based Catholic college watchdog group -- about the attitudes Catholic college students hold about abortion and same-sex marriage, it does suggest they are less likely to move away from the church than students attending non-Catholic institutions.

Patrick J. Reilly, president of the Cardinal Newman Society, said in a Feb. 2 statement that if ACCU officials think "it is a happy fact that Catholics lose their faith somewhat slower at Catholic colleges than elsewhere, then they fail to appreciate the concerns of faithful Catholic families."


Link to original...

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Crisis in Catholic Education

MANASSAS, Virginia, February 2, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Attending a Catholic college has minimal impact on a Catholic student’s practice and embrace of the Catholic faith, according to a new study released Sunday at a gathering of Catholic college presidents in Washington, D.C.

The study was presented to the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities (ACCU) by researchers at Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA).

“Catholics should be alarmed by the significant declines in Catholic practice and fidelity at many of America’s Catholic institutions,” said Patrick J. Reilly, President of The Cardinal Newman Society.

“Everyone expects a Catholic college to be markedly different from a secular one. Students should be inspired to embrace and deepen their Catholic faith, not negotiate around Catholic moral teaching.”

Link to original...

Friday, January 29, 2010

Jesuit School in Berlin Reports Sex Abuse Cases

There must be something very systematically wrong with the Jesuits. It must be the modernism that infects the very air a Jesuit breathes from the day he enters the Novitiate to the day he's buried and goes to meet his just reward.

BERLIN -- Several students at one of Germany's most prestigious high schools were sexually abused for many years by their teachers, the school's director said Thursday.

Father Klaus Mertes says he has sent out 500 letters to alumni of Berlin's private Catholic Canisius Kolleg to determine the extent of the case after seven ex-students recently reported they were abused in the 1970s and 1980s.

Canisius Kolleg is one of Germany's pre-eminent schools, alma mater of many politicians, businesspeople and scientists.


Link to original...

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Minimal Background Investigations for Perspective UK Catholic School Teachers

The Bishop, once known as a favorite to be the next occupant of Westminster, who favors married priests as well, is all in favor of not invesitigating the backgrounds of those who come into his service. We could think of many reasons for doing this, not least of which is protecting the children in his care.

By Hilary White

LONDON, January 19, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A member of the English Catholic Bishops conference, and the head of the Catholic Education Service, has denied that there is any Catholic objection to homosexual civil unions. Speaking to The Tablet, Britain’s leading left-liberal Catholic paper, Bishop Malcolm McMahon, the chairman of the Catholic Education Service, said that he had no objection to homosexuals in civil partnerships working in Catholic schools.


And George Soros is interested in keeping quiet claims regarding Obama's new NAMBLA friendly "safe schools" Czar:

A major left-wing propaganda attack group funded by billionaire George Soros has begun aggressively targeting MassResistance because of our exposure of Kevin Jennings, Obama's "safe-schools" czar and his activities pushing homosexuality on schoolchildren.

Media Matters is headed by David Brock, an ex-conservative writer (and "out" homosexual) who now professes his hatred for conservatism and conservatives. Media Matters has a large staff and millions of dollars per year in funding.

Friday, January 15, 2010

Catholic Dissenters Define "Catholic" Education

At least they're dying out at a prodigious rate, but Gnosticism, like Modernism of old, is as old as the pyramids.

Catholic Educators who Aren't Catholic

In an editorial eulogizing the late Mary Daly, the Boston Globe lets the cat out of the bag. Daly “came to describe herself as a ‘radical lesbian feminist’ and a ‘post-Christian,’” the Globe notes. How, then, did she justify her position in the theology department at Boston College: a nominally Catholic school? The Globe has its answer:

Daly was one of many scholars who, through their efforts to use their positions at Catholic universities to pull the church leftward, tacitly acknowledged its central role in the lives of the faithful, and its vast influence in society at large.


