A Look Back: Liberal Professors Didn't Get What They Wanted

Note: It is a rare day indeed when I use a post to America Magazine to make a point. You can be assured that the point is about dissent which that magazine is the best source of. Usually I use Catholic sources but this will have to do. I wonder how exactly this guy "ministers" on campus?

San Jose Employs Dissenter as Professor and Campus Minister

Ron Hansen is a contemporary "Catholic" novelist, a married deacon in the liberal diocese of San Jose, California, and member of the Campus Ministry staff at the Jesuit Santa Clara University, where he is also the Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J., Professor--especially of "creative writing."

His religious opinions in the April 25, 2005, issue of America magazine entitled "What Should the Next Pope [after John Paul II] Do?":

The first thing I would like to see changed is the current restriction limiting priesthood only to those who are male and celibate. Also, the questions of Humanae Vitae should be revisited. A culture of suspicion, particularly concerning the American church, seems to exist in the Curia now. I find it unnecessary and in many ways evil. I hope the next pope will ratify the brilliant new English-language Sacramentary that has been waiting, unused, for too long. And I would like to see intensified an ecumenical outreach, especially to those Protestant denominations with which we have much in common.

(http://www.americamagazine.org/gettext.cfm?articleTypeID=1&textID=4136&issueID=528)

His endorsement of a liberal Protestant Bible with "inclusive" language:

"I HAVE USED THE HARPERCOLLINS STUDY BIBLE FOR LITERATURE CLASSES AND FOR MY PRIVATE PRAYER. THE NRSV [New Revised Standard Version] TRANSLATION IS OUTSTANDING." (http://www.nrsv.net/purchase.html)

Thus, he dissents from important matters of Catholic discipline (clerical celibacy) and infallible teachings on faith (priestly ordination only for baptized men) and morals (the "questions" of Humanae Vitae: marriage as well as the authority of the papal magisterium and of the natural moral law). Also he thinks highly of two literary works which (while being translations rather than novels) have both been discredited by the Holy See especially for their use of inclusive language and "deconstructivsm" (the text means whatever the writer or translator wants it to mean); so much for his literary tastes.

Heresy Not Corrected at Bishop's University

Note: People such as this professor, allowed by their Catholic University presidents to openly defy and degrade Catholic Church teaching from their safe tenured perches, are what got this writer to start this blog in the first place. The professor is only partly right. It is lukewarm assent and even open dissent from Humanae Vitae that undermines the Church. The dishonest reaction by CUA is typical these days, claiming that "private opinions" held by faculty members are OK when the opinion is obviously quite public or we wouldn't know about it. If strong action were taken by the university, terminating or publicly rebuking this professor, it would not only send a clear sign that the university is indeed Catholic, but would also defeat the professor's argument. Doing otherwise confirms it - that the leadership in the Church does not support Catholic moral teaching.

"Dishonesty at Heart of System" Keeps Catholic Church "Pretending" on Birth Control, CUA Prof Says
Catholic society says Catholic University prof undermining Catholic Church's "message of sexual purity"
By Peter J. Smith

WASHINGTON, D.C., July 16, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A history professor at Catholic University of America (CUA) in Washington, D.C. has blamed Paul VI's 1968 encyclical "Humanae Vitae," for creating what she calls "paralysis" in the Catholic Church that constitutes "dishonesty at the heart of the system." The 1968 encyclical was a response to calls during the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s to permit artificial birth control; Pope Paul VI, however, surprised those agitating for a loosening of the Church's "rules" on sexuality, by instead teaching that the use of artificial contraception is a grave sin that would harm human love and have disastrous effects upon society.

"Nothing was as devastating to the Church's credibility as Humanae vitae and the paralysis it generated," CUA History Professor Leslie Woodcock Tentler told the National Post, a national paper in Canada, for an article on the document's upcoming 40th anniversary.

"It makes for dishonesty at the heart of the system. Do ordinary Catholics believe it's a mortal sin? No, they do not. Do they believe their leaders think it's a mortal sin? No, they do not. Yet we keep pretending."
Tentler has taught at CUA as a history professor since 1998, and made the comments for the July 12 article "A hard pill to swallow."

Patrick Reilly, President of the Cardinal Newman Society, which lists CUA among the most orthodox Catholic institutions, said Tentler was completely out-of-line in her remarks.

"At a time when all Americans, whether Catholic or not, are coming to the realization that the 'Sexual Revolution' has destroyed lives and tarnished souls, Professor Tentler is using her influential position at the U.S. bishops' university to undermine the Church's message of sexual purity," Reilly told LifeSiteNews.com.

