Catholic colleges anticipate stern words from pope

[NewUlm1976_2000]

That’s a skewed if not opposite view of what the Church teaches. Just because we live in this world doesn’t mean we have to live like the rest of the world. Again, taking away the consequences of sinful actions isn’t saving anybody. Also, it is a sin to have sex outside of marriage, regardless if you’re in middle school, high school, college, or even in the “real world.” I didn’t include elementary because I pray that no elementary student would pursue that type of action. But nevertheless, it is a sin. To knowingly engage in an action which they know the Church teaches as wrong, and also which the law is written in their hearts, is a sin. You can paint the picture however you like, but under the paint, is still the canvas of sin. For a college, especially a Catholic college to teach otherwise, is among the most miserable states where we could arrive. All it serves is to undermine our conscience–our sense of right and wrong.

It is also irresponsible to not realize that it goes on anyways. Catholic colleges are like every other college when it comes to sex, drinking, and partying. Some students are in their growth and exploration phase and deal with it in less ideal ways than others.

By realizing it happens, ways can be found to minimize the less than ideal choices of a hormonal youth just on their own. As they work through that phase, most settle down in their behaviors. At this stage it is prudent to guide them without being overbearing, which most times is flat out ignored.

 

[hasikelee]

It is also irresponsible to not realize that it goes on anyways. Catholic colleges are like every other college when it comes to sex, drinking, and partying. Some students are in their growth and exploration phase and deal with it in less ideal ways than others.

By realizing it happens, ways can be found to minimize the less than ideal choices of a hormonal youth just on their own. As they work through that phase, most settle down in their behaviors. At this stage it is prudent to guide them without being overbearing, which most times is flat out ignored.

Right, but what does that have to do with crazy professors teaching crazy stuff?

The vagina monologues is not going to prevent the all too common gang raping, spread of STDs, disrespect for women, out of wedlock pregnancies and abortion rampant on campuses.

A Jesuit who wants to talk about how he is so special for having homosexual attractions and a boyfriend isn’t teaching others how to respect all people and how to develop and grow in this world.

They are simply getting away with making themselves feel like gods because they have a captive, silenced audience that has to sit in the chair and smile or get an “F”

 

[NewUlm1976_2000]

Right, but what does that have to do with crazy professors teaching crazy stuff?

The vagina monologues is not going to prevent the all too common gang raping, spread of STDs, disrespect for women, out of wedlock pregnancies and abortion rampant on campuses.

A Jesuit who wants to talk about how he is so special for having homosexual attractions and a boyfriend isn’t teaching others how to respect all people and how to develop and grow in this world.

They are simply getting away with making themselves feel like gods because they have a captive, silenced audience that has to sit in the chair and smile or get an “F”

That seems like a stereotypical Jesuit. Any professors keep to a level of professionalism in their lectures. I would think any disagreements in lesson plans come from the scope of the material. Are we going to teach black and white from the CCC, or use the CCC and discuss how it relates to the modern world? Your example and my preference is the latter. Some students will agree, some will disagree, but most importantly, all will think about the effects of the CCC and other theological topics in the syllibi of the classes.

 

[frommi]

This is from an interview with the papal nuncio:

In terms of news flashes, one intriguing bit from the Sambi interview is that he left the door slightly open for a private encounter between the pope and victims of sexual abuse while he’s in America, saying only that it’s “within the field of possibility.” He also asserted that speculation about Benedict reading the riot act to Catholic educators during an April 18 session at the Catholic University of America amounts to “instrumentalization” of the pope by American Catholics with theological or political axes to grind.
“The problem is that there are too many people here who would like to be the pope,” Sambi sighed, “and who attribute to themselves a strong sense of their own infallibility.”

 

[Gabe_D]

This is from an interview with the papal nuncio:

In terms of news flashes, one intriguing bit from the Sambi interview is that he left the door slightly open for a private encounter between the pope and victims of sexual abuse while he’s in America, saying only that it’s “within the field of possibility.” He also asserted that speculation about Benedict reading the riot act to Catholic educators during an April 18 session at the Catholic University of America amounts to “instrumentalization” of the pope by American Catholics with theological or political axes to grind.
“The problem is that there are too many people here who would like to be the pope,” Sambi sighed, “and who attribute to themselves a strong sense of their own infallibility.”

The nuncio hit the spot. The core of the problem is not the pluralism of educator’s views (absolutely acceptable, to sensible extent), but the fact that some educators tend to present as papal or Catholic, views which are only their own.

However, I’m afraid that papal critics won’t change this common habit.

 

[mlchance]

Using birth control saves the students from themselves as they mature and learn the mature applications of sexual relations.

