When will so called “Catholic Universities” stop calling themselves Catholic if they really have no desire to be Catholic in their teachings and support of the Church. As a Catholic I’m tired of their speaking on behalf of the Church by their actions while not supporting the Church’s teachings.

Why should you care? Are you and “Not.My.Business” Mark Shea uninterested in fraternal correction and admonishing sinners.

Seriously, be consistent.

I wish Wuerl was the kind of Bishop that would do something but am expecting nothing more than to be lectured by him for the uncivilized act of signing the petition and not being open to more endless dialogue.

@ Nick: Note: It’s Pat Archbold who wrote the above item, not Mark Shea.

Nick
You caught me.  I am a secret gay apologist.  No fooling you.

Well, where exactly is the line between admonishing sinners and ostracizing them?  Jesus Himself hung out with tax collectors and sinners, but He also told those He forgave to go and sin no more.

Now who is judging rashly and bearing false witness, Patrick. I never said you were a “gay” apologist (whatever “gay” is supposed to mean).

What I DID say is that neither you nor Mark Shea appear to be interested in fraternal correction.

Which is related to this post, seeing how you admonish what you perceive to be the sins of Georgetown, but give a free pass to what others perceive to be sin in Mark’s saintly-but-openly-homosexual-and-professed-to-having-a-partner-whom-he-was-in-love-with-who-was-also-a-homosexual-man.

So, where is your consistency?

Action is necessary, the outrage is optional. Meaning, it is abundantly clear that Georgetown either doesn’t want to be a Catholic college, or wants to be Episcopalian and still be allowed to run around in Catholic drag. Well, the latter is unacceptable, so that leaves us with option 1, and frankly, it is ultimatum time. It sucks, it will cause hurt and hard feelings, but stalling on making de facto apostasy de jure only makes it worse.

Michael, I don’t think this is a judgement or ostracizing of a person, but rather an upholding of catholic values and teachings in good judgement. There is a difference. Has this person gone and done this sin no more? No, they are against the teachings. Yes, you forgive, but you have to have good judgement as well. I forgive my cousin for being a drug addict and a thief,  but I’m not inviting him and his friends to hang with me anytime soon. I don’t want to be associated with those beliefs or an accomplice to any of his crimes.

@Melissa: Well, I wasn’t trying to make a judgment call myself, I was honestly asking the question.

But what you say does make sense.  I just want to make sure that our dislike for what others do doesn’t turn into dislike of them—I know firsthand that it’s all too easy to sink to the same level, and I don’t want that to happen to me or anyone else.

This can only be viewed as a slap at all the bishops.  In 2009 GU covered up “IHS” for Obama, it would only be fitting to have Cardinal Wuerl have them remove it permanently since GU isn’t really a Catholic university.  There are many more, primarily Jesuit, schools that the bishops have ignored and have the same problems as GU - LMU, USF, BC, Notre Dame, etc, etc. Pro-abortion speakers, Lavender graduations (which GU’s president spoke at a few days ago), and open defiance to the Magisterium by professors.
What more do the bishops want? These “educational institutions” are openly defying and mocking you, wake up!

This is insane! It is time for Catholic Universities,Religious Orders,and the individual American Catholics to play by the rules or quit the game. And it is obviously time for Georgetown(and Notre Dame,re: blasting Bishop Jenke)to quit the game or be thrown into the penalty box! The HHS contraception mandate is nothing short of religious persecution,and a trampling of our religious freedom.Cardinal Donald Wuerl and the USCCB can NOT stand for such defiance, or they themselves need to answer to Rome. This must not be tolerated or ignored, or the American Catholic Church will be no more.

I hate to say it but maybe ALL colleges should not be connected to a specific religion except theological colleges.

I pray God has mercy on their souls for they know not what they are doing and the final judgment they will receive!  There will come a time when we all stand before God and He will judge each of us.  Thousands of souls are being lost and yes, our bishops and shepherds need to protect their sheep.  Pray that the bishops stop these actions and practice their faith too.  God have mercy on my soul too.

It is high time for the U.S. Catholic bishops to lay down the law to these “Catholic In Name Only” colleges and universities. The devil has found a home at Georgetown, Notre Dame, and other schools.

Sorry, llory, but that won’t do.  Whether one chooses for or against God is in itself a theological question.  Choosing to view the world in a way that relegates God and religious belief to mere subjectivity and the private realm has logical consequences, which cannot be imposed on a Catholic college (especially since the Catholic faith views neither God nor belief in that manner).  Furthermore, our highly specialized way of looking at knowledge is a modern construct that stems from the Enlightenment, which itself stems in some part from the Reformation.  A Catholic education in the best sense reintegrates everything:  all truth is God’s truth, and is not relative; and all areas of study should be in conversation with each other so that an education is holistic and thus treats humanity holistically.  And yes, that does include theology and does concern the Magisterium of the Church.  Perhaps the best description of the Church’s Magisterium comes from then-Cardinal Ratzinger:  it is not to impose your own ideas, but to humbly listen and submit to the Holy Spirit so that God’s voice remains in play.

For all the trouble/scandal they have and are causing in recent decades maybe it is time to suppress the Jesuits again.  It seems their Superiors are unable to do anything.

Nick
Because I think that people filling up comboxes trying to prove that a dead guy was a sinner is creepy and rude, I gave Mark a “free pass”

Everyone has to be outraged about what you are outraged about in order to be a good Catholic?

Anyway, here is a little fraternal correction.  Calm down.  Get a grip. This post about something else entirely.  Go grind your axe someplace else.

Pat: I don’t know when you wrote this blog but it is my understanding that Cardinal Wuerl has already written the President of Georgetown
requesting him to withdraw the invitation to Kathleen Sibilious. Let
us pray his request is fulfilled! If not, let us pray that we will have
here more than a “Notre Dame moment” wherein this time the USCCB places
meaningful action behind their words.

They STILL ignore with impunity the Pope’s recent revitalised call to all Catholic educational institutions to help their students reclaim their faith, and the aim of genuine Catholic education is not just the ‘passing of knowledge’ but also ‘the shaping of hearts’.

“It follows that the question of Catholic identity, not least at the university level, entails much more than the teaching of religion or the mere presence of a chaplaincy on campus. All too often, it seems, Catholic schools and colleges have failed to challenge students to reappropriate their faith as part of the exciting intellectual discoveries which mark the experience of higher education. The fact that so many new students find themselves dissociated from the family, school and community support systems that previously facilitated the transmission of the faith should continually spur Catholic institutions of learning to create new and effective networks of support.”

. . .

“All too often, it seems, Catholic schools and colleges have failed to challenge students to reappropriate their faith as part of the exciting intellectual discoveries which mark the experience of higher education. The fact that so many new students find themselves dissociated from the family, school and community support systems that previously facilitated the transmission of the faith should continually spur Catholic institutions of learning to create new and effective networks of support. In every aspect of their education, students need to be encouraged to articulate a vision of the harmony of faith and reason capable of guiding a life-long pursuit of knowledge and virtue.”

. . .