However this is not the first time the professor, who teaches at an institution founded by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and committed to presenting Catholic orthodoxy to its students, has been critical of the Church for its stand on artificial birth control.

In an April 23, 2004 article in Commonweal, "A bitter pill: American Catholics & contraception," Tentler criticized the US bishops for developing what The New York Times described as "an easily understandable booklet," presenting the Catholic Church's reasons against artificial contraception.

Tentler maintained in the article that the teaching on contraception creates "major credibility problems for the Church" and said of Catholic leader Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput "he - along with many younger advocates of a harder line on contraception - simply underestimates the damage done to the church by Humanae vitae."

Tentler went on to contest "the bishops' seeming assumption that collectively reiterating the church's teaching on contraception will have only transitory negative effects on the laity." She concluded her article saying that both priests and laity "deserve better" than an "episcopal fait-accompli" about why artificial birth control is wrong.

Tentler also was a contributor to the one-sided PBS documentary "The Pill," and has written a book called "Catholics and Contraception: An American History."

Philosopher Janet E. Smith's review of the book said Tentler "maintains that as Catholics become more mature, they reject their Church's teaching on contraception."

LifeSiteNews contacted Tentler several times over several days through e-mail to ask her if as a Catholic and a professor she assented to the Church's teaching in Humanae Vitae. While Tentler did respond to one of the e-mails, she did not clearly state whether or not she accepted the teaching in Humanae Vita.

Comment was also sought from CUA; however, in a response to LifeSiteNews, a spokesman for the university neither addressed the substance of Tentler's statements in the National Post nor Tentler's position on Humanae Vitae.

"The Catholic University of America is the national university of the Roman Catholic Church in our country. As such and because of its special status as a pontifical university sponsored by the bishops of the United States, The Catholic University of America fully embraces all the teachings of the Catholic Church in their entirety," CUA spokesman Victor Nakas said in a statement. "Although some members of its community may privately hold contrary positions on some matters - as may be the case within the Roman Catholic Church at large - the university itself professes an unambiguous institutional commitment of fidelity to the Church and all its teachings."

However Reilly told LifeSiteNews that Tentler's criticism of Humanae Vitae fly in the face of her responsibility as a Catholic educator. Reilly quoted Pope Benedict XVI's April 17 statement to Catholic educators: "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." "As a historian, she violates the principles of academic freedom by wading into matters properly discussed by theologians," Reilly continued. "As a Catholic historian at a Catholic university, she has an added obligation to support the mission of Catholic education - which Pope Benedict describes as providing 'a place to encounter the living God who in Jesus Christ reveals his transforming love and truth.

'"Read the National Post article "A hard pill to swallow":http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/story.html?id=649220

Read Prof. Leslie Tentler's April 23, 2004 article in Commonweal, "A bitter pill: American Catholics & contraception": http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1252/is_8_131/ai_n6242935/pg_10?tag=artBody;col1

Read Janet Smith's review of "Catholics and Contraception: An American History"http://aodonline.org/aodonline-sqlimages/shms/faculty/smithjanet/publications/HumanaeVitae/CatholicsandContraception.pdf

Read the transcript of the PBS documentary "The Pill": http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/pill/filmmore/pt.html

To contact respectfully Catholic University of America's President:

Very Reverend David M. O'Connell, C.M.
The Catholic University of America
620 Michigan Ave., N.E.
Washington, DC 20064
Telephone: 202-319-5100
E-mail: cua-president@cua.edu

Notre Dame Faculty Senate Scores are in -- Hetrodox Faculty 1, Pope Benedict, nothing

Notre Dame Faculty Senate Scores are in -- Hetrodox Faculty 1, Pope Benedict, nothing
7/5/2008 6:49:00 PM -www.projectsycamore.com

"The University should not compromise its academic aspirations in its efforts to maintain its Catholic identity." Notre Dame Faculty Senate, April 9, 2008

On April 17, 2008, the Pope, in his address to Catholic educators, described a Catholic university in terms of the fullness of its Catholic identity. The day before, the Notre Dame Faculty Senate urged that the University's "academic aspirations" take precedence over its Catholic identity.
This startling disjuncture evidences both the degree to which secularization has already taken hold at Notre Dame and also the grave risk that this process will continue until the University's claim to Catholic identity has been entirely undermined.