I cannot helped but be shocked by your continued, callous disregard for the spiritual well-being of others. Artificial birth control and sexual activity outside of marriage are gravely immoral. That you advocate one gravely immoral activity as a solution to the problem associated with another gravely immoral activity shows a serious lack of faith, hope, and love.

– Mark L. Chance.

 

[OHCA_XP]

Are we going to teach black and white from the CCC, or use the CCC and discuss how it relates to the modern world? Your example and my preference is the latter. Some students will agree, some will disagree, but most importantly, all will think about the effects of the CCC and other theological topics in the syllibi of the classes.

Okay, so you use the CCC to discuss and relate issues. But you’ve constantly advocated the use of contraception, which the CCC explicitly speaks out against. There is no ifs, ands, or buts when it comes to teaching from the Catechism. You can’t tell a student, “The Catholic Church teaches that abortion, contraception, gay marriage, etc is wrong, But ultimately it’s for you to decide what is right for you.” That turns Catholic education into a matter of opinion, and most specifically the Truth of God. The students will be better equipped to correct the wrongs of this world if they know what is right. You’re not setting them up for failure by teaching them the right things. You’re setting them up for success to be able to change the world from within. They can **adapt **to the world around them, but that is a far cry from **adopting **the world around them.

Bottom line is, today’s “Catholic” colleges should quit hiding behind the disguise of our Holy Mother Church to spread their heretical agendas. If they want to continue teaching contrary to the Church, to whom they claim they belong, they should join the ranks of other liberal arts colleges and drop the names of the saints they advertise.

 

[Conservative]

Okay, so you use the CCC to discuss and relate issues. But you’ve constantly advocated the use of contraception, which the CCC explicitly speaks out against. There is no ifs, ands, or buts when it comes to teaching from the Catechism. You can’t tell a student, “The Catholic Church teaches that abortion, contraception, gay marriage, etc is wrong, But ultimately it’s for you to decide what is right for you.” That turns Catholic education into a matter of opinion, and most specifically the Truth of God. The students will be better equipped to correct the wrongs of this world if they know what is right. You’re not setting them up for failure by teaching them the right things. You’re setting them up for success to be able to change the world from within. They can **adapt **to the world around them, but that is a far cry from **adopting **the world around them.

Bottom line is, today’s “Catholic” colleges should quit hiding behind the disguise of our Holy Mother Church to spread their heretical agendas. If they want to continue teaching contrary to the Church, to whom they claim they belong, they should join the ranks of other liberal arts colleges and drop the names of the saints they advertise.

HALLELUIA ! WELL SAID !

 

[brandymmiller]

There are places and times for open discussion, for a setting in which all ideas are entertained and then either accepted or rejected based upon their merit. In a university, these students are looking to the teacher for the truth. They are expecting that the teacher can provide them with that truth, and guide them toward the means of internalizing that truth for themselves. The Professors can openly discuss ideas amongst themselves, and indeed it is their job to do so, but not in front of the students. The Professors are trained and knowledgeable. The Students are in search of that training and knowledge. It is a grave disservice to the student to introduce ideas which are not supported and not thought out and to ask the untrained to argue for or against.

If I, as a teacher, were to walk into a kindergarten classroom and ask my students to explain to me why the color blue looks the way it does and then to ask them further to defend their answers I would get a whole lot of ideas, but I seriously doubt that the right conclusion would be hit upon. I could easily persuade those kindergarteners to believe a falsehood, and to create false experiments which “prove” the falsehood true. Now, I’m not saying that college students are kindergarteners, but I am saying that instructors have a responsibility to teach what is true and not to mislead students. To permit an “anything goes” academic environment is to undermine the very purpose of teaching.

 

[conorsdad]

See:

www.kansascity.com/news/nation/story/533145.html

Looks like Catholic colleges are going to defined. This was long overdue.

This should say it all about liberal “Catholic” colleges, epsecially the liberal Jesuits. I was reading my local paper online this morning, and there was a searchable database on campaign contributions in my local area to the presidential candidates. On the list from my town was three donations from a Jesuit priest at the University of Scranton to a certain presidenial candidate. Any Catholic who would support this candidate needs to take a step back, examine themselves, and see if they are truly Catholic. This candidate does not just support abortion-on-demand, he supports partial birth abortion and was against the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act.

The fact that a PRIEST donated money to a blatantly pro-abortion politician is sickening, and speaks volume about the Jesuits. Its high time the Pope gives the Jesuits an ultimatum to conform to Church teaching or leave the Church.

Also, another local college in my area, King’s College in Wilkes-Barre, PA, recently hosted another pro-abortion presidential candidate to hold a rally on its campus. And I always though that King’s was a little more on the conservative side, I guess not.