“During my Pastoral Visit to the United States, I spoke of the need for the Church in America to cultivate “a mindset, an intellectual culture which is genuinely Catholic” (cf. Homily at Nationals Stadium, Washington, 17 April 2008). Taking up this task certainly involves a renewal of apologetics and an emphasis on Catholic distinctiveness; ultimately however it must be aimed at proclaiming the liberating truth of Christ and stimulating greater dialogue and cooperation in building a society ever more solidly grounded in an authentic humanism inspired by the Gospel and faithful to the highest values of America=s civic and cultural heritage. At the present moment of your nation’s history, this is the challenge and opportunity awaiting the entire Catholic community, and it is one which the Church’s educational institutions should be the first to acknowledge and embrace.”

http://www.news.va/en/news/pope-catholic-education-part-of-new-evangelization

Maybe The Church should cut off their funding.

It is way past time for the Church to strip this university of the right to associate themselves with the Catholic Church.  Their bevavior is an insult to those of us that consider themselves to be Catholic.  It is time to the bishops to stand up for this one like they did the HHS mandate.

We were looking at sending our son to Georgetown because it was a Catholic University, but in light of this information there is no way we will even consider this school.  Georgetown is not a Catholic University if they endorse culture of death commencement speakers!  Praying they will withdraw the invitation.

It seems to me that Georgetown follows Notre Dame proclaiming, “Non servium”.

Would someone explain to me the “downside” for the Catholic heirarchy of denouncing a college such as this?  What would be wrong with a statement by the USCCB such as “such-and-such college no longer should be regarded as a “Catholic” college for the following actions: blah-blah-blah, and obstinately refusing to conform to Catholic teaching.”

At worst, it might invite a lawsuit from the school and it would help rally fake Catholics and those of similar ilk to the school’s side but this ain’t much.  It has gotten much too far with G’town and so many other schools that it is far far beyond fraternal admonishment.

Without some action, the bishops will look (even more like) impotent fools.

Georgetown is an awful place - a pit of the Devil.  It seeks to destroy mankind; body, mind, and soul.  The evil one has almost taken complete control of the US government, by taking control of the citizens one person at a time.  One of his biggest tuning points on the war on humanity occurred in 1960 with the birth control pill.  Then 13 years later another victory with legalized murder of human beings, the abortion holocaust.  Americans today, who are younger than 39 years old, realize that they are holocaust survivors. They know that another person just like them was murdered by disembodiment, slaughtered inside their mother’s womb.  They are pro-life by default.  And it gets worse as the ages get younger and younger; a 20 year old knows that there were 100 other souls just like them that did not survive the evil mother’s womb - this little tomb that represents hell on earth.  The “War on Women” started with feminism, liberalism, the Democrat Party (which is populated with anti-human ideas of communists like Adolf Hitler). It goes all the way back to the Angle of Light, Lucifer, the seraphim.  When he told God that he would not serve a God who became man.  Then Lucifer decided to destroy mankind - and that’s what he is doing, and he has been doing.  And since God became man, Jesus, he has created a means by which we can still be saved, in spite of Lucifer.  So that’s what this is all about; it’s another chapter in the story of creation.  The question is how close are we to the end of the age, when Jesus will return?

Outraged is putting it mildly!!!! Alums and benefactors should pull thier $$$!!! We are in a spiritual battle of our lifetime! As Catholics we CANNOT allow the blateant disobedience of so called Catholics or institutions that tout they are! Sebelius has been told by her Bishop NOT to present herself for Holy Communion

Despicable and heartbreaking.  Georgetown was built by the Jesuits on moral values and integrity, based on the 10 Commandments.  Fluke is a proud public fornicator without shame, and her opinion should not influence Catholics of good character.  Fornication is a mortal sin.  She is a slap in the face to Catholicism and chose the wrong college for her hoin’ agenda.  Don’t strip Georgetown of the name “Catholic.”  They don’t care if you do that.  That is OUR college.  My Catholic ancestors bought and paid for it through blood, sweat and tears.  Don’t give it away to the enemy!  Get rid of the traitors within.  Hire only faculty and professors of moral integrity.  God will provide if we seek.  I have 5 children and need MY GOOD CATHOLIC COLLEGE.

If the Bishops cannot resurrect this college and rid itself of the traitors, I guess you can say this is how the chips fall when you let something go bad for too long, without correction.  Just a shame to see it go.  It has a good name only because of its Jesuit founders, not these fools.

Why is anyone still surprised that a college “in the Jesuit tradition” would take such a step. Fr. Martin SJ of the Jesuit amgazine AMERICA has already distanced himself from the position of the USCCB. The Jesuits are under the supervision of only themselves.
For the great Catholic tradition of Georgetown [and Fordham], it was financed by the sale - the sale, not the freeing - of colored people called slaves, who were “owned” by the Jesuits in Maryland.

If u read the GU mission statement nowhere in it does it mention they will uphold catholic teaching i wonder how many times it has bee revised! Seems to me if u are going to tout u r a catholic institution u should at least have the word catholic somewhere in there go to their website

As a Georgetown alum, with four other siblings who also went to GU, and with a father who was on the Board of Trustees and who received the highest award an alum can receive, I can honestly say that I am not surprised.  I am disheartened, but not surprised.  I stopped supporting my alma mater when I attended my younger brother’s graduation and people were flying balloons with “GU Choice” stamped on them.  This is not what the wonderful Jesuits who founded this university intended.  The only way this behavior will stop is when the people who support this university (the donors) will stop giving.  That is what my father did, and that is what I did.  I have sent the Cardinal Newman Society petition to all of my fellow alumni, and I hope that they, too, will vote with their wallets the next time a request comes from the Alumni Association.

Here is a list of ppl and biz that suppirt GU

Lombardi Gala | November 5, 2011

Corporate and Individual Sponsors
This event is made possible in part by our generous sponsors. 
PRESENTING PHILANTRHOPIST - $50,000

PREMIER PHILANTHROPIST – $25,000 
Marc and MaryBeth DeLuca
Dewey & Leboeuf
Integral Nuclear Associates
MedStar Health
Potter Family/Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher
Sodexo

PROGRAM SPONSOR - $12,500
BMO Capital Markets
LF Jennings

BENEFACTOR - $10,000
American Real Estate Partners
Carden Communications
Cassidy Turley
First Potomac Realty 
The Donohue Family Foundation
Laurie and Pierre Lapeyre
Legacy
Jeanne Weaver Ruesch
Paul and Randi Schweitzer/Studley

SPONSOR - $5000
Aquagy/Watersolv, Inc.
Arent Fox
Baker Tilly
Bass, Berry & Sims PLC
Baupost Group
BB&T Wealth Management
Berk, Peter
BlackRock
Blisk Financial Group
BP America
Building Hope
Calibre CPA Group, PLLC
CBRE
The Honorable Carol T. Crawford and Mr. Ronald Crawford
Corstone
Cushman & Wakefield
Diana L. Erbsen and the Posner-Wallace Foundation
Dominion Business Solutions
Dominion Mechanical
Craig & Kathy Estey, UGL Services
The Evans Company
FosterSoft
Morton and Norma Lee Funger
The Honorable and Mrs. Arthur J. Gajarsa
Georgetown University Hospital
Georgetown University Hospital - Department of Surgery
Georgetown University Hospital - Department of Radiology
Georgetown University Hospital - Transplant Unit
Giant Foods
Gill, Lisa
GXS
Holland & Knight
Host Hotels & Resorts
K&L Gates
Jorge Kfoury
Landow, Nathan
Leonsis, Ted 
Malinowski, Walter
PGA Tour
Kim Price and Robin Mudge
Red Coats
Republic Title
Retirement Planners and Administrators
Gene Samburg
Vic and Biani Seested
Shepard, Elizabeth
Smith, De and Karen
Stephen G. Yeonas Company
Towers Watson
ULLICO
US Chamber Institute for Legal Reform
United States Steel Corporation

PATRON - $2000
Akridge
William R. Berkley
Brookfield Office Properties
Bundy Development Corp
Continental Janitorial Services
COPT
Mr. and Mrs. John C. Donnelly
Dr. Irma and Mr. Richard Frank
Hitt Contracting
Hogan Lovells
Diane and Victor Hoskins
Jones Lang LaSalle
KCS Landscape Management
Ellen and Jim Myerberg
Novartis
Resource Real Estate
Shulman Rogers Gandal Pordy
Susan Fisher Sterling and Scott A. Sterling
Velsor Properties
Veneble
Willig, Williams + Davidson
Dario Zucchi
http://www2.georgetown.edu/gumc/lombardi/gala/corporatesponsors/

Well, as Mathilde said, we should speak with our wallets. But beyond that, does the Church have some kind of legal right to the name “Catholic”? Just wondering how you would go about enforcing that.

