Posts Tagged ‘catholic colleges’

My Suggestion to St. Mary’s Fire the Board, Fire the President

Posted: December 22, 2023 by datechguy in catholic, catholic devotions
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It is a good thing that St. Mary’s Catholic College for Women in Indiana has reversed their decision to admit men who identify as women to their college after huge pressure from alumni and their Bishop who noted that both Pope Benedict XVI:

No doubt Saint Mary’s College desires to promote love, inclusion, and acceptance within the community. But it does not do so authentically when it separates love from truth. In his encyclical Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth), Pope Benedict XVI wrote: “Only in truth does charity shine forth, only in truth can charity be authentically lived. Truth is the light that gives meaning and value to charity… Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality. Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way. In a culture without truth, this is the fatal risk facing love. It falls prey to contingent subjective emotions and opinions, the word ‘love’ is abused and distorted, to the point where it comes to mean the opposite” (#3).

And Pope Francis

Pope Francis also teaches about the intimate connection between truth and love in his first encyclical, Lumen Fidei (The Light of Faith). He writes: “Love requires truth. Only to the extent that love is grounded in truth can it endure over time, can it transcend the passing moment and be sufficiently solid to sustain a shared journey. If love is not tied to truth, it falls prey to fickle emotions and cannot stand the test of time. True love, on the other hand, unifies all the elements of our person and becomes a new light pointing the way to a great and fulfilled life” (#27).

note that you can’t separate “love” and “Truth”.

Despite this reversal I recommend asking for the resignation of both the President of the college and the current board of trusties and if they don’t resign, their dismissal.

Why, well despite the Bishops charitable description of their initial decision’s motives let’s look at the initial announcement of their now reversed policy.

Conboy said in the email that the Board “fully supports” the new policy.

“This confidence from our Board underscores their commitment that as an employer, Saint Mary’s must stand firm in its position as an inclusive community leader, and that as educators, we should continue to create an environment where all women belong and thrive,” Conboy wrote.

By definition the president of a Catholic college and such a college’s board should be both defenders of the faith and examples of how the faith should be practiced and imparted to young people who are to be educated at their school.

Yet not only did the president of said college celebrate this change but noted that the board “fully supported” it. No sign of dissenters, no sign of objections, no members of the board threatening to resign or making a public declaration that this is contrary to the faith. None of those things moved them.

But the backlash sure did:

As this last month unfolded, we lost people’s trust and unintentionally created division where we had hoped for unity. For this, we are deeply sorry.

Forgive me for saying this but I submit and suggest this is a lie, I think the truth is more like what this member of the Alumni said about the reversal:

“When this admissions decision became public hundreds of alumni banded together to stand for the Church and her teachings,” said Clare Ath, who graduated from the college in 2018. “While I would hope the reversal is because administrators realized we must teach the truth with love, my guess is the reversal is because alumni banded together, pulled their donations, notified their diocese and media, and said we will not let Our Lady’s college be corrupted by secular gender ideology.”

Put simply they’re not sorry they did it, they’re sorry that they received pushback and faced the loss of donation and support.

This suggests that if some time in the future a less vigilant Bishop is in place they will try something like this again. My thought is “why take a chance?” There are no shortage of faithful Catholics who actually believe what the Church teaches who are qualified for both the board and the presidency.

So I humbly suggest for the good of the future of the college that the president and the board resign en masse to make room for people who will be dedicated to keeping this particular Catholic college Catholic.

Closing thought: This post gave me Anna Maria College Visit flashbacks. I suspect his decision to not go there is a contributing factor for him remaining a devout #catholic into his 30’s.

Meet some of the exhibitors at the Catholic Men’s conference

Posted: March 22, 2010 by datechguy in catholic, local stuff, short films/interviews
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In addition to the people there quite a few exhibitors attended the men’s conference.

Adopt a Student helps people pay for Catholic education.

I should make it plain you don’t have to be Catholic to get that aid

Lighthouse Catholic Media Offers CD’s from great Catholic speakers to help evangelize the faith.

I have a few of these CD’s myself, they are first rate and will tell you a lot more about the actual Catholic Faith as opposed to what people say it is.

If your interest is more political then you might want to check out Catholic Citizenship

Would that Bart Stupak did.

Thomas Moore liberal Arts College in Southern NH had a booth:

Magdalen College also attended but didn’t go on Camera with us. Strangely enough The College of the Holy Cross, Assumption College and Anna Maria college, all in Worcester had no presence at all. You would think colleges in Worcester that proclaim themselves Catholic would bother to show up. Feel free to contact them and ask why.

