Pro-Abort Protested

USA RELIGIOUS NEWS, Feb. 5 — Pro-life advocates have expressed dismay over a prominent abortion supporter’s Feb. 2 appearance at Loyola University Law School in New Orleans. National Organization for Women President Kim Gandy spoke during a forum hosted by the law school. Loyola alumna Dorinda Bordlee, executive director of the Bioethics Defense Fund, said that school officials erred in approving Gandy’s appearance. Said Bordlee, “The invitation of Kim Gandy is akin to inviting [former Ku Klux Klan Imperial Wizard] David Duke to speak at a university without a competing viewpoint.”

Archbishop Miller in D.C.

INSIDEHIGHERED.COM, Feb. 5 — Catholic college leaders need an “authentic, humanistic” response to the market-driven pressures that confront their institutions, a senior Vatican official said Feb. 4. Speaking at the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities’ annual meeting in Washington, Archbishop Michael Miller, secretary of the Congregation for Catholic Education, said that consumerist attitudes and globalization pose a challenge to American colleges. “Our colleges and universities can either turn in on themselves in nationalistic races for prestige,” said the archbishop, “or they can forge bonds of solidarity.”

Cross Clash

ASSOCIATED PRESS, Feb. 3 — More than 10,000 people have signed an online petition protesting the removal of an 18-inch brass cross from the College of William and Mary’s historic Wren Chapel. School President Gene Nichol ordered the removal of the cross in October to make the chapel more “welcoming” to non-Christians. Vince Haley, the organizer of the online petition, said that Nichols’ decision was a mistake. Said Haley, “It reflects a view that religious symbols — religion and the public expression thereof — are somehow an obstacle for us to get along with one another.”