Christopher Michael and merino:.  Adolf Hitler was not a COMMUNIST.  He was. FASCIST.

merino:  Sandra Fluke is Protestant not Catholic.  Both of you need to get your facts straight.

The president of this anti-catholic college should be fired, along with all of those that follow him. Many years ago we had the wonderful Baltimore Catechism, that the Bishops threw out because it was too difficult for them to understand; but now, it seems that EVERY Catholic should not have this Catechism, but also to study it once again and what a better place to start, than with this horrible college and all of it’s staff, including Miss Fluke. Someone said that Card. Wuerl has sent a letter to the president and I hope that this is true; if not, than it is time for Card. Wuerl to be put on leave in order to study said Catechism. By the way, Mrs. Sebelius IS NOT PRO-CHOICE, she is anti-choice, anti-life, anti-Catholic and anti-God; not a thing ‘pro’ about her.  GOD WILL NOT BE MOCKED and the price to pay for those that are doing it will be DEATH in the pits of hell.  +JMJ+

I couldn’t read through all the mudslinging comments that didn’t make sense to me.  All I can say is I would NEVER send my kids to that school.  If I pay the big bucks for a Catholic University it better be Catholic!  I would rather send my kids to public school where they know they will be taught anti-christian beliefs and will have to defend their faith than to a Catholic school where they learn the faith incorrectly and come out confused.  It’s shameful—really shameful.

ceci:  I never said Sandra Fluke was a Catholic, sorry you misread.  My point being, who cares what Sandra Fluke says ... this is a CATHOLIC INSTITUTION.  She is a Protestant and her laws aren’t ours.  She chose the wrong college for her hoin’ agenda.  We consider fornication a mortal sin and we are not going to condone or enable it by purchasing birth control for her or anyone else who “needs to ho.”  It’s not on our menu.  This is a Jesuit, Catholic college!!!!  Get it now?  We Catholics need to figure this out too and either abide by it’s non-fornicating laws or find another church and stop confusing the innocent, like my children.  I say this because most in college aren’t married.  The married, well, they need to learn and abide by the church’s laws also.

Wow!  Kathleen Sebelius is “Catholic” also?  I wasn’t aware.  This is heinous now.  She is very bold to go up against the Pope and Bishops.  I say defrock her and her supporters of the name “Catholic,” but not Georgetown.  Georgetown did nothing to deserve her and doesn’t deserve to have it name removed.  Again, it’s name came from those who deeply respected the Pope and Bishops and fought for morals.  Contraception encourages fornication in colleges where most are not married.  Shame on Sebellius.  How confusing for my children.  I want them to go to a Catholic college, I cannot risk their souls to a Catholic college feeding them non-Catholic venom.  BRING BACK THE INTEGRITY GEORGETOWN WAS BUILT ON BISHOPS.  WE ARE ROOTING FOR YOU.  WE NEED YOU!!!!

I completely agree with the poster who said I would rather send my children to a public institution. It is always easier to stand firm in front of blatant ignorance than fight against half truths in sn in name only university. truly impossible to allow them to go to any catholic institution. Catholics have been too poorly catechized for too many generations now.

Everyone except those who run the now secular school “Georgetown” 
CINO—(Catholic In Name Only)seem to know their speaker is not representative of the Catholic teaching.  Honoring our foes may seem magnaminous and represent freedonm of speech or an open mind .However the open mind would be better opened at the other end . They should not be allowing them within the select group that seeks to instruct and send forth their graduates with words of wisdom.  .

dumb de dumb dumb

Speaking from outside of your great country, with its many problems, GU should be stripped of its Catholic (not catholic)title.  But that won’t happen because the vast majority of your bishops are afraid of not being a-political.

As an agnostic atheist, I’m all for Georgetown losing affiliation with any religion that is intolerant of other human beings.  The outrage lies in the tone of this article and the comments within.  A complete disgrace if you ask me.  Thank you for showing tolerance Georgetown!  Tolerance is contagious.

Tolerance as conceived by the current secular zeitgeist is a false virtue.

P.S. And for a relevant article on tolerance, see Kilpatrick’s article here: http://www.leaderu.com/ftissues/ft9902/articles/kilpatrick.html
“If the therapeutic culture is our enemy, it appears rather a tame one. After all, it speaks the language of compassion, sensitivity, and tolerance. But any culture that has no use for truth is ultimately a dangerous culture. If there is no meaning outside the self, there is no meaning. And if there is no meaning, there is no morality. As Dostoevsky famously warned, without God everything is permissible—and the therapeutic culture has no God. It is well on the way to dismantling the moral structure of society through semi–sincere appeals to tolerance, compassion, and diversity. There is no reason to think it will put limits on what is morally permissible. There is, in the end, not a dime’s worth of difference between the nihilism of the therapeutic culture and the nihilism of a Nietzsche—except that the therapeutic culture lacks Nietzsche’s sense of the tragic nature of life.”

A secular zeitgeist that’s been around since the dawn of man, I might add.

God doesn’t have a patent on morality.  It’s funny how your superiors have tricked you into believing that kindness without God is evil.  This way of thought is proof of the theory of evolution.  The fact that humans haven’t yet evolved past requiring a fairy tale to tell them not to be a dick to others.  One day, man will take the theistic training wheels off morality.  Sooner than later I hope.

Nick,  Me thinks thou does’t protest too much !!

For all those folks who cannot see why it is a scandal to have Sebelius as an honored speaker at Georgetown, maybe this translation will help:

A respected and established university founded and run by the Universal Vegans has decided to honor a notorious flesh-eater, we’ll call her B.S., by inviting her to give a commencement address to the graduating students. Now, the UVs long previously have forbidden any flesh-eaters from being honored at any of their universities. But B.S. is not even your ordinary, everyday eater of meat. No, indeed, she is a high-level meat-eating activist who has committed her life to the cause of eating meat, and has built her political career on support and donations from the meat industry. B.S. is in the back pocket of those who run the nation’s slaughterhouses.

In fact, B.S., a former governor and now a member of the U.S. President’s Cabinet, once hosted a private party at the governor’s mansion, honoring the nation’s most notable butcher and his entire slaughterhouse staff. She wanted to thank him for his important work and for his very large campaign contributions. Another well-known butcher joined the celebration that night. (These particular men are on record for slaughtering the animals in the most cruel and inhumane way, earning the scorn of even the average American meat-eater.)