The Pope delivered a pastoral address that was warmly received. He chose not to discuss any of the particular issues that have troubled some educators. Rather, he held up a radiant image of a truly Catholic university as the proper goal for all Catholic institutions.

The address has been comprehensively reported, and we need not replicate that coverage. The text itself is its own best guide (link above). We recommend in particular the National Catholic Reporter's overview and the commentary of George Weigel.

We will, however, discuss certain elements of the address pertinent to issues that have arisen at Notre Dame.

We defer to our next newsletter an analysis of the Pope's address in relation to the Vagina Monologues controversy. Here, we describe the collision between the recent statement of Notre Dame's Faculty Senate (the "Senate"), on the one hand, and both the Pope's address and Notre Dame's Mission Statement, on the other.

Both the Pope and the University's constitutive documents describe a university in which faith and reason together infuse the life of the institution. Thus, for example:
The Pope: "The Catholic identity of a university demands "that each and every aspect of your learning communities reverberates with the ecclesial life of faith."

Notre Dame's Mission Statement: "A Catholic university draws its basic inspiration from Jesus Christ as the source of wisdom and from the conviction that in him all things can be brought to their completion."

To this end, the Mission Statement declares: "The Catholic identity of the University depends upon, and is nurtured by, the continuing presence of a predominant number of Catholic intellectuals" on the faculty.

We have repeatedly described how this essential foundation of Catholic identity has been seriously eroded. All agree that under the Mission Statement a majority of genuinely committed Catholics is required. Yet, the proportion of Catholics has declined from 85% in the 1970's to about 52% today. Worse, with a reduction to account for dissident and nominal Catholics, there is no longer a faculty sufficiently Catholic to sustain the school's historic claim to Catholic identity.

The Mission Statement tells us so. And still worse, as we have shown, the Administration's new goal of hiring 50-plus percent Catholics is a recipe for turning Catholics into a permanent minority. The demographics of an aging and rapidly retiring Catholic cohort tell us so. (see, New Faculty Hiring Policy).

The Senate statement, to which we now turn, is striking evidence of the attenuation of Catholic identity that has already occurred as well as a portent of more to come.

The Faculty Senate Statement

The Senate is elected to represent the faculty "in the formulation of policy affecting the entire life of the University." Its "Response to University's Initiative on Hiring Catholic Faculty" was directed at statements of Father Jenkins and Provost Burish respecting Catholic identity and the Mission Statement.

The Faculty Senate opened by describing how it had canvassed faculty opinion in order to "speak for the entire faculty." It then proceeded to urge the demotion of Catholic identity to secondary, even tertiary, importance. Concomitantly, it disparaged the Mission Statement requirement of a majority of Catholic faculty and even the Administration's inadequate 50-plus percent hiring goal.

The statement is animated principally by a driving ambition for recognition of Notre Dame as a top-tier research university. An important subtext is the aim that the University's "commitment to racial, ethnic, gender, and religious diversity" take precedence over hiring Catholics. There is, the Senate warns, "widespread concern among the faculty that too narrow a focus upon Catholic hiring will seriously jeopardize our chances of achieving [these] other two goals."

Still, the Senate says reassuringly, "[T]here is no reason why Notre Dame cannot...remain a Catholic university." All that is necessary is to move the goal post, so to speak, by repealing the mission statement requirement of a Catholic faculty majority. Thus, the Senate asserts, while "the number of Catholic faculty is a significant component...of the Catholic character of the University," it is "not the primary determinant." It is necessary only that there be a "significant presence" of Catholic intellectuals." Accordingly, the administration "should not impose numerical targets."

What this all amounts to is summarized in the Senate's jarring first recommendation:
"The University should not compromise its academic aspirations in its efforts to maintain its Catholic identity."

A faculty in which committed Catholics predominated surely would invert this declaration to read:

"The University should not compromise its Catholic identity in its efforts to achieve its academic aspirations."

And while the Senate doubtless did not speak for every faculty member - 500 of some 800 faculty members responded to its questionnaire, and surely they were not of a single mind - the Senate's statement does correspond with the results of a 2003 study by Baylor scholars that we have previously described. There, a solid majority of the faculty opposed taking religion into account in hiring.

