Catholic Group Shunned

ASSOCIATED PRESS, Sept. 23 — Officials at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have refused to recognize or fund the UW Roman Catholic Foundation as a registered student organization.

The foundation’s application for recognition was rejected last month because only three of the foundation’s 12 board members are students. An aide to UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley said Sept. 23 that the group could be recognized if it restructures its board, the Associated Press reported.

In a move that the Roman Catholic Foundation said was initiated prior to the university’s decision to deny it application, the foundation has filed a complaint with the civil rights decision of the U.S. Department of Justice alleging that the university has discriminated against the Catholic student group.

Foundation spokesman Tim Kruse said, “To us, this is just the latest in a series of disingenuous attempts by the university to hide under policy and procedures that were only intended so that they could discriminate against a religious viewpoint.”

A ‘Great’ Start

SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE, Sept. 22 — What’s the best way to launch a new Catholic college? Pray the Rosary.

That’s the way students and instructors kicked off the first day of classes Sept. 21 at newly opened John Paul the Great Catholic University in San Diego.

According to the Union-Tribune, the new college has “a commitment to orthodox Church teachings and the mission of taking their faith into business and media — the two inaugural majors.”

Currently, classes are held at a local church and students are living in an apartment complex, with plans for a campus to be built eventually.

But Derry Connolly, John Paul the Great’s president, said the university’s bottom line won’t be the grandeur of its buildings or even the quality of its degrees.

Said Connolly, “I think the measure of our success is how well our students will know the Lord.”

Beers Wth the Bishop

GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY HATCHET, Sept. 25 — Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington was the featured speaker at a Sept. 21 Theology on Tap session at George Washington University.

Archbishop Wuerl, who spoke to a packed audience at the Alumni House on the university’s Washington campus, discussed Church teachings about stem-cell research, war and Islam with students.

University President Stephen Joel Trachtenberg attended the event and said it demonstrated that religion is flourishing on campus, the Hatchet reported.

“It is interesting that people think that this is a secular time,” Trachtenberg said. “But, if they take time to check it out, there is more participation in the different faiths.”

College Founder Lauded

GAINESVILLE TIMES, Sept. 21 — Southern Catholic College founder Tom Clements has been honored twice in recent weeks.

On Sept. 13, Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue issued a proclamation commending Clements’ contribution to founding the one-year-old institution, which is the state’s first residential Catholic college, according to the Georgia daily.

Clements was also named last month as the recipient of the National Catholic Educational Association’s St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Award. The award, the association’s highest honor, recognizes significant philanthropic or leadership contributions to Catholic education.