Newman Wins

THE WASHINGTON POST, April 21 — In direct response to a public complaint from the Cardinal Newman Society, Georgetown University said its “Women’s Center Web page is currently closed down while we update the content and links” in order to remove direct or indirect references to abortion services.

The action was a significant triumph for the Newman Society, which promotes stronger fidelity to Church teaching by Catholic colleges, and had identified Georgetown as one of a number of Catholic colleges with links to abortion providers listed on its website.

The story about the Washington university was covered by the Post as a “regional brief.”

Catholic Integrity

BULLETIN TODAY, April 19 — In an effort to “maintain the integrity of the university’s Catholic nature,” Minnesota’s University of St. Thomas will not allow faculty or staff who accompany students on trips to share a room with an unmarried partner, the university’s president announced April 19 in the college newspaper.

Father Dennis Dease said in a column for the campus publication that the new policy “is not about the private lives or consciences of faculty and staff.”

Rather, it is about St. Thomas “being what it purports to be: a Catholic university,” he wrote.

In two separate incidents in the past year, the university disallowed shared-room arrangements by unmarried faculty members.

Catholics De-Funded

MADISON CAPITAL TIMES, April 21 — The UW Roman Catholic Foundation, serving University of Wisconsin-Madison students, cannot receive student government funding for religious activities, announced University Chancellor John Wiley.

The Wisconsin daily reported that the chancellor’s cut, which is also expected to affect funding to other groups, would overrule a decision by the UW Student Judiciary that directed the student government to fund activities that include religious expression.

To that end, the student government approved a $147,000 budget for the Roman Catholic Foundation in February.

The student government is expected to formally object to Wiley’s decision, which could also be appealed within the university and may ultimately be decided by the civil courts.

Embargoed News

WASHINGTON POST, April 22 — The editor-in-chief of the student newspaper at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., says she had to struggle to keep the publication on display as the university hosted hundreds of prospective students who were visiting campus.

Editor Kate McGovern told the wire service that she was told that the paper, which featured a story about a rash of recent crimes in the campus vicinity, had been removed by the admissions office from a newspaper rack in their building.

The newspapers were later returned to their stand.

Enough Faith

THE SCOTSMAN, April 7 — A Church of Scotland minister and education leader has sparked fury by calling for no more faith schools to be set up in Scotland as a way to promote “diversity.”

Rev. Ewan Aitken stopped short of calling for Catholic schools to be abolished, claiming they were part of Scotland’s history and should be retained.

His comments were seen by campaigners for state-funded Muslim schools as targeted at them.

Scotland has 440 state-funded faith schools, of which 411 are Catholic, one is Jewish and 28 are administered by various Protestant denominations.