In addition to her extreme support and advocacy for the nation’s slaughterhouse industry, B.S. recently promulgated a national mandate which would require all vegans and vegan institutions to provide fleshy meat to all employees, for free. When the expected objections came from the vegans, she simply decided to force the vegans to pay the local deli directly to provide the free meat (from hot dogs to filet mignon—the employees’ choice). If the vegans refused to pay up and provide the funds for meat, they would be fined or jailed. Or, they would be forced to close their businesses, charities and institutions, many of which had stood for longer than the United States herself.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that B.S. identifies as a vegan.

And the administration of the university that invited her to give the commencement address also identifies as vegan.

So, after this analogy, is anyone out there still unsure why this issue of Kathleeen Sebelius being honored at Georgetown is a scandal?

How can you possible call it Catholic Georgetown? Outrageous is too mild.

Vario, “tolerance” always begs the far larger question of “tolerance of what, exactly?”  Furthermore, tolerance does not necessarily entail acceptance or approval, either (as you know full well yourself, since your “tolerance” finds all but Catholic beliefs acceptable or to be tolerated at a Catholic university.  What a typical example of the hypocritical intolerance of today’s “tolerance”).  As for Georgetown losing affiliation with any religion—or set of beliefs—that is intolerant of other human beings, I’m in agreement:  let Georgetown disassociate itself from any full embrace of secular humanism that compromises its Catholic identity by adopting and enforcing “Ex Corde Ecclesiae” if it hasn’t already done so.  Is secular humanism to be tolerated and engaged?  Absolutely.  Are secular humanists and non-Catholics to be welcomed as human beings to be treated with respect and dignity?  Absolutely.  But that does not make it and its logical consequences wholly acceptable and necessary to adopt wholescale at a Catholic university.  If we do indeed believe that the Catholic Church possesses the fullness of the truth, then anything less than reinforcing that Catholic identity is to settle for something less than the truth, which is necessarily narrow-minded and limiting.  Once again, we are in agreement:  this is a disgrace.  As for everybody else who advocate not sending their kids to Catholic schools, I’m only half in agreement and half not:  I know where you’re coming from.  The flipside, however, is how we live the faith ourselves and impart that to our children by example.  How much do we encourage them to question the faith and dig deeper in a culture that claims to “question authority” (and aren’t professors who are insistently hostile to the Catholic faith an authority that needs questioning, too?)?  Questioning authority involves far more than whether or not we obey or have a problem with authority, but what we obey, whom we obey, and why.  If we believe in the God we profess to in the Creed, who is the energy of Being itself, then He can take our questions.

Wsquared, your point is well taken.  But the fact is that Catholicisim is losing ground everyday.  This decline is evident in that many Catholics feel a stronger sense of pressure from outside forces, much like the one in this article. A feeling that there’s an “attack” on freedom of religion is misinterpreted.  It’s not an attack, it’s a natural decline.  People are finding that religion doesn’t always have the answer. Technology has given us much more access to the answers we need.  And that includes development of a moral base.  It just so happens that devout Catholics interpret decline differently.  There isn’t some secular agenda being led by an atheist mastermind.  And during decline of a dogmatic institution, tension will always exist.  Interpreting this as hostility will not win a reversal of the decline, it’ll only accelerate it.  Georgetown may have started as a Catholic institution, but then so was my family 2 generations ago.

Vario, whether or not Catholicism is losing ground every day does not answer the question of whether or not it is true or false.  People not feeling or finding that religion has the answers anymore further begs the question of where in fact they look for answers and why.  Technology has in fact given us a lot of opportunities to seek answers.  But technology is in the end created, and the content that it conveys are another matter altogether.  Technology is not transcendent in the way that God is, and need not necessarily be opposed to His existence.  It therefore does not preclude any possibility that someone thinking at one time that technology provides more of an access to the answers we need will find that those answers are limited.  So if you’re looking for a moral base in it, it will still be highly limited and limiting.  Nobody, and certainly not I, ever said that there is some secularist agenda promoted by some atheist mastermind:  the rebellious cry of “Non Serviam! (so I’ll serve something according to my own tastes instead)” is as old as creation itself.  This is nothing new.  But the fact of the matter is that a secular-humanist mindset is in fact prevalent, in part due to the lure of technology, and that it should be a challenge that Catholics should be willing to meet, because authentic Catholicism—as opposed to the dumbed-down “lite” variety—actually can.  Technology is not an inherently bad or evil thing.  But turning it into a god is.  Turning anything less than God into a deity to be worshiped is in fact hostile:  it may not start out that way, but as it becomes entrenched and skews the way people think of their interests, it can and does become hostile when certain people think that they have too much to lose.  The challenge of the Church is to meet that hostility, in so far as it does exist (and let’s not kid ourselves here:  it does, in some quarters), but not with further hostility, but firmness and compassion while knowing what is non-negotiable.  And who said anything about the decline of a dogmatic institution, anyway (furthermore, it would seem that tension has always existed, decline, heyday, or no.  Christ already warned us that the world would only love its own, for it recognized Him not, and as it has always hated Him, it will hate us also.  So I’d say that the tension has been there from the beginning)?  If Catholics do indeed believe that the Church’s dogma is rooted and preserved through, with, and in Christ, who is consubstantial with the Father and the Holy Spirit, then that dogma is still true, and the Truth still exists, regardless of whether anyone believes it or not.  The existence of the Truth is not contingent upon how many people are able to stomach it.

Pat, I wonder when someone will stand up and point out that the Jesuits are barely Catholic. Jesuit schools are notoriously permissive. I went to a Jesuit high school in Boston and my homeroom teacher, a Jesuit, used to tell us every Friday for an entire year: “Have a good weekend and remember to use a condom!”

I visited friends Boston College and Holy Cross multiples times and the only “catholic” thing about them was that you had to go off campus to get condoms. Pot, beer, acid, and mushrooms were everywhere in the dorms. The drug use and premarital sex were open secrets to the out-of-touch, doddering old priests who lived on campus.

The worst was last year I went to visit a relative at Boston College to find out that the administration was removing the crucifixes from the classrooms to avoid offending certain professors.

Even worse: This relative was at St. John’s semniary (right next to BC campus) and those in charge of the seminary had removed the crucifixes from one of the dining rooms and some of the hallways for the same reason…they didn’t want crucifixes…in a SEMINARY!

Unfortunately, the Cardinal of Boston Sean O’Malley seems content to let this happen.

May 5th: I’m not surprised.  Catholics in public Office, Catholic Universities and Institutions - some of them - have long defied the Bishops. Now they are becoming more aggressive about it.  The sad thing is that honoring anti-life institutions or people just affirms them in their sin and keeps closed the door to conversion of heart.  The title “Catholic” should be removed from any Institution that so blatantly and defiantly opposes Catholic teaching. Kathleen Sebelius is so aggressive in her abortion agenda that her Bishop told her not to present herself for Holy Communion until she had publicly repented…I pray for her every single day.

And don’t forget, Kathleen Sebelius is not merely pro-choice, she supported and befriended George Tiller nicknamed the baby killer who would terminate the life of an unborn baby at 9 months gestation…Kathleen Sebelius needs our prayers, as do those who defy the Church and urge others to do so by claiming they are right and the Church is old fashioned and wrong. It is not by chance that Obama has surrounded himself by Catholics like Pelosi, Biden and Sebelius who stand against the Church.

