Contraception  Century

COLLEGE OF THE HOLY CROSS, Feb. 9 — Leslie Woodcock Tentler will speak on “Catholics and Contraception in Twentieth-Century America” on Monday, Feb. 27, at 7:30 p.m. at the library on the college’s Worcester campus. Admission is free.

Tentler’s book, Catholics And Contraception: An American History (Cornell University Press, 2004), deals with how pastors and lay Catholics have responded to Church teachings on contraception over the course of a century.

The college said the talk will form part of a series of lectures exploring “the place of religious and spiritual life in a world that is sometimes at odds with faith, other times in search of it, and always at work reshaping it.”

No ‘Monologues’

PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE, Feb. 10 — Carlow University says it will no longer allow student performances of “The Vagina Monologues,” describing the show as inconsistent with the school’s mission and Catholic identity.

The Post-Gazette pointed out that performances of “Monologues,” a verbal collection of feminist attitudes about sex, “were held at Carlow the last two years while Sister Grace Ann Geibel was president.”

But Carlow’s first lay president, Mary Hines, hired last year, decided differently in the fall.

         

Bad Blood

CARDINAL NEWMAN SOCIETY, Feb. 8 — The Cardinal Newman Society has accused Catholic News Service of manufacturing news that puts the society in a bad light. The story in dispute, which ran early this month, was headlined “Cardinal Newman Society head says group operates within magisterium.”

 Society president Patrick Reilly said no one has accused his group of “setting up a teaching authority independent of the bishops,” as the story by Agostino Bono claims.

Bono introduced the subject with Reilly after the Newman president spoke on the campus of Georgetown University on issues relating to the society’s mission to strengthen Catholic identity at U.S. Catholic colleges and universities.

In a letter to the news service, Reilly noted its “appearance of objectivity” had been diminished because the service had initiated legal action “to force us to abandon use of our acronym ‘CNS.’”

Science Literacy

MARIAN COLLEGE, Feb. 8 — A new summer science program at Marian College in Indianapolis will bring together students and teachers to enhance teacher skills in the while sparking greater student interest in science.

Marian’s three-week summer program includes a teacher workshop, a practicum where teachers engage students using newly acquired skills, and a summer camp with field activities and trips.

The program will include biology, the life sciences, chemistry and physics.

New Center

VENTURA STAR, Feb. 4 — The Alliance Defense Fund’s new Center for Academic Freedom in Scottsdale will work to “end the unconstitutional persecution and coercive indoctrination of Christian students on public university campuses,” according to the center’s director, David French.

“We also desire to assist [university] officials in understanding what the Constitution really says about the free religious expression rights of students,” said French.

He said the Alliance Defense Fund interested in seeing public universities adopt sound policies that are in accord with the First Amendment.”