A Vatican representative from Rome attended promoting pilgrimages to holy places. Journey of the Spirit is the web site.

This is exactly the type of woman (a faithful Italian) that my mother urged each one of her sons to marry. Alas for mom none of us did.

As a member of the Knights of Columbus I would be derelict in my duty to not give my group a plug:

There were actually three Knights booth there. I actually joined the Knights at the Men’s conference last year.

Finally you likely have heard of ETWN but you might not have heard of Catholic TV. If you haven’t Bonnie Rogers solves that problem.

And beyond that there was a dizzying array of devotional books available from many different vendors.

Q: What is the quickest way to get banned from Ave Maria college?

Posted: November 12, 2009 by datechguy in catholic, internet/free speech
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A: Why calling on them to act Catholic of course.

Glenn Reynolds notes this is foolish but it is not unexpected. The blogger escaped from Communist Cuba:

Ave Maria is my second “ prom­ised land.” When my family and I freed ourselves from the grip of the Communists in Cuba and arrived in the promised land of the United States, we left behind years of per­secution, political imprisonment, executions, and hunger. But most of all we left behind the inhuman practice of silencing dissent— si­lencing our ability to speak the truth of the injustices we suffered. Free speech, and the ability to express dissent is what separates civilized societies from uncivilized ones. It is what my father was im­prisoned for — and many mem­bers of my family gave up their lives for, as devout Roman Catho­lics.

Her Full Critique is in four parts the other three are here.

Read them. They might shock you, but after my experience with Anna Maria College it didn’t shock me. (I’ve talked to quite a few students there and I’ve yet to meet one who doesn’t have the impression that I did although there is at least one promising sign.)

So the banning of her as a reporter is no shock:

America’s oldest Catholic newspaper, The Wanderer, assigned me to cover Ave Maria. Of the articles I have written for The Wanderer, only four have been about Ave Maria University. Yet, the University, of which Nick Healy is the President, banned me from Tom Golisano’s press conference on November 5th, and from the entire campus– allegedly for being disruptive at a public meeting held by the town’s Stewardship Committee. Stewardship Committee meetings have nothing to do with Ave Maria University.

The hubris and lack of credibility in that excuse of President Healy is evident.

Ave Maria University’s heavy handedness in not only banning me from the press conference, but also from the entire campus with County Sheriff deputies, shows how frightened they are of conservative and pro-life Catholics learning who “Tom” Golisano is—a man who ran for governor three times on a pro-choice platform and gave $1 million last year for Barack Obama’s coronation in Denver.

For our friends in the Cafeteria two quick quotes:

Let’s begin with Luke 9:26

Whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.

And finish with 2 Timothy 2:12

if we persevere we shall also reign with him. But if we deny him he will deny us.

The Lure of the world is a dangerous thing lets pray Ave Maria decides to resist it.

How’s that Common Ground on Abortion going Notre Dame?

Posted: October 8, 2009 by datechguy in catholic, opinion/news
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…apparently not so well:

In his address at the University of Notre Dame, Obama talked a good game about respecting conscience on abortion rights. He did the same thing when he met the Pope.
But that was all it was — talk.

The Obama Administration’s attack on Belmont Abbey College proves that.

Apparently the Catholic College decided that the “Catholic” part actually matters as they were unwilling to cover contraception, abortion, and voluntary sterilization all directly opposed to the college’s faith so of course we had a lawsuit and the results were interesting…

Belmont Abbey College was not discriminating against women. Unlike many “believers in name only” the college was adhering to the principles of its faith.

At first, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) found no evidence of gender discrimination by Belmont Abbey College… After a few weeks, the EEOC mysteriously reversed course and announced, in effect, that the college had better toe the Administration’s line, or else.

They are now demanding the school go against the very principles it exists to serve.

I presume they are going to fight it as far as they can, if they lose then there is only one choice that is acceptable in terms of faith and that is to simply drop all coverage divert the cost into the pay of the employees so they can purchase private insurance to cover what they wish.

But I’m over-reacting after all the state wouldn’t go after Catholics for obeying their faith would they?

So how did that work out Fr. Jenkins?

Of course, this does not mean we support all of his positions. The invitation to President Obama to be our Commencement speaker should not be taken as condoning or endorsing his positions on specific issues regarding the protection of human life, including abortion and embryonic stem cell research. Yet, we see his visit as a basis for further positive engagement.”

Maybe you should thank him.