Who said that Mark Shea is homosexual?  You better have facts before you slander someone like that!!!

Are we really surprise?  As a graduate of Santa Clara U (Jesuit), the school invited Karla LeVey to speak.  She is the daughter of Anton LeVey (founder of the church of Satan).  Of course, such speakers are in the Jesuit tradition of seeking to educate the “whole” man.  Liberal idiots.

“Georgetown, has invited” is a personification. Some *people* who have the power to select “appropriate” speakers selected this modernist creature. Those *people* must be held accountable. However, they may not even be Catholic. Donors should be encouraged to withhold funds until the situation is corrected.

The poster alluding to Mark Shea as
being gay is clearly mistaken. I know
Mark Shea personally, have had lunch
with him, his wife and two sons. Please
check your facts before posting such slander.
I can only assume it’s a case of mistaken identity.

CeCi:  Hitler was a National Socialist. Mussolini was the Fascist.  You need to get your facts together as well.

Matthew’s Gospel, Chapter 15: 15 - 18:  “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault…... and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and tax collector.”  In issues of Church governance, I can understand the reluctance to call out anathemas and publicly to excommunicate public offenders without first chastising privately, and then privately with “two or three witnesses” (verse 16).  As a Baby Boomer suffering these many years hoping for the righteous re-assertion of the Church’s prerogative to treat public offenders as “Gentiles” (publicly excommunicated), it has become my belief that the Popes and many of the Bishops have lived in fear of an American “Reformation,” in which the Catholic Church in America would rebel openly and break from Rome formally.  (The open rebellion in Seattle, and recently in Austria, by priests, has given flesh to this fear.)

Nonetheless, it has also occurred to me that the “governors” of the Church have been far too guilty of the sin of omission when it comes to instructing the faithful by anathematizing and publicly excommunicating those persons who give scandal by their actions, such as at Georgetown.  We have reached the “tipping point” long ago when the risk of overt schism is far outweighed by the risk of covert schism.  The latter is what happens when the Georgetowns of the world are allowed to “get away with it,” over and over and over.  In these instances, the gates of hell do prevail, and great scandal is given.  The Church’s efficacy to give witnessed is enormously degraded by sins of omission—failing to treat these perpetrators as “Gentiles”!!

Well, here’s the Holy Father’s call, earlier today, for American Catholic Universities to reform, comply with Church teaching, and submit themselves to the Bishops. Of course, the supposedly Catholic G-town will flaunt even the Pope.
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1201856.htm

Don, do you wish submission to a “title” of bishop—or only those worthy of respect?  I will not submit to anything Cardinal Bernard Law has to say.  Ever.

New Observer: I guess I’ll side with the Holy Father.  How about you?

Left wing Catholicism is probably dying faster than people realize, and certainly faster than the mainstream media would like to admit.
.
According to a recent Gallup Poll, Catholics are evenly divided between Romney and Obama 46%-46%. However, a further analysis of the poll shows a different story. Non-Hispanic Catholics back Romney by a wide margin, while Hispanic Catholics overwhelmingly support Obama. The margin is probably even larger if you exclude Republican leaning Cuban Americans.
.
But Hispanic Catholics are not liberal or leftist. Polls show that they are quite conservative in their views. So why are they voting Democratic? Probably because the Republicans have been a bit too cozy to anti-Hispanic (and anti-Catholic) Know Nothing groups.
.
In other words, Hispanic Catholics are voting Democratic due to immigration and perhaps cultural reasons, while non-Hispanic Catholics are voting Republican because they are generally politically conservative.
.
The idea that there is this great number of suppressed liberal Catholics is simply false. Most of those have left the Church, their children have left the Church, or they have simply been outbred by the more conservative Catholics.

WE BELIEVERS, DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE BEHAVIOUR OF SOME SO CALLED CATHOLIC INSTITUTIONS WHICH ARE IN LOVE WITH ANTI CATHOLIC POLITICIANS. SHOULD OUR CATHOLIC TEACHINGS ESPECIALLY ABOUT ABORTION, FIDELITY, HOMOSEXUALITY, GAY MARRIAGE, ANIMALCOMPANIONSHIP ETC ETC BE BASED ON POPULAR VOTES ?THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS AND THE TRADITIONS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH HAVE TO BE RESPECTED AND OBEYED BY US. THOSE WHO DO NOT BELIEVE IN THEM ARE FREE TO LEAVE.  WHY NOT THESE SO CALLED CATHOLIC INSTITUTIONS AND THE REBELLIOUS PRIESTS AND INTELLECTUALS LEAVE THE CHURCH AND ESTABLISH ANOTHER ORGANIZATION OF THEIR LIKING ?

This behavior is un-acceptable! Withdraw all funding and close the doors. Let those who profess to be believers start there own University. They have no funds except what we the faithful who believe in the truth Fund them. Cut off the money NOW !!!!!! These people are not catholics but have infiltrated the church to destroy her. It’s Apostasy. Jesus says, He is the Way, the Truth, and the Light. What these people are doing is pure Satanic Evil. We can not allow this to continue.Either we stand for the Truth and our Faith or we will all be destroyed by the Evil.There is no gray in this matter.

For those non-american, like me, although catholic, it seems like you’re forgetting a very important fact, Pat: Pope Benedict XVI was prohibited of delivering the inaugural speech at UniverisIty of Rome - Sapienza, some years ago and it was considered a scandal, for all of us catholics and educated people, because it was a proof of intolerance incompatible with an academic environment.
So, if Georgetown invites a representative of USA Government to deliver a speech (and we don’t know if the lady is going to talk about HHS mandate in a catholic environment or even it Georgetown staff have asked her deliberately not to talk about it), we can listen to her arguments. Asserting a mora balanced view, if Mrs. Sebelius talk about HHS mandate, some health care specialist from Georgetown could present the catholic view and instruct the students about it.
So, we need to be coherent here. If the Pope has the right to deliver a speech to University of Rome students, Mrs. Sebelius has the right to deliver a speech to Georgetown students.
And I truly believe the Pope himself with agree with that.
Sorry, Pat, but you’re over reacting here.

Another educated liberal view !

Since the first universites were founded in Bologna, Paris, and Oxford, religion has interfered with ‘academic freedom’. It continues to do so now. Scholars must be allowed to criticize, debate any philosophical and theological doctrine and ought not bear any restriction by church authority. Such scholarship continues to those invited to speak. The outrage on this forum is anti-intellectual and anti-science. Carl Sagan had it correct when he stated that religion from the time of the ‘ancients’ has held science back. The church need not change its medieval thought and may continue to preach its abominations from the pulpit. It is not allowed in a manifestation of intolerance to interfere with the civil rights of others. At such time the church enters the secular world with its hospitals, charities, and housing and is unwilling to convey individual right to contraceptives then it must get out of the secular business and turn those interests over to someone else.

Let me just clarify: I do not agree with Mrs. Sebelius positions, but I think it is possible to let her deliver a lecture at a catholic university. I think a university is a plural environment, where divergent opinions can be presented. As a Catholic institution, Georgetown has the duty of exposing also the catholic position, making that clear to cqrholic students. But remenber: we do not know what Mrs. Sevelius is going to talk and if that talk contradicts catholic values.
As I said before, if the Pope has the right to deliver a lecture at a secular University, a non-catholic (even if she thinks she’s catholic) can deliver a lecture at a Catholic University.
If we grant this right to the Pope, we need to grant the same right to secular speakers.