Conclusion: Of course diversity is important, and seeking top-tier research status may be a worthy goal as well, though not all would agree. But the soul of Notre Dame is its Catholic identity; that identity is in jeopardy; and once lost it would never be regained. A secularized faculty would stand in the way. In contrast, improving diversity and academic standing are long-term goals that, if affected at all, would not be foreclosed by according priority to the most urgent need, shoring up Catholic identity

Nevertheless, the Senate has proposed offering up a Catholic Notre Dame as the price of admission to the inner circle of secular universities. Surely the Senate does not expect those in governance to embrace this policy. What it may hope for is silence or a muffled reaction that pronounces all goals as important and assigns no priorities. Such a mixed-signal environment, together with the existing inadequate hiring goal, is an open invitation to the further weakening of Catholic identity.

####
Project Sycamore Officers and Directors

Officers
William H. Dempsey ('52)

President
Joseph A. Reich, Jr. ('57)

Vice President
George L. Heidkamp ('52)

Treasurer & Secretary
Directors

Richard V. Allen ('57, '58)

Dr. Daniel M. Boland ('56, '61)

Lauren Galgano ('05, '08)

Timothy M. Dempsey ('89)

Dr. John A. Gueguen, Jr. ('56, '58)

Dr. Susan Biddle Shearer ('88)

Email: news@projectsycamore.com

web: http://www.projectsycamore.com

Catholic University of San Diego Honors Radical Non-Christian Feminist With Theology Chair

Catholic University of San Diego Honors Radical Non-Christian Feminist With Theology Chair
By Peter J. Smith

SAN DIEGO, July 10, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - This year the University of San Diego has awarded an honorary chair in its Catholic theology department to a radical eco-feminist theologian, who calls God "Gaia," supports abortion and contraception, and a host of other views that put her in conflict with essential Catholic and Christian beliefs. The selection comes just months after the Pope's April visit to the United States in which he told Catholic educators to be faithful to Church teachings.

The USD Department of Theology and Religious Studies says Professor Rosemary Radford Ruether is a "leading Church historian and pioneering figure in Christian feminist theology" and will accept the honorary Monsignor John R. Portman Chair in Roman Catholic Theology for 2009-10 academic year.

A USD press release says Ruether will be teaching one undergraduate course in the fall semester of 2009 and will also deliver the annual Portman Lecture on a date to be determined to USD students.

When the Portman Chair was established in 2000, USD President Alice Hayes said, "It will be a strong and palpable symbol of the depth of the university's commitment to Catholic theology as an academic discipline and another sign of the Catholic character of the university."

Oddly enough, however, Ruether has a rather undisguised rejection of and antipathy toward Christianity, especially the Catholic Faith.

A regular columnist for the National Catholic Reporter, Ruether boasts multiple professorships, twelve honorary doctorates, and an extensive list of books, including The Church Against Itself (1967), Sexism And God-talk: Toward a Feminist Theology (1983), Gaia and God: An Ecofeminist Theology of Earth Healing (1992), Goddesses and the Divine Feminine: A Western Religious History (2005), Integrating Ecofeminism, Globalization, and World Religions (January 2005)and America, Amerikkka: Elect Nation and Imperial Violence (2007).

California Catholic Daily reports that Prof. Ruether is an advocate of women's ordination and since 1985 has served as a board member for the pro-abortion dissident Catholics for a Free Choice - now Catholics for Choice (CFC). The group has been described by the US Bishops as "not a Catholic organization, does not speak for the Catholic Church, and in fact promotes positions contrary to the teaching of the Church" and is "an arm of the abortion lobby in the United States and throughout the world."

In 2005 Ruether explained to an audience at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles her view that "Christianity is not necessarily worse than other religions, but it is the vehicle of Western Civilization."

Reuther has stated Christianity is riddled by hierarchy and patriarchy that created a social order in which chaste women on their wedding night "were, in effect, raped by young husbands whose previous sexual experience came from exploitative relationships with servant women and prostitutes."

In the CFC article "Sexual Literacy" from its Summer 2003 Conscience magazine, Ruether continued in this vein saying "The young bride went into marriage without knowledge of how to experience pleasure or prevent pregnancy."

Ruether added, "the Christian Right, Catholic and Protestant, is trying to roll back the sexual revolution by returning to a patriarchal puritanism based on a classist separation of females into 'good' girls and 'bad' girls, exploiting the bad girls while denying the good girls personal freedom."

Ruether has also rejected the notion that Man has a higher dignity than the animals in creation.

USD's selection of Reuther to the honorary theology professorship is a rejection of Pope Benedict XVI's admonition given to Catholic educators during his papal visit to the United States to be faithful to the Church and its teachings. "

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," the Pope told Catholic university and college presidents in April.

Benedict also spoke openly about "the scandal given by Catholics who promote an alleged right to abortion."

