The pope and the universities

Published: Friday, May 23, 2008
The pope and the universities

Pope Benedict XVI had barely left the Catholic University of America on April 17 when the Catholic higher education establishment's spin machine shifted into high gear.

One university president said that what most impressed him about the papal address to Catholic educators was what it was not: a dressing-down. Still another president cooed that she felt "affirmed." An administrator at yet another institution said that, as the pope hadn't cited Ex Corde Ecclesia, John Paul II's concerns about Catholic identity were clearly old hat.

One got the distinct impression from the spin that a lot of people thought they'd dodged a bullet --- and were grateful they weren't going home to face irate alums and dubious donors. The "Benedict loves what we're doing" blah-blah has continued ever since.

The facts, to put it gently, suggest something rather more complicated. Consider these excerpts from the Holy Father's address:

"A university's or school's Catholic identity ... is a question of conviction --- do we really believe that only in the mystery of the Word made flesh does the mystery of man truly become clear? Are we ready to commit our entire self --- intellect and will, mind and heart --- to God? Do we accept the truth Christ reveals?"

[What percentage of this year's Catholic college and university graduates could honestly answer those questions with a convinced "Yes?" What percentage would even understand the first question?]

"While we have sought diligently to engage the intellect of our young, perhaps we have neglected the will. Subsequently we observe, with distress, the notion of freedom being distorted. Freedom is not an opting out. Freedom is an opting in --- a participation in Being itself. Hence authentic freedom can never be obtained by turning away from God."

[Might these sentences be printed, framed, and posted in co-ed dormitories on Catholic campuses?]

"We observe today a timidity in the face of the category of the good ... an assumption that every experience is of equal worth and a reluctance to admit imperfection and mistakes. And particularly disturbing is the reduction of the precious and delicate area of education in sexuality to management of 'risk,' bereft of any reference to the beauty of conjugal love."

[How many freshman orientation programs and student life offices on Catholic campuses would have to examine consciences here?]

"....I wish to affirm the great value of academic freedom.... Yet ... any appeal to the principle of academic freedom in order to justify positions that contradict the faith and the teaching of the Church would obstruct or even betray the university's identity and mission; a mission at the heart of the Church's [teaching mission] and not somehow ... independent of it."

[Will the theologians at prestige Catholic universities who affirm Humanae Vitae's teaching on the morally appropriate means of regulating fertility, the Catechism's teaching on the disordered character of homosexual acts, and the teaching of Ordinatio Sacerdotalis on the inadmissability of women to Holy Orders please raise their hands?]

The spin machine notwithstanding, Benedict XVI put serious challenges before the nation's leading Catholic educators. To resolve any doubts that the pope has a different idea of what befits a Catholic college or university than a lot of the Catholic higher education establishment, however, I propose a simple test.

Whether or not to produce Eve Ensler's "Vagina Monologues" --- a "play" that mocks the settled teaching of the Catholic Church --- has become a tedious annual ritual on many Catholic campuses. Prominent among them is Notre Dame: to the public mind, the flagship among U.S. Catholic institutions of higher education. There, the university's president, Father John Jenkins, CSC, has allowed Ensler's "play" on campus, acquiescing to the demands of some Notre Dame faculty while rejecting the counsel of other distinguished faculty members and the arguments of the local bishop.

In the patristic period, disputes within and among local churches were submitted to the Bishop of Rome for adjudication. So here's my proposal and my test-case: let Father Jenkins send Pope Benedict XVI a copy of Ensler's "play," asking the pope whether he considers this material appropriate for production or useful for discussion on a Catholic campus.

The answer, I predict, will not please the spin machine.

George Weigel is a senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.

"Irrational and Ridiculous" Thug Tactics of Depaul Administrators

Note: Typical how the left can frame arguments it disagrees with as "hate speech" or "intolerant" but allow the most odious of ideas such as Churchill's in the name of "academic freedom" and the exchange of ideas. DePaul is morally bankrupt and doesn't realize that in the exchange, you need to have something of value.

"Irrational and Ridiculous" Thug Tactics of Depaul Administrators to Stomp Out Conservative Views on Campus Exposed by THE STATESMAN: Independent Campus Newspaper Struggles to Represent Catholic and Conservative Views on Campus

5/18/2008 8:38:00 AM
By The Depaul Conservative Alliance and THE STATESMAN at www.depaulca.org -Joseph Blewitt, Editor-in-chief

The Depaul Double Standard: Liberty and justice for some and repression for others"DePaul is a basket case!"