 

[beckers]

I hope you are joking because this was seriously funny!

Acutally i believe 20/20 and another show did a report on how we have too many choices in life and it over stresses people. They were giving examples of going to the grocery store and having like 50 choices for toothpaste, degerant etc and people stressing over making sure they get the right one

 

[qui_est_ce]

The nuns are in for a big surprise too:

osv.com/OSVNav/OSVNewsweeklyApril62008/tabid/5734/Default.aspx

 

[estesbob]

Acutally i believe 20/20 and another show did a report on how we have too many choices in life and it over stresses people. They were giving examples of going to the grocery store and having like 50 choices for toothpaste, degerant etc and people stressing over making sure they get the right one

One thing for sure-you dont get to choose your kids!

 

[Fone_Bone_2001]

Everything the Church teaches is not necessarily infallible. It is only through argument and dialogue that the truth can be found, otherwise we would still be teaching that slavery was permissible.

Not everything the Church teaches is infallible, but more is infallible than you’re implying, and a lot more is definitely authoritative, requiring at the very least a consent of the will that would preclude teaching ideas that contradict those the Church has made binding.

And by the way, slavery was ended because a few brave people were willing to stand up for the dignity and God-given rights of the human person despite what society says. Dissent from Christian moral principles and the Catholic Church’s authoritative application of them is the kind of thing that would justify, not challenge, something like slavery.

Free dialogue about gay marriage is not a rejection of the Church’s current teaching anymore than disagreeing with a Church teaching is necessarily a rejection of that teaching. I can certainly disagree with the Church’s position on women’s ordination but still accept the current teaching.

If “free dialogue about gay marriage” includes a professor at a Catholic university teaching his or her students that a Catholic may even consider supporting “gay marriage,” then that does constitute a flippant disregard for the teachings of the Church and needs to be stopped immediately.

Good Catholics cannot disagree on gay “marriage.” No one who takes his or her faith seriously as an entire way of life would consider granting the concept any validity at all, and support for such “marriages” has no place in the formal, public teaching of a Catholic university professor.

Same goes for women’s ordination. You can privately disagree if you’d like, but Pope John Paul II authoritatively closed that discussion. It doesn’t matter if his doing so was infallible or not - all Catholics are obligated not to publicly dissent on it, and that includes not teaching otherwise in a theology program that sells itself as Catholic.

I also find it somewhat refreshing that a Jesuit priest would share his homosexuality with his students.

Why? If a Jesuit priest who has same-sex attraction disorder truly believes and applies Catholic teaching in his life, he will not consider his homosexuality intrinsic to who he is, but rather an irrelevant manifestation of his concupiscence.

For him to share it publicly would presuppose that he considers it significant in some way. It is only significant as part of the cross of celibacy that he has chosen to bear, and as you put it:

I find little difference between a gay celibate and a straight celibate.

So there you have it.

Would that all the gay celibates in the priesthood would share their homosexuality… perhaps there would be a little less homophobia.

If “homophobia” means, “a feeling of revulsion toward homosexual activity,” then it is a good thing. One should be repulsed by sin.

If “homophobia” means, “a feeling of revulsion toward a person whom one knows to be homosexual,” then that is a problem. But a “gay” priest sharing his “homosexuality” would cause confusion, not quell homophobia.

Besides, our culture assumes that homosexuality is an innate part of what defines the core of a person who happens to be gay. That is not true according to Catholic teaching, and a priest with same-sex attraction disorder has an obligation not to contribute to that impression. Publicly disclosing his struggle with homosexuality does give that impression.

If he meant that he was living in a homosexual relationship that is a different matter since he has taken a vow of celibacy. I also believe that College students should be mature enough and strong enough to question and challenge their professors if they disagree. (Sadly too many students do not do that.) In my experience and I am a College Professor, most higher education teachers welcome argument and dissent among their students. The argument that if you disagree with your teacher you get a lower grade is far too often quoted by students than the actual facts would show. Occasionally, yes, but much more often the Professor will respect and reward the dissenter. Conflict (not hostility) can be one of the most effective learning experiences.

Couldn’t agree more with everything you’ve said here.

 

[Fone_Bone_2001]

I couldn’t agree more. The Church’s teaching is abundantly clear. My point is that it is not an infallible teaching and therefore open to discussion and argument.