Sorry for the typos…

Vario: evolution is a myth and nothing but lies after lies. Please give us just one piece of evidence to show otherwise. After-all it has been just over 150 years when this stuff first came out and with all of the ‘experts’ ‘studying’ this, there surely must be something solid to come up with. Maybe the National Enquirer might have something for you.  Ana, if you would take time to listen to our Holy Fathers, both Blessed Pope John Paul and Pope Benedict, you would find out that they say NO to having people that are against or attacking the Teachings of the Church to be allowed to speak. You must be too young to remember when ‘President’ Obama was at what used to be Catholic: Notre Dame and how the Pro-lifers were thrown in jail thanks to ‘Father Jenkins’ and the only reason he went there was to divide and conquer the Catholics. +JMJ+

I find it difficult to express the feelings of disgust and disappointment that Georgetown University would depart from our cherished Catholic Faith in this manner. Just when the Catholic Church is experiencing a great revival and renewal and many hundreds of former Protestant Pastors and Ministers are coming home to the fullness of truth, our own Universities are losing their way.

Ana - The issue is the symbolism of this particular invitation at this particular time.  It cannot be interpreted as anything other than a specific, deliberate affront to the US Bishops and our Holy Father who supports them in their defense of both Catholic moral doctrine and religious liberty.  It’s like blatantly giving the middle finger to the US Bishops and the Pope. That’s fine for a secular university, but for a “Catholic” one there should be repercussions.  Its time for people to wake up and stop paying $60K a year to send their kids to institutions like Georgetown that not only sow confusion but promote blatant anti-Catholic teaching.  It is truly a scandal.  People would be better off sending their money and their kids to a secular state school than to this heretical farce of a “Catholic” institution.  Georgetown is definitely not the only one, but it has certainly become one of the worst. Perhaps it is a sign that one of the last orthodox theologians at Georgetown finally threw up his hands and left for another university this year because he was made to feel so unwelcome by the den of dissenters that comprise Georgetown’s faculty.  Isnt it interesting that Georgetown is known more for its Islamic Studies program, funded by Saudi sheiks, than for its Catholic Studies program?

Perhaps it is time for the Church to cull the herd and rid ourselves of these schools who decry the label “catholic” only to draw attention to their latest acts of pandering to a society which stands in full force against our core values.

@JMJ @Don I’m not American and probably there is a political context, which I’m not aware of, that makes that invitation seem so inapropriate. Secularization of catholic universities is something we could find in other countries as well. Here in Brazil, our catholics universities look like secular ones. There’s an expression here, where catholicism is the main religion, denoting some kind of lack of commitment: non-practIcing catholic. It’s someone who is baptized, but don’t go to mass on Sundays or don’t go to confession regularly (and don’t use contraception natural methods). I know it’s very different in USA, where catholic community seems more engaged and well instructed in catholic doctrine.
By the way, I’m loving this website. Learning a lot. (I didn’t like National Catholic Reporter approach to the LCWR situation. )

OK Bob I stand corrected. You’re right. Hitler was a Nazi, Mussolini was a Fascist and Joe Stalin was a Communist.

Is Georgetown staffed by Jesuits ? Notre Dame and most all other Catholic colleges as well? Advise please, someone with that knowledge. Thank you.

For a Catholic university to invite a person who mocks our Catholic Church is demonic and destructive of our God. Shame on this so called University who thinks what they choose——-may God have mercy on the ones who said yes to invite this speaker.  I choose God!!!!!

Ana is right.  Why shouldn’t she be allowed to speak.  We live in a plural society with diverse viewpoints, and exposure to them is vital to the development of our own personal view of the world.  What’s everyone afraid of?  That she will poison the minds of (highly intelligent, this is Georgetown after all) college students.  Aren’t religious institutions supposed to foster an INCLUSIVE, spiritually uplifting environment?  I would say so.  The university’s mission and the catholic faith aren’t compromised by this invitation as some would suggest.  I would suggest to those who are yelling and stomping their feet about this that you instead extend your hand to those who disagree with you and try to persuade them with respect and a positive example, rather than trying to shout them down and silence them.

@Dennis, It’s likely most Catholics are not afraid of these speakers.  What is troublesome to many is that these Catholic universities give these people a “forum” to advocate and thus promote and gain legitimacy for the positions they hold.  While our elitist Jesuit brethren bask in the comfort of their mission to “educate the whole man” —the media (largely unchurched) only see that Catholics are not unified with the USCCB regarding the contraceptive mandate because their institutions seem to embrace such guest speakers.  It is no wonder non Catholics are confounded and think American Catholics are all over the map with their thinking.  Consider that some Priests and Bishops themselves “enjoy” glad handing with the power elite.  In my own diocese, it seems the quest for more $$$ has no limit.  The endless calendar dates of fancy dinners, banquets and fundraisers all include the high society of local movers & shakers.  The Bishops have authority only over diocesan priests —not individual religious orders like the Jesuits, Dominicans, Franciscans, etc.  Georgetown also employs Islamic professors.  Isn’t that wonderful?  No doubt in the interest of promoting cultural “diversity.”  You would not find this behavior tolerated at, say, Baylor, Wheaton, Liberty, BIOLA or Oral Roberts and many other Christian colleges.  No, it’s not that Catholics are afraid of those with a contrary opinion, many Catholics are just fed up with Catholic leaders and institutions who keep compromising biblical principles.  As a child, we respected the man wearing a collar.  Now, we want to know the integrity of the man who is wearing it.

Whew! That’s too many comments to read much less scroll through. This may be perceived as a novel idea, but, praying instead of commenting will prove more fruitful in the long-run. Just saying:)

Obviously, they invited Paul Ryan because they were planning on Sebelius being the Commencement Speaker.  It was a set-up.  No doubt this whole thing was coordinated with the White House.  And why not?  The whole Notre Dame thing worked like a charm.  If Georgetown identifies more as a propaganda tool for the Obama White House, than as a Catholic University, then I say take their Catholic identity away.  Enough is enough.

Is Georgetown U. on the list of 20 ‘credible’ Catholic colleges and universities per the Cardinal Newman Society?  If so, will they be correcting their list?
Why isn’t The Saint Joseph’s Foundation, Texas, the organization of ‘canonist lawyers’ defending the students?  If youth are not their (and our) sacred trust than who is?  Apostle Paul said if you do not protect your own you are worse than an infidel.  Which one of revised version of canon laws does it state if the bishops refuse to be honorable the people of God should PETITION for justice?  Since when does Holy Mother Church expect the laity to correct churchmen?  Deception is not the character of Holy Mother Church.

Dennis -

This is not about being open to hearing opposing points of view.  This is about something entirely different. This is about a supposedly Catholic university intentionally thumbing it’s nose at the US Bishops (and by extent ion, the Pope, the Church and all orthodox Catholics) by making a political statement through her invitation. 

G’town, like many other Carholic universities, has been engulfed by a faculty and administration in open opposition to Rome, the Magisterium, and the Bishops. In fact, they take pride in hiring theology professrs that promote strange and esoteric ideas of what Catholicism should be rather than what the Church actually teaches - so much so that virtually all professors with a traditional view have left the university (or have been run off).

