No Compromise

THE PILOT, Sept. 15 — In a speech Sept. 11 at Boston College, Archbishop Michael Miller said Catholic educational institutions should offer society a witness of “uncompromising Catholicity.”

Archbishop Miller, secretary of the Vatican Congregation for Catholic Education, gave a talk titled “Catholic Higher Education in the United States.”

Quoting extensively from documents and speeches by Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI, the archbishop said the crucial issue facing Catholic colleges and universities is “to assure the Catholicity of their identity and to strengthen it.”

Said Archbishop Miller, “The health of the American institutions matters a great deal to the Vatican.”

Prof Posts Cartoons

THE CHRONICLE HERALD, Sept. 25 — No one can accuse Saint Mary’s University philosophy professor Peter March of ducking controversy.

Less than two weeks after Muslims around the world reacted in outrage to remarks about Islam in a speech Pope Benedict XVI delivered in Bavaria, March put 12 cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad back on his office door, according to the Halifax, Nova Scotia newspaper.

March first posted the cartoons — which sparked an earlier round of Muslim rage after they were published last year by a Danish magazine — on his office door in February.

After some students protested and filed complaints, officials at the Catholic university ordered March to take the cartoons down.

March said he was frustrated by the university’s subsequent failure to rule on whether he had acted improperly.

“They haven’t found me guilty of anything,” March said, “and so I’m putting up the things that they ordered me to take down.”

‘Slimed’ by Pagans

THE NEW YORK SUN, Sept. 29 — Despite objections from the Catholic League and State University of New York trustees, student leaders at an upstate New York college went ahead with their plan to sponsor a one-day “Pagan Pride” festival in late September.

The Catholic League said the pagan festival at Adirondack Community College constituted anti-Christian hate speech.

State University of New York trustee Candace de Russy castigated the student leaders’ decision to fund the pagan event.

Said de Russy, “Standards for campus activities in my view cannot sink much lower into the slime.”

Tim Drake Honored

THE UNIVERSITY OF ST. THOMAS, Sept. 29 — Register Senior Writer Tim Drake has received the Senior Fellow Award from the Catholic Studies Program at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn.

The award is given to individuals who exhibit a clear sense of following God’s call in their profession.

Drake spoke to recipients of the Aquinas Student Fellowship after receiving the award. Aquinas scholarships are awarded to students who demonstrate an understanding of vocation and have integrated this understanding into their lives.

“For many people, an integrated life means balance, but I think it goes far beyond that,” Drake said in his acceptance speech. “For how can we truly give back to God when we consider all that he has given to us? Balance alone isn’t the answer. Until we surrender all that he has given to us back to him, we’ll find an integrated life very difficult.”