Exactly. Like all too many of her colleagues in Catholic theological circles, Daly used her academic post not to build up the faith but to tear it down—or, to be more accurate, to exploit it for other purposes. At a time when St. Josemaria Escriva was urging his followers in Opus Dei to turn the ordinary work of the secular world to the purposes of the Church (that is, their sanctification), leftist professors were encouraging students to turn the work of the Church to the purposes of the secular world (that is, their politicization). The Globe editorial puts it differently, but the message is recognizably the same:

Daly was in the thick of a vibrant debate within the Catholic world over how to respond to the social changes of the era.


In academic life, Daly and her allies had ample opportunity to influence the world: to “pull the Church leftward.” They not only trained the next generation in their classrooms, but by controlling the levers of academic power they determined who would be given the appropriate credentials—the PhDs—to teach the following generations as well.

For years, a fifth column has been active in Catholic academic circles. By the 1970s, the damage they had done was evident enough to a few perceptive Catholic scholars, who began founding a new generation of Catholic colleges and universities explicitly devoted to the teaching magisterium of the Church. But at established schools like Boston College, Notre Dame, and Georgetown, the subversion continues.

The influence of these “post-Catholic” scholars extends beyond academic life, too. The Boston Globe is not ordinarily interested in theology; the editorial tribute to Mary Daly was obviously written by someone who had drunk deeply from those intellectual streams. (Notice the awkward use of the adjective "vibrant," a dead giveaway that the author is a liberal Catholic.) Nancy Pelosi can cite professors at Catholic schools to justify her political stands.

The treason of Catholic scholars is not news. What is new, in the Globe editorial, is the candid acknowledgement that some Catholic theologians are motivated not by a different vision for the good of the Church, but by a cynical desire to exploit the Church for the sake of their favored social causes. They acknowledge the Church as a potential force for social change, not as the Bride of Christ, the Mater et Magistra. They are opportunists, not Catholic theologians.

Still, rest assured that they will continue cashing their paychecks, and miseducating our children, for as long as we afford them the opportunities.

Link to Catholic Culture...

Friday, January 8, 2010

Boston College Feminist Dies

Mary Daly was a force for changing attitudes and diminishing the importance of the Catholic Faith at this Jesuit school. The editorial remarks about her contribution to the "vibrant debate". It's difficult to surmise from reading the article or assessing some of her positions just how her contribution was "vibrant", but the article is correct in that it identifies her presence as a sign that Boston College is a liberal institution. How it is that a woman whose very presence championed the normalization of homosexuality at a Catholic institution is a very curious indicator, but that she did it is still further proof that this allegedly Catholic and Jesuit institution is far removed from the namesakes that inspired the brick and mortar to house generations of the surrounding flower of youth the Irish-Catholic community of Boston had to offer.

One Jesuit commenter, "aidan01" wrote:

As a male seminarian taking classes at B.C. in the eighties I recall that men were banned from Daly's class. Of course none of us were interested in trying to set up a private tutorial with her. We all thought Daly was a joke of a human being, and that B.C. had been corrupted by liberals and didn't have the spheres to boot her to the curb. Mary Daly was a sign of the decline of Boston College's standing in the Catholic World.

Years later, as a cynical move to impress a radical feminist professor, I cited one of Daly's works in a paper. To make sure the Prof. questioned my motives I also cited Mary Ann Glendon, the very conservative Harvard Professor, and former U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican. Interestingly, Daly and Glendon agreed completely in their blisteringly negative critiques of Shel Silverstein's "The Giving Tree", but Glendon was particularly cutting, and sounded even more "feminist" than Daly. Even the Professor was surprised by that. But, imagine my surprise when I couldn't put Daly's book down, even after writing the paper.

As strange and alienating as Mary Day was to many, she was a serious thinker and her ideas are worthy of consideration. [Really?] While reading her work did not push me to abandon my own thinking, or my faith, it did bring to light for me a perspective on the Church and Society that was illuminative and insightful. She was a very accomplished scholar, somewhat off the deep end, but she had insights that cannot be dismissed lightly, and she conveyed them with a wicked sense of humor. Mary was very funny, and when I think about her I have to smile because, although it kills me to admit it, her work contributed something significant and meaningful to my life.