State's Most Pro-Abortion Judge on the Board of Catholic University

State's Most Pro-Abortion Judge on the Board of Catholic University
By Tim Waggoner

MINNEAPOLIS, July 10, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - LifeSiteNews has learned that a notorious abortion advocate and Appeals Court Judge is holding an executive position at a large Catholic university in Minneapolis.

Judge Diana Murphy is the chairwoman of the Executive Committee for the Board of Trustees of the Catholic University of St. Thomas. However, throughout her tenure as a judge with the Eight Circuit U. S. Court of Appeals, she has consistently overturned legislation seeking to further the Culture of Life.

On September 11, 2000, the appeals court judge ruled against multiple legislators, pro-life groups, physicians and citizens, who objected to the State of Minnesota paying for abortions with their tax dollars. The federal government had banned such use of taxpayer funds and so had the Minnesota legislature. Murphy and the State Supreme Court, however, found the State ban on funding to be unconstitutional and ruled the plaintiffs had no standing, preventing the case from being reviewed at higher levels.

On October 25, 2006, Judge Murphy ruled in favor of Planned Parenthood, striking down legislation that would have required doctors to inform women that an abortion will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being.

Judge Murphy is also a donor and Vice Chair of the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges (AGB), which, according to Dr. David Pence of the DocSociety, is intent on severing the university's ties with the Church. According to its website, DocSociety is "a brotherhood of Catholic men working to restore fatherhood and fraternity among Catholic priests and laymen."

Dr. Pence and the DocSociety have been for years closely monitoring the questionable happenings at St. Thomas University.

"Why is a notorious pro-abortionist judge holding a executive position at a Catholic University?" asked Pence in a LifeSiteNews interview.

Pence said that one might expect that given that the chairman and vice-chairman of the university Board of Trustees are the former Catholic bishop of the diocese, Archbishop Flynn, and former Vicar General of the diocese, Rev. Kevin McDonough, the board of the Catholic university would be composed of members who preserve Catholic teachings.

But considering the track record of Archbishop Flynn and Rev. McDonough, Pence said he is not surprised that pro-abortion Judge Murphy is chairing the Executive Committee for the Board.
Archbishop Flynn retired from the diocese after years of complaints by faithful Catholics over his handling of a host of scandals involving homosexual activists both within and without the archdiocesan administration. Under his rule, a notoriously pro-homosexual parish, St. Joan of Arc, was allowed to continue openly supporting the Gay Pride parades and the homosexual lifestyle. The parish's opposition to Catholic teaching was so brazen that it resulted in a 2004 rare direct intervention by the Vatican. Flynn was named by homosexual political activists as one of the US's four most "gay friendly" bishops.

McDonough came under fire in 2006 after he attempted to brush off the rampant homosexuality in the diocese, stating, "I don't believe in this archdiocese there has ever been an active subculture of homosexual priests who were sexually active and justifying their behavior."
McDonough's public assertion was surprising, especially since his own brother William McDonough, a priest (active as such at least until 1998) in the diocese, is on public record going against Church teaching on homosexuality.

To add to the controversy, LifeSiteNews covered a story in November of 2007 that saw the board vote unanimously to remove a 125 year-old bylaw that declared the chairman and vice-chairman of the board should be the sitting Bishop and Vicar General of the Diocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis. The board, headed by Flynn and McDonough, made this strategic move just five months before Archbishop Nienstedt was to be installed as the new archbishop of the Minneapolis diocese, thereby preventing him from assuming the position of chairman of the Board of Trustees of St. Thomas University.

The board of directors also voted to re-install Flynn and McDonough as chairman and vice-chairman for an extended five year term. The move was feared to be an effort by the university to override the authority of and possible reforms by Archbishop Nienstedt, Flynn's more orthodox Catholic coadjutor bishop who has since succeeded him as head of the archdiocese.

The vote thereby extended the contracts of chairman Flynn and vice-chairman McDonough for five more years, after which the board could vote in whomever they desire to fulfill the roles - essentially eliminating the Church's and, more specifically, Nienstedt's role in the university.
Archbishop Nienstedt's authentic Catholicity was not welcomed by the Board of Trustees after he said he would not accept a proposed plan by one of the board members that sought to merge the school with a medical association, because the move would involve teaching abortion procedures as part of the curriculum. This happened only weeks before the vote was cast that saw the removal of the bylaw.

The spokesperson for St. Thomas University did not respond to calls by press time.