Yes, it is an infallible teaching. A teaching doesn’t have to have been formally pronounced by the pope in order to be infallible, although you are of course right that not everything the Church teaches is infallible. On this matter, however, Scripture, which is infallible, being part of the deposit of faith, clearly teaches this, and it’s not talking about the Mosaic Law here:

They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and revered and worshiped the creature rather than the creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. Therefore, God handed them over to degrading passions. Their females exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the males likewise gave up natural relations with females and burned with lust for one another. Males did shameful things with males and thus received in their own persons the due penalty for their perversity. - Romans 1: 25-27

Considering that, plus the fact that the Church has always taught that homosexuality is immoral, makes this matter quite clear.

The only reason one might think otherwise is because of the attitude of some in the culture of our day and place. That is not enough to dislodge a teaching’s place from its universally accepted (within historical, orthodox Catholicism) place within Catholic teaching. Cannot a teaching be infallible simply due to its place in the sensus fidelium?

Besides, even if it were not infallible, it is an authoritative teaching of the Church. No public dissent on gay “marriage” can be allowed in the Church; the teaching, whether infallible or not, requires public consent of the will.

No Catholic university professor has the right in any way to state or even imply that gay “marriage” is possible.

Each of those examples you mentioned do have their time and place. All schools have their GLBT community which needs to be allowed to break down stereotypes and not add stereotypical walls for the future.

Such groups, in our society, encourage the notion that there is nothing wrong with homosexuality, that it is an acceptable lifestyle, etc. No Catholic college should allow a group with such goals on its campus.

Now, if there’s a group designed to help Catholics who struggle with same-sex attraction, that would be a good thing. No one is suggesting that gay people hide their homosexuality, but a Catholic college’s administration should not allow on campus a group with celebrates or promotes homosexuality.

Planned Parenthood offers more family planning options and teachings, some of which (not all of it) are useful for students (safe sex, etc…).

Fornication and the use of contraception are grave sins, which - if done with full knowledge and full consent - are mortal sins. To put it bluntly, why would a supposedly “Catholic” college - one which actually seriously believes and wants to apply the faith - want to put its students’ souls in danger of eternal damnation?

Even the VM is an eye opening experience which has its place for students.

I love theatre - I myself am an English major with a drama concentration - and there are good plays out there which do not share Catholic values in their themes. The plays of Sam Shepard, for instance, are actually really good, although the world of his plays is a brutal, animalistic one that doesn’t exactly encourage Catholic teaching on sex, the human person, etc. That’s okay in the right context - it’s good art. The absurdist plays of - for example - Samuel Beckett - do not operate within a Catholic worldview either. That’s okay - those are really good art, in my very fallible opinion. The Vagina Monologues, however, are the height of immaturity: they go for shock value. Having women personify their sexual organs will only encourage men to objectify them.

And the Vagina Monologues also glorify statutory rape. They have no place on a Catholic campus.

Sex happens, that’s very true. But Catholic campuses should be careful to provide reasons and not excuses to these sinful behaviors. For example, say a Catholic college distributed condoms or had them available on their campus because of a rise in STDs and unplanned pregnancies, would that equip them for the real world better because that’s what the rest of the world is doing? Or is that attempting to circumvent the consequences of their actions, passively accepting their choices, thereby approving their conduct?

You make good points. Making condoms available on a “Catholic” campus would equip the students for hell, perhaps, but not much else.

I think it’s really funny that - although it may not be clear from my response in this thread - I myself really am a very liberal-minded person. But I’m also an orthodox Catholic.

 

[qui_est_ce]

Why? If a Jesuit priest who has same-sex attraction disorder truly believes and applies Catholic teaching in his life, he will not consider his homosexuality intrinsic to who he is, but rather an irrelevant manifestation of his concupiscence.

For him to share it publicly would presuppose that he considers it significant in some way. It is only significant as part of the cross of celibacy that he has chosen to bear, and as you put it:

But a “gay” priest sharing his “homosexuality” would cause confusion, not quell homophobia.

Great posts.

This is a bit off topic, but I don’t understand why homosexuality defines the person. I don’t define myself as a heterosexual female. Should our straight priests “share their heterosexuality?” If you substitute “heterosexual” for "homosexual in any of the gay agenda, none of it makes sense. Would you label a person “heterophobic” if they disapproved of heterosexual extra-marital sex?

Either way, the points have been made that it is intellectually dishonest to pass off “Open to interpretation” those teachings that have been clearly defined by the Church.

I find it interesting that secular society insists on imposing it’s values on the Catholic Church in the name of tolerance and freedom from repression. Yet, tolerance of CC Teaching on abortion, etc. is not tolerated. The most well-read, most published, and most quoted book in history, the Bible, is not allowed to be taught in public schools as a reference. A whole generation of public school students will have no idea of the meaning of such sayings as “the wisdom of Solomon,” the symobolic significance of “dove” or “olive branch.”

I am looking forward to Pope Benedict’s address at Catholic Univerisity this week.