Columbia President Apologizes for Anti-Clerical Barb

ASSOCIATED PRESS, Sept. 25 — Columbia University President Lee Bollinger apologized for a snide remark made over the public-address system at halftime as his school's football team played longtime rival Fordham University on Sept. 21, according to Associated Press.

Columbia's marching band announcer made an allusion to recent sex scandals involving clergy, using a double entendre referring to altar boys.

Bollinger phoned Fordham President Father Joseph O’ Hare to say he regretted the student's remarks, which Fordham students, along with the Catholic League for Civil and Religious Rights, had called anti-Catholic.

The marching band member who wrote the script stood by it. Said Columbia student Andy Hao, “You should blame the priests that molest kids and degrade the name of the Church rather than blaming some college kid who wrote a football script.”

Davis Endorses Human Embryonic Research

REUTERS, Sept. 22 — California Gov. Gray Davis, a self-described Catholic, signed a bill Sept. 22 endorsing research using human embryos — destroying them, then mining them for “stem cells,” which could produce medical advances.

Such experiments were partly defunded by President Bush last year and are explicitly condemned by the Church.

“As the country ages, I believe more and more Americans will see the value stem cell research has in enhancing quality of the lives of the people they love,” said Davis, a vocal supporter of abortion.

Searching for God at Ground Zero

USA TODAY, Sept. 19 — Jesuit Father James Martin has a vow of poverty — and a graduate degree from the Wharton School of Business.

A former executive at General Electric, he has done pastoral work with homeless people, street gangs and Kenyan refugees. Now he is the associate editor of America magazine and an author. His latest book is Searching for God at Ground Zero (Sheed & Ward), a reflection on his own experiences working with rescue workers, volunteers and survivors at the site of America's greatest domestic terror.

Father Martin writes, “If any people still doubt the reality of evil in the world, let them come to the World Trade Center. And if any doubt the presence of God in the world, let them come to the World Trade Center.”

Prepare for World War IV

TOWNHALL.COM, Sept. 25 — Columnist Paul Craig Roberts, in last week's Townhall.com, pointed to the broader ambitions of some policy-makers who favor a war with Iraq.

He cited Commentary magazine editor Norman Podhoretz's recent call for the United States to wage “World War IV” against most of the Islamic world. Podhoretz wrote last month that “regimes that richly deserve to be overthrown and replaced are not confined to the three singled-out members of the axis of evil, [Iraq, Iran and North Korea].”

“At a minimum,” Podhoretz wrote, “the axis should extend to Syria and Lebanon and Libya, as well as ‘friends’ of America like the Saudi royal family and Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, along with the Palestinian Authority.”

Podhoretz suggested the United States “impose a new political culture” on the defeated region of the Middle East.