It's hard to take seriously the author's previous statements about Daly being a "joke of a human being" and then going on to praise her for her talent as a scholar and her contribution, but it highlights the point of confusion. No doubt, despite the Jesuit's contention that Boston College did not damage his faith, he seems to suffer from that lack of integrity which comes as a result of not really believing in anything with any conviction. His attitude plays into the rationale that the presence of instructors like Daly enrich the experience in a spirited dialogue when most of the students graduating from Boston College don't have the fundamentals to know the Catholic Faith which is supposed to be the reason behind the College's existence in the first place.

Saying she was right about things doesn't address whether she should have been at a Catholic College in the first place, or whether or not she helps the students do anything more than realize the pure vanity of religion in the first place. The only thing we suspect she was right about was her opposition to the evils of co-education.

Requiem for a feminist - The Boston Globe

Thursday, December 31, 2009

Chum's in the Water! Legal Sharks and Professional Victims Circle around Oregon Jesuit Province

Believe it or not, heresy is a greater crime than abusing children and one begets the other. The great crimes of the heretical Bogomils in the 13th Century were always accompanied by sexual depravity; but they weren't just performed in modern Europe but in ancient Sparta as well where among the pagans, it was not generally held as a crime. These crimes are not being committed by devoted Catholic priests, indeed, overall, even with the American Church's own struggle with heresy, leaves a child considerable safer in Her institutions when compared to other organizations like Hollywood, the Rabbinate of New York City or the Public School system. Ironically, the prohibition against the practices of abusing children were originated in Catholicism and pre-Christian Judaism.

Unfortunately, here in America, again, the problem with heresy, people aren't so much concerned about Justice, a Catholic virtue, but with money and ultimately, the destruction of the Catholic Faith in America.

Amid ads for condoms, dating sites, Planned Parenthood and with some heavy endorsement from gay-friendly David Cohessey, one side cuts while the other side holds as they attempt to dismember the Catholic Church. The Jesuits by their wilful and well planned program of promoting clerical homosexuals to positions of trust, and then you get the legal role played by advocacy organizations like SNAP who scoop the victims up as fodder for a political agenda far beyond mere justice. David Clohassey leaves little mystery as to where, or to whom, his allegiance lies and you can almost detect the spit and bile as he hatefully writes,


The church's actions clearly show that it is in touch with something other than the god the people expect or the god this failed religion speaks of. When perverted incomplete men such as these fail as they have and as they will blindly continue there is a need to see them exposed as the frauds they are. Gods representative?


Pedophile's Paradise [courtesy of Oregon Province's Society of Jesus]

One spring afternoon in 1977, 15-year-old Rachel Mike tried to kill herself for the third time. An Alaska Native, Rachel was living in a tiny town called Stebbins on a remote island called St. Michael. She lived in a house with three bedrooms and nine siblings. Rachel was a drinker, depressed, and starving. "When my parents were drinking, we didn't eat right," she says. "I just wanted to get away from the drinking."

Rachel walked to the bathroom to fetch the family rifle, propped in the bathtub with the dirty laundry (the house didn't have running water). To make sure the gun worked, Rachel loaded a shell and blew a hole in her bedroom wall. Her father, passed out on his bed, didn't hear the shot. Rachel walked behind their small house. Her arms were too short to put the rifle to her head, so she shot herself in her right leg instead.

[cut]

The only reason Poole is not in jail, Roosa says, is the statute of limitations. And the reason he's still a priest, being cared for by the church?

"Jim Poole is elderly," answered Very Reverend Patrick J. Lee, head of the Northwest Jesuits, by e-mail. "He lives in a Jesuit community under an approved safety plan that includes 24-hour supervision." [The fox is indeed, guarding the roost here]

Roosa has another theory—that Poole knows too much. "They can't put him on the street and take away his reason for keeping quiet," Roosa says. "He knows all the secrets." [That's not necessarily true. Many others have left the priesthood and they haven't sung like canaries. Others have gone to prison and haven't mentioned a single word. Fortunately for Poole, and unfortunately for his victims, however, statute of limitations is exceeded. Perhaps a return to the Inquisition is in order?]