Susan, Notre Dame is Holy Cross fathers, as is Stonehill College. Georgetown is Jesuit, Providence College is the sole Dominican college. It is no ‘outrage’ that Kathleen Sebelius speaks at Georgetown.  What would be an outrage would be if she would not be allowed to speak. What is an equal outrage are the many posters who use such words as ‘demonic’, virulent anti-catholic etc. Georgetown and othe Jesuit universities are not being secularized, they are in a secular world, realizing its place in a diverse culture, a pluralistic society. What is wished for in this blog a return to the thousand years 500 to 1500 CE, largely ruled by the Roman church inwhich no advancements were know to science.  A return to ‘static dogma’ as Natural Law, unchanging unyeilding…inwhich Aristotles teaching was the static dogma, whereas true science ‘is continually changing and challenging old assumptions’.  There can be no growth and no change without intellectual dissent. Shall we allow the ‘non-thinking mindlessly obedient’ who are knuckled under foist the neo Dark Ages upon us. “Had Xtianity not interrupted the intellectual advance of the Ancients and put the progress of science on hold for a thousand years, the Scientific Revolution might have occurred a thousand years earlier.”
It is equally important, despite disingenuous present attitudes, Paul VI stacked the commission reviewing birth control at Vatican II with a combination of 16 Cardinals and bishops.  That commission voted not only to relax church restrictions on artificial birth control, but to remove them entirely.  So much for birth control as an ‘intrinsic evil’, and so much for the absurd rebellion against the secretary of HHS, who is ‘promoting the General Welfare’ as is her mandate.

Don, the bishops are responsible for the ‘schools’ in their diocese.  These churchmen have a grave responsibility to clean house or they are deceivers.  Cardinal Newman Society also gives a false sense of protecting parents and students in where is there to be a so-called Catholic education.  Once again, men in The St. Joseph Foundation need to get out of their comfort zone.  Who can define their incapacity to speak?

The early martyrs did not die for the liberty of K. Sebelius to speak at a claimed Catholic university.  Allowing her to speak places on the same level truth and error, faith and heresy, the True Faith of Jesus Christ and any human institution whosoever.  It leads finally to the sad consequences of indifferentism in religious matters and eventually to atheism.  Pontiffs have spoken:  “What does not correspond to the truth and to the moral law does not objectively have any right to existence, or to propaganda, or to action.”

Joe, kindly address which matyrs you call upon.  There numbers were legion and slaughtered for a myriad of reasons.  Preceding and following the Council of Chalcedon 451 CE more Xtians were killed by Xtians than the Romans ever did.  Were these all matyrs. Were they spouting the same dogna…nay they were not. For any word disagreement, killing occurs, and these include patriarchs, popes, saints, or your fond remembrance; heretics. Is this the period of religious intolerance you prefer…or the spirit of intolerance presently persisting.

Walter Rogers, you said “There can be no growth and no change without intellectual dissent.”  Wholeheartedly agreed.  Put it this way:  the Church, in always speaking Truth to power, always therefore dissents against the staid and rigid, self-justifying orthodoxy of selfishness and “Non Serviam! (actually, “non serviam!” is rather a fancy way of saying “I WANNIT!” and “it’s all about Me, Me, Me” now isn’t it?)”  Indeed, do let’s talk “non-thinking, mindless obedience,” shall we?  ...especially given the usual anti-Catholic dogma (a lot of it the usual Protestant anti-Catholic blah blah blah) you’ve spouted throughout your entire post, all of which seems “unquestionable” to you (to give you just a hint, one wonders why, if the Church is so anti-science, they even developed the engineering and technology to create the cathedrals, and one wonders why the heck they even bothered with the creation of the university.  Given that Catholicism, at least, sees no conflict between faith and reason, given that the Church sees the two working together as absolutely essential, lest either faith or reason run off the rails if separated out from the other, you have a very strange view of the Catholic Church and of authentic Christian belief).  The more important question is not whether dissent or not exists, but dissent against what and why, and what it affords us in terms of broadening and deepening our horizons.  So you can dissent all you want, but the Church also reserves the right to call “B.S.” and give reasons why—namely that the dissent in question tends to dumb things down.  It seems that dissenters almost invariably play the game of “shut up, they said!”:  they’re allowed to promote their views, but the Church is supposed to sit by and shut up, else she’s being “oppressive.”  As for Humanae Vitae, whatever Bishops and Cardinals say, the Pope has the final say after much reflection and prayer.  If indeed they were pushing to relax Church restrictions on birth control, it does not necessarily follow at all that the Church did not see it as an intrinsic evil.  As with all technology, human beings can get blindsided by “ooh, shiny!”  Happens all the time.  But the Pope said, “woah, hold up!”  If you read the introduction to HV, you sense a tone of “okay, these are your findings.  But consider this…”  He has a right to voice his objections and concerns based on that reflection.  Furthermore, everything that he predicted in HV has come to pass.  You talk a whole lot about the “non-thinking, mindlessly obedient”  Well, why should Paul VI or any Catholic, for that matter, non-thinkingly and mindlessly obey the orthodoxy of modern progressivism?

Walter Rogers: 1. You need to re-learn the history of the middle ages; clearly you were misled. The Church saved Western Civilization, preserved the writings and culture of the Greeks and Romans, and laid the foundations for the scientific advances of modernity. 2. It’s perfectly fitting that you use the revisionist “CE” (i.e., “Common Era”) designation recently foisted on the world by atheist academics who could no longer stomach using the designation “AD” (i.e. “Anno Domini” or “Year of Our Lord”). 3. You are clearly in blantant and open rebellion against Church teaching on contraception; on the other hand “rebellion” against the state that imposes its views on the Church is, in your mind, “absurd.”  I pray for you.

It’s time to clean house and shut down these places that call themselves Catholic yet flagrantly do things that fly in the face of the church. The religious orders should be removed from them and the religious standing stripped. They are not authentic places yet they lie to students and families behind a facade of Catholicism. They are an embarrassment to the Catholic church.

Joe - I honestly don’t know if what you say is accurate. Georgetown may see itself as independent of Cardinal Weurl, but that doesn’t mean they are not technically subject to his authority. Does anyone know the answer to this?

I know that G-town, like many supposedly “Catholic” universities, operates in blatant and open disregard of JPII’s Ex Corde Ecclesiae. In other words, they reject the Pope’s call for Catholic univiersities to actually be authentic Catholic voices in contrast with the (vastly more numerous) secular universities. They are consumed with the false notion that “academic freedom” requires them to give voice to dissent they have filled their academic ranks with dissenters. As a result, they sow dissonance and confusion among the faithful and give strength to the Church’s enemies.

Don, it was not the church which saved civilization or brought forth the Renaissance, it was the Muslims 700 to 1400 CE. Much of the great heritage of the Ancients was preserved and translated from Greek into Arabic. That is what paved the way to the Scientific Revolution. As WSquared correctly stated the church in fact built wonderous cathedrals, but in so its science limited.
Unfortunately, Islam floundered and once again religion stepped in an impeded the advance of science. The legacy of the church has been in step with the retarding of science;  Modernism of Pius X, loyalty oaths, birth control, stem cell research, banishing intellectuals, or any contray thought…these positions are anti-intellectual, anti-science making perfect foils for the resurrections of neo-know nothings. Science and religion are antithetical. Religion has never undergone peer review, testability, falsification, methodology and observation and reason. Science is continually presenting new data, challenging the old and moving forward.  Religion is static, unchanging dogma, stuck in the medieval world of the poor science of Aristotle, the unchanging Natural Law of Aquinas and philosophy of causes belying scientific methods of today.

