A Bishop's Rebuttal

PEORIA (Ill.) JOURNAL STAR, Feb. 4 — University of Notre Dame students apologized to Peoria Bishop Daniel Jenky and ran a rebuttal letter from him in the Feb. 2 issue of the school newspaper.

Bishop Jenky served as a priest at Notre Dame and in the Diocese of South Bend, Ind., for 25 years before becoming bishop of Peoria.

The newspaper, the Observer, ran a viewpoint piece the previous week by an alumnus that said Bishop Jenky and Notre Dame professor Father Richard McBrien covered up a priest's sexual misconduct years ago.

“Even for a publication as notoriously without standards as the Notre Dame Obser ver,” Bishop Jenky wrote, “printing unsubstantiated and libelous charges against someone's good name is simply unconscionable.”

Discrimination?

WORLDNETDAILY.COM, Feb. 5 — Philosophy professor James Tuttle was removed from his classes at Ohio's Lakeland Community College after complaints by a student that he expressed his Catholic religion too much in class.

Tuttle was threatened with dismissal in addition to being offered the last pick of classes for the upcoming semester and being subjected to teaching with a fellow professor as a monitor.

In March 2003 a student complained Tuttle mentioned his religious beliefs too often in class. Tuttle responded by adding “disclaimers” to his syllabi letting students know their professor was a “committed, Catholic Christian philosopher and theologian.”

Protest Succeeds

THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER, Feb. 6 — Students at the all-women Immaculata University outside Philadelphia staged the first protest the school has seen in 20 years. Apparently, it worked.

A demonstration against changes in the school's commencement ceremony succeeded Feb. 5 after administrators agreed to discuss the matter with students, the newspaper reported.

Students were upset the commencement exercises were being moved off campus and that the par t of the ceremony where undergrads receive academic hoods, a longtime school tradition, was cancelled.

Bibles in Schools?

JEWISH WORLD REVIEW, Feb. 9 — A campaign is under way in California to get Bibles into schools for the purpose of academic study.

The initiative, sponsored by 34-year-old Orange County lawyer Matt McLaughlin, aims to provide a Bible to ever y elementar y-school student in the state and will suggest to each school the books be used for the study of literature.

McLaughlin said he intentionally left out specific curricula in his proposal, leaving it to the schools to decide how the texts could be used.

The drive, the news site reported, could very well meet constitutional standards that allow the use of the Bible for instruction in such subjects as literature, history and archeology.

Generous Gifts

THE TOLEDO BLADE, Feb. 6 — Lourdes College in Sylvania, Ohio, has recently received two of the largest donations in the small school's history.

Last summer the college received $100,000 toward its $4 million endowment from the owners of an energy company, one of whose members said it strongly believes in Catholic education and wanted to promote it. Inspired by that gift, in December another $100,000 was donated to the school.

The college plans to increase its endowment $3 million to $5 million in the next few years.