Banned in Bolivia

THE GUARDIAN, July 11 — Bolivia’s Education Minister, Feliz Patzi, has called for an end to religious education in the country’s public schools, drawing wide criticism.

Patzi said the newly elected leftist government aims to make education secular in Bolivia, where Catholicism has been the official religion since the country’s founding in 1825.

In an apparent contradiction of President Evo Morales, who pledged not to interfere in Catholic-run schools, Patzi said that private schools in Bolivia should teach the same courses as public ones in order to “decolonize education.’’

Both Morales and Patzi have come in for sharp criticism from Catholic leaders.

Christians Reinstated

CNN, July 11 — A federal appeals court has ruled that Southern Illinois University must reinstate The Christian Legal Society, a student group that had its status revoked over its requirement that members pledge to adhere to Christian beliefs.

The university had revoked the group’s registered status, meaning it no longer could use campus facilities or name and was ineligible for school funding.

The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the Christian group, which claimed the university’s decision violated its First Amendment rights to free speech and free exercise of religion.

Can’t Place a Name

THE NEWS JOURNAL, June 27 — A storm of protest prompted the board of trustees of Delaware’s Archmere Academy to reverse its plans to let a major donor with a connection to a murder cover-up put his family name on a new student center.

Developer Louis Capano, who pledged $1 million to the high school’s $6 million capital campaign, is a younger brother of Thomas Capano, an attorney who is serving a life sentence in prison for the murder of a former girlfriend in 1996.

Louis and another brother were sentenced to probation after cooperating with prosecutors by admitting they helped their brother cover up the crime.

The original plan to name the building after U.S. Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., was scrapped after Wilmington Bishop Michael Saltarelli opposed it because of Biden’s pro-abortion views.

Canadian Campus

LONDON FREE PRESS, July 4 — A three-year-old agreement between Fanshawe College in Ontario and D’Youville College in Buffalo, N.Y., has stalled while Ontario decides whether the province needs more schools for teachers.

The deal, in which D’Youville would train about 1,000 students at Fanshawe, is also being opposed by the University of Western Ontario and other Canadian schools.

Some 900 Canadian students are currently enrolled at the Buffalo campus founded by the Grey Nuns — about one-third of all the students enrolled in the teaching program.

New Board Member

CATHOLICONLINE, June 27 — Dominican University of Illinois President Donna Carroll has been appointed to serve as a consultant to the Bishops and Presidents Committee of the U.S. Catholic Conference for a three-year term beginning in June 2006.

The mission of the Bishops and Presidents Committee is to advance the Catholic character of Catholic colleges and universities.

At the helm since 1994, Donna Carroll is the first lay president of the institution founded by Dominican Sisters of Sinsinawa.