These were the words of Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), on the Hannity & Colmes show in January of 2006. This description of the nation's largest Catholic university might be hard to believe, but as I continue my fourth year here, I am sorry to confirm it.

Mr. Lukianoff's statement accurately sums up the outrageous actions of DePaul's administration and far left faculty. At the same time as his appearance on the show, DePaul conservatives were in a battle with the University over their right to protest.

The University invited Ward Churchill, a favorite of liberal academia, to speak on campus. He has publicly proclaimed those who lost their lives in 9-ll to be "little Eichmanns," referring to the Nazi war criminal who oversaw deportations to the extermination camps.

When the DePaul College Republicans sought approval to hang posters displaying some of Churchill's most egregious quotes, the school created a new rule to ban the posters! Then the school officially reprimanded the DePaul Republicans for creating "propaganda."

In addition, the DePaul Republicans were subsequently banned from attending the "human rights workshop" with Churchill. Mr. Churchill, the DePaul faculty's chosen Academic and intellectual speaker, was since fired from his teaching post at the University of Colorado for plagiarism.

Read the rest here

Cardinal Newman Society Lists Dissident Commencement Speakers

2008 Commencement Speakers & Honorees

College of Saint Rose (NY), May 10, commencement speaker & honorary degree recipient: New York Governor David Paterson. Paterson is an advocate for abortion rights; he received a 100 percent rating from NARAL and the 2004 "Margaret Sanger Award" from Family Planning Advocates of New York State. Paterson proposed a bill providing $1 billion in taxpayer funding for embryonic stem cell research, and he has endorsed cloning stem cells for research purposes.

Mount Mercy College (IA), May 17, commencement speaker: Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, former Lt. Governor of Maryland. Townsend is a vocal advocate of abortion rights and was endorsed by NARAL and Emily's List. In her book, Failing America's Faithful: How Today's Churches are Mixing God, she takes the Catholic Church to task for its strong positions on abortion.

Regis College (MA), May 18, commencement speaker & honorary degree recipient: Massachusetts State Rep. Lida Harkins (D-Needham). Harkins has supported abortion rights, including public funding for abortions, and opposed a two-parent consent law for minors seeking abortions. She supports gay marriage and was a key leader in the defeat of a state constitutional amendment to define marriage as between a man and a woman.

St. Ambrose University (IA), May 11, honorary degree recipient: Margaret Tinsman, former Iowa State Senator. Tinsman advocates abortion rights and in 2006 received a $1,000 campaign contribution from Planned Parenthood's state action committee known as "The Freedom Fund." In 2004, Tinsman voted against the Unborn Victims Act, which would have acknowledged unborn children as victims of violent crime against pregnant women. Tinsman has opposed legislation to supply women with information on abortion alternatives, to prevent human cloning, and to require a 24-hour waiting period before having an abortion.

Saint Edward's University (TX), May 3, commencement speaker & honorary degree recipient: Cokie Roberts, political commentator for ABC News and senior news analyst for National Public Radio. Roberts has publicly attacked Pope Benedict XVI as "really lacking in the theological virtue of charity," "an extremely controversial choice" and "the most conservative voice of Catholicism." In her syndicated column with husband Steve Roberts, she has espoused abortion rights and ridiculed pro-lifers as "extremists." The Robertses characterized the federal ban on partial-birth abortion as "off the track" and "cynical games-playing" by pro-life activists. They have argued that the authority of the Catholic bishops has been significantly weakened, in part because of their teaching on homosexuality and contraception: "It's as if they are asking to be ignored."

Santa Clara University School of Law (CA), May 17, commencement speaker: Judge Phyllis Hamilton, United States District Judge for the Northern District of California, San Francisco. In 2004, Hamilton struck down a federal ban on partial-birth abortion as unconstitutional, claiming "the act poses an undue burden on a woman's right to choose an abortion." In contrast to a similar case in New York that same year, Hamilton prevented Justice Department attorneys from presenting as evidence the medical records of women who had partial-birth abortions, key to the government's argument that the gruesome procedure is unnecessary. Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee said that "Hamilton's deep personal hostility to the law has been evident throughout the judicial proceedings."

University of Notre Dame Graduate School (IN), May 17, commencement speaker & honorary degree recipient: Marye Anne Fox, chancellor of the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). As UCSD chancellor, Fox is an architect and leader of one of the nation's foremost initiatives in embryonic stem cell research, the San Diego Consortium for Regenerative Medicine, which will open its $115 million facility at UCSD by 2010. UCSD research is partly funded by California's $3 billion grant program for embryonic stem cell research, independent of ethical restrictions that President George W. Bush has tied to federal funding.