Father James Poole's story is not an isolated case in Alaska. On the morning of January 14 in Seattle, Ken Roosa and a small group Alaska Natives stood on the sidewalk outside Seattle University to announce a new lawsuit against the Jesuits, claiming a widespread conspiracy to dump pedophile priests in isolated Native villages where they could abuse children off the radar.

"They did it because there was no money there, no power, no police," Roosa said to the assembled cameras and microphones. "It was a pedophile's paradise." He described a chain of poor Native villages where priests—many of them serial sex offenders—reigned supreme. "We are going to shine some light on a dark and dirty corner of the Jesuit order."


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Monday, December 28, 2009

Is the Left Anti-Semitic After All?

Well, the left hates Joey Liberman (I), so it must be anti-semitic, because it hates Israel. Does the knife cut both ways? Never before has supporting Israel been so much fun, because you get to trash two faulty ideologies at once.

The Examener

Ruminations, December 27, 2009

Health insurance lives saved vs. lives lost
The Institute of Medicine, the health branch of the National Academy of Sciences, issued an analysis that concluded 22,000 lives were lost in 2006 due to a lack of health insurance. Many proponents of the new health care proposals are projecting their figures across 10 years and estimating that the new Congressional health care bill will save, conservatively, 150,000 lives over 10 years.

Although this analysis is speculative, it is an interesting and worthwhile exercise to examine the potential effect of health insurance on longevity. Rather than focusing on the dollars and cents side of the health care debate, perhaps adding an additional balance sheet focusing on lives would be worthwhile.

Saving 22,000 lives per year is based upon 30 million of people who are currently uninsured obtaining insurance and thus being able to afford to see their doctors once a year. If 30 million more people will go to their doctor once a year and, according to some estimates, a doctor and an assistant (nurse, physician’s assistant, or another doctor, etc) can see and examine 2,000 people per year (one visit per person). That means we’ll need 30,000 new medical professionals to see 30 million people. Where will they come from? They won’t materialize from thin air. With current staffing levels, regardless of insurance, we won’t have enough medical professionals to see these people. So maybe, unless or until we can expand our medical professionals, the 30 million people currently uninsured still won’t be able to see a doctor and 22,000 lives we estimated that would be saved will be lost anyway.

While accepting the estimate of 22,000 lives saved in one year, let’s consider the number of lives that the new health care bill may cost. For instance, won’t cutting nearly $500 billion from Medicare over 10 years have an adverse affect on the life spans of 46 million seniors? That’s an average cut of $10,000 per person over 10 years. It seems that by reducing health care by that amount, for a group whose earning power is limited and whose advancing years makes their health precarious enough without the cuts, will contribute to the lives lost count. Will it contribute to the premature death of more than 150,000 over ten years? Could be.

And, while we are on the subject of saving lives, there is no doubt that American medical innovation over the last decades has saved millions of lives. In fact, it is so advanced and superior, that, according to Deloitte & Touche, last year 400,000 people came from foreign lands to get health care in the United States. They came from all over including places such as Canada and Great Britain, where national health care is provided gratis. Why did they come? Not to save money, that’s for sure. They came because they wanted innovative health care that was unavailable in their home countries. Many, including those with diverse political perspectives as liberal former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich and conservative Fox commentator John Stossel, believe that a new health care system will not provide new innovations and, consequently it may cause a number of premature deaths that innovation could have saved.

So, on balance, will the new health care bill in Congress save lives? Maybe not.

Lieberman and anti-Semitism
The last two members of the Democratic caucus fell into line last week and supported the Democrats health care bill. Joe Lieberman (I, CT) and Ben Nelson (D, NE) voted to end debate on the bill and proceed towards its passage.