Jesuitical - They really sold you a bill of goods at BC; you have been taught to loathe the Church and its beautiful role in the history of Western Civilization. You should read something like “How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization” by Thomas E. Woods, Jr. It’ll give you a different perspective.

Ah, Monday morning.  It’s a beautiful day in America.  We had the disgusting interview of (Catholic?) Joe Biden yesterday on NBC’s—Meet the Depressed in which he came out in support of gay marriage.  If you don’t think four more years of Obama-Biden have this in their sights you are living in Fantasyland.  We already have Eric Holder fighting to kill DOMA.  Where is the “Truth Squad” the USCCB should have ready to respond quickly?  In typical form, no doubt the USCCB will take time, study and contemplate the Biden interview with David Gregory (another Obama shill) and then we should see a “collective” statement issued by the Bishops in, say, 2015.  Increasingly, Catholic laity have more spine than the Bishops.

I’m all for healthy debate in a university setting, that is in fact what institutions of higher learning should be about. However, I think we can all agree that that’s not what this is. The Jesuits are bestowing an honor on KS by asking her to address their graduates, they’re not asking her to come and participate in an open dialogue on public policy. She’ll get to defend her position, but no one on the other side of the issue will get to defend theirs. That’s not a debate, that’s a lecture.

Thanks Sally!  They who will not uphold the True Faith have no right to a claimed Catholic platform.  She might have the ‘freedom’ to oppose truth, but she has not the divine right to smear what has been handed on by the Apostolic Church, nor the right to stir up more infidelities.  She gains the world and puts her soul and others at great risk.

“How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization” by Thomas E. Woods, Jr. It’ll give you a different perspective.

The book is worth reading.  We’ve lost our Catholic sense because these facts are hidden, smeared and tarnished in academia.  Is it on the forbidden list of books at BC?

Just as Jesus is a model of faithfulness to how to follow God so Judas was, unfortunately, a model of how to prostitute oneself and one’s associations for the honor and the short term benefits of the world. Unfortunately we are seeing persons and institutions choosing if they wish to be among the weeds or the wheat. And why is the Jesuit order losing so much in numbers? Is it becasues it has been so hard for their order to remove the filth from their own household and from institutions they choose to associate with?

Joe:  Your comment is correct.  Frankly, Sebeilius can believe and make her own choices.  It’s free country (at least for now).  Catholic institutions are our own worst enemy, however, when they afford Catholic? people like Sebelius, Pelosi, Sr. Keane, Biden, Leahy, Axelrod, Durbin, all the Kennedy’s and their ilk a “platform” to voice their unCatholic viewpoints.  I do not object to their having their voices heard in the marketplace of ideas.  We should not be granting them a Catholic forum to express those ideas.  You know, a lot of people identify themselves as Catholic merely because they were raised Catholic in childhood—so that’s all they know.  The reality is that such “Catholics” may not have been in church for over 25 or 30 years. 

As a graduate of Boston College and a parent of a student at Georgetown, I am saddened and outraged at the invitation to have Sebelius speak at a commencement ceremony.  The comments of the Jesuitical graduate of
BC are sheer nonsense- straining just a little bit too much to sound soooo intellectual. Well, as the saying goes,
common sense is not so common after all….Georgetown is not a Catholic University-neither is BC for that matter and a host of others who call themselves Catholic.  It is plain to see by their actions that they are clearly something other than the title they refuse to give up.  How intellectually dishonest can you be???  Ignatius of Loyola must be doing somersaults at this point-he’d be the first one to tell our “Catholic” Jesuit Universities where to go…..

@Paula Gavin:  You are so right.  Just think how Protestants feel about Harvard which was founded as a Divinity School to train men for preaching the Gospel.  Now they produce ungodly liberal justices, Wall Street bankers and community organizers.

Don, you said, “I honestly don’t know if what you say is accurate. Georgetown may see itself as independent of Cardinal Weurl, but that doesn’t mean they are not technically subject to his authority. Does anyone know the answer to this?”

I’m quite certain that it is an encyclical(s) and I wish I could have the time to find the one(s) that state it as part of their obedience.  This is pertinent to this issue: 

DIVINI ILLIUS MAGISTRI,  ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PIUS XI Paragraph 85:  Let it be loudly proclaimed and well understood and recognized by all, that Catholics, no matter what their nationality, in agitating for Catholic schools for their children, are not mixing in party politics, but are engaged in a religious enterprise demanded by conscience. They do not intend to separate their children either from the body of the nation or its spirit, but to educate them in a perfect manner, most conducive to the prosperity of the nation. Indeed a good Catholic, precisely because of his Catholic principles, makes the better citizen, attached to his country, and loyally submissive to constituted civil authority in every legitimate form of government.

I emailed this the President DeGioia’s chief of staff a few minutes ago:

Dear Joseph,

Please pass this on to president DeGioia:

I suggest a name change from Georgetown to “Luthertown”, “Martintown”, or even better ... “Martytown” ... that way you can honestly claim a heretic as your patron ... your actions would make him proud.

Saint Ignatius most certainly would rip you guys a new one ... Whom do you love? ... God or the devil? .... your actions a skewed theology suggest you love the devil more than God or His Church.

Repent before it is too late!

In Spirit & Truth,
Mac Rojo, MSIT
Show Low, Arizona

Marc Rojo - Good!!!  Is this university on the Cardinal Newman list of credible ‘Catholic’ colleges do you know?  Just by G U’s mission statement it should not be for it is not solidly Catholic by their own claim.

This is no surprise to me. Catholic Universities have been over run by fanatic Left-wing activists for decades. This includes Bishops, priests, and nuns.  It’s a shame that our so-called shepherds are allowing the wolves to ravage the flock.

@vance:  Correct.  That’s why we need to no longer respect the “collar” alone, but the integrity and words of the person wearing the collar.  In the gospel Jesus warned of false teachers and wolves stealing truth.  Satan attacks from inside the Catholic church as well.  Whether it’s the liturgy, financial misappropriations, political views or the high rate of pedophile priests and Bishops who covered up, Satan is at the root.  We need to use the spiritual gift of discernment and “keep watch” on what these men say—and do.

The website for Georgetown states that it is the oldest Catholic and Jesuit institute of higher learning in the United States. For reasons ranging from a grave breach of communio to doctrine, the word “Catholic” ought to be removed from their self-identification by the appropriate Vatican dicastery after consulation andwith university and the Archdiocese of Washington, following due process.

Posted by Paul B.

Why is it that tens of thousands can sign a petition but Cardinal Wuerl can’t open his mouth. It is beyond shameful. He has been appointed to the CDF. Can someone explain to me how the Catholic Church works because I am stumped. Cardinal Dolan has a video and photos up on his blog describing a little radio chat he had w/ Matt Lauer. Alrighty then. Glad we got that cleared up.

What did you expect from Wuerl he punishes a faithful priest and lectures the faithful but won’t as much as even squeak at the atrocities being committed in his diocese on his watch.

The crosses of the faithful are heavy enough Archbishop could you get off them every once and a while and stretch your legs from time to time.

Archbishop Wuerl sure must have one plush bunker to ride this out in haven’t heard anything in quit some time from him.  Must time share with Archbishop Niederauer who seems to use it every time the name Pelosi is said near him.  He should be running out of food soon as the deed has been done and the crisis has passed.