The left has been almost apoplectic on the about Joe Lieberman (I, CT), who threatened to join Republicans and filibuster the Senate Health Care bill. But when Lieberman’s objections to the “public option” and to the provision to allow people under 65 to apply for Medicare were met, he withdrew his filibuster threat and supported the bill. Lieberman had held out on principle. And by mollifying Lieberman, the Democrats were able to secure his support. But the left still treats him as a traitor.

Ben Nelson (D, NE), the last hold out, came back to the party-line when he was offered a $100 million subsidy for his Nebraska voters and tax breaks for Nebraska insurance companies. After he came back, the left treated him like a hero.

You can agree or disagree with Nelson and Lieberman but can you hold a mercenary in higher regard than a man who stands on principle?

It doesn’t seem so for many of the left. Rosa DeLauro (D, CT) says, “I'll say it flat out, I think he [Lieberman] ought to be recalled." MoveOn.org has raised one million dollars so that when Lieberman “comes up for re-election, we'll make sure we send him home for good.” Michael Moore demands that Connecticut recall Lieberman and wants to punish Connecticut for electing Lieberman by means of a boycott. MSNBC news commentator Keith Obermann said that Lieberman was “embarrassing humanity.” And the Susan G. Komen breast cancer foundation has been pressured to sever relationship with Lieberman’s wife, Hadassah.

Is there something else at work here – something other than political opposition? When people oppose President Barack Obama, some of Obama’s supporters are quick to state or imply that the reason for the opposition to Obama is racism. Could one conclude that the reason for the strong opposition to Lieberman is anti-Semitism?

First of all, let’s set aside the lunatic fringe that will always be with us. There is no doubt that there is a small group of people who don’t like Lieberman because he is a Jew – just as there exists a small group of people who don’t like Obama because he is black. Small fringe groups, however outrageous their beliefs, are of little concern; when the group gets large or influential, that’s when it bears watching.

In Lieberman’s case, the left has other reasons to dislike him. In 2006, Lieberman returned from a fact-finding trip to Iraq and declared the war not only winnable but worth fighting. This infuriated the left and, at the Connecticut Democratic state Convention, instead of nominating the incumbent Lieberman, anti-war candidate Ned Lamont was nominated for senator. Lieberman then had the effrontery, in the eyes of the left, to run for senator as an independent against a party-line Democrat – and he won.

In 2008, Lieberman spoke at the Republican National Convention and endorsed Republican John McCain.

While many on the left urge rapprochement with Cuba, Lieberman has remained strongly anti-Castro.

And, while a significant portion of the American left leans toward Palestine in the Israeli-Palestinian controversy, Lieberman is strongly pro-Israel.

So the resentment of Lieberman for opposing the party orthodoxy has been building. Was the Health Care kerfuffle the tipping point? Is it a knee-jerk reaction to dismiss Lieberman detractors as anti-Semites? Let’s explore that notion.

There still is a remnant of anti-Semitism in the United States and some of it by seemingly responsible public figures and politicians who should know better. Former Senator Fritz Hollings (D, SC), for example, implied that President Bush initiated the war on terror in order to appease Jews.

While anti-Semitism in the United States is not at the levels it had been in the 1930s, it still exists. In November 2005, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights issued a Campus Anti-Semitism briefing report (http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/081506campusantibrief07.pdf) that said, “Indeed, anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism flourish on college campuses because of the energetic focus of a determined minority and their willingness to dedicate themselves to this cause.” If that was and is the case, we don’t need to wonder that the attitudes of people who have been subjected to academic precepts of anti-Semitism made to sound intellectual will become anti-Semites themselves.

But according to the Commission, it is a small group of determined activists that foment anti-Semitism on campus. And who is it that leads political groups? Small groups of determined activists.

One of the Commission’s major findings is that “The assault on Jewish nationalism is embedded in the ideology of the left” and that "Anti-Semitic bigotry is no less morally deplorable when camouflaged as anti-Israelism or anti-Zionism." As was pointed out above, Lieberman strongly supports Israel.

Former Soviet dissident and Israeli government official Natan Sharansky stated that “One of the major difficulties in grappling with the new anti-Semitism is the ease with which it can be denied. Unlike in the past, post-modern anti-Semitism no longer exclusively involves such phenomena as violence against the Jews, sporting swastikas and burning synagogues. While these phenomena do indeed exist and are even increasing, especially in Europe, today they form only part of the problem.”

So, is opposition to Lieberman anti-Semitism camouflaged as politics or is it legitimate political opposition? It’s probably both. There is no doubt Lieberman has, overall, a liberal voting record. But liberal-versus-conservative voting records are hard to measure; the big issues for the left over the past year have been the war in Iraq, the presidential election and health care. Lieberman has, at times, opposed the left on all three.

Just as Lieberman has taken principled stands to oppose the left, it is fair to say that many on the left are taking principled stands in opposing Lieberman. Some of that opposition may be anti-Semitism camouflaged in principle and some, when it is expressed with venom and rancor, may not be camouflaged but blatant anti-Semitism.

The conclusion? It’s worrisome.

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Friday, December 11, 2009

Spectral Planned Parenthood at Catholic College

You might not be able to get an abortion at Carroll, but they'll tell you where you can get one. You can watch the Vagina Monologues there too; but if you want,you can still have an experience rooted in the Judeo-Christian faith tradition.

Catholic Culture

Catholic college's web site: contact Planned Parenthood for abortion information; PR coordinator ripped ‘papist apologists’

December 10, 2009

The web site of a Catholic college in Montana advises students who wish to obtain an abortion to contact Planned Parenthood.

“How can I obtain an abortion?” asks an anonymous "ask-a-nurse" advice column for Carroll College students. The response-- “thoughtfully prepared by Health Services”-- is
Carroll College does not offer abortion counseling based on its Catholic Tradition. There is a Planned Parenthood in Helena or you can talk with any health care provider concerning your options.


In addition, the college’s official “Summer Job Finding Guide” asks students to consider applying for employment at Planned Parenthood.

In 2005, a controversy erupted at the college after a Planned Parenthood representative was invited to be part of a panel discussion on end-of-life issues. When the college’s president withdrew the invitation, “many members of the faculty, as well as others, voiced their concern that this act limited academic freedom,” according to a college report to the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities.

In 2004, Ashley Oliverio-- then and now the college’s public relations coordinator-- blasted the Cardinal Newman Society [CNS] and “other Papist apologists” for criticizing the school’s association with the Vagina Monologues.

“I am one of the 14 local actresses who will buck the Catholic Taliban by co-starring in the Helena ‘Vagina Monologues’ production, and as an American, a lawyer, a Catholic and a spiritual person, I am proud to do so,” wrote Ms. Oliverio. “I auditioned for a role in direct response to the medieval ravings of the CNS and its sheep who have assailed this and other colleges with hostile letters revealing their utter ignorance of the play or the issues involved, foremost of which is the CNS’s own hostility toward women and the free marketplace of ideas.”

Founded in 1909 by the Diocese of Helena, the college has 1,409 students, all of them undergraduates.

Update: The text of "Pregnancy Options" and the text of "The Carroll College Summer Job Finding Guide" have been removed from Carroll College's web site.


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Monday, December 7, 2009

Catholic education, then and now

By Colman McCarthy
Monday, December 7, 2009

Models of academic longevity, Peter Walshe, Michael True and Tom Lee have a combined 114 years of teaching at Catholic colleges and universities. Having transitioned from full-time classroom toil, they are among the emeriti: seasoned and serene veterans buoyed by the satisfactions of the professorial life that they treasured through the decades.

Convivial and opinionated, part of the liberal wing of Catholic academia, they are the kind of old hands you would hunt down for reflections on the state of Catholic higher education. Going back awhile, I've had many conversations with each of the professors on their campuses: Walshe at the University of Notre Dame, True at Assumption College in Worcester, Mass., and Lee at St. Anselm College in Manchester, N.H.

For this essay, I asked each of the three to focus on the positives and negatives they came upon at their schools.

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