Franciscan University blasphemy accusation

  • Thread starter Thread starter prayerrider
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
MikeInVA said:
Maybe I wasn’t clear in my question,
Click to expand...
Maybe I wasn’t clear in my answer. This book and its choice for the class was poor. Advanced elective courses that address positions adverse to the church can be beneficial if guided well and with the purpose of defending Catholic teaching. It is fairly obvious this individual book is beyond the pale.
 
MikeInVA said:
Maybe I wasn’t clear in my question, why would a Catholic university subject any student to blasphemous, vile material at any level?
Click to expand...
I cannot answer about this book, as I have not read it, but the general reason is so that they can develop an understanding of evil, what blasphemy is, and how sin works in people. This is not unheard of. Police that use OC spray or Tasers are subjected to the effects so that they can understand them and judge better when they should be used.
 
I think it’s a bit much to expect that if we object to The Kingdom, we must object to all sorts of old classic literature.

I don’t have to worry at this point that if a school uses a book by Plato, it’s somehow promoting anti-Catholic ideas of Plato or putting money in Plato’s pocket. I do have a concern that when a school uses a book by currently hot author Joe Smith that includes blasphemous content, the school is promoting the career of Joe Smith, who is still living and getting all sorts of publicity for his anti-Catholic writing, and is making his bread and butter off this book, which the students will likely have to go buy if the college assigns it. They could buy a used copy and hence avoid having to put money in the author’s pocket under the first sale doctrine, but it’s not guaranteed that’s what they will do, and in any event the living author is still receiving promotion even from the reading of a used copy.

Furthermore, if Steubenville wanted this kind of academic freedom, it could have it quite easily by just being like all the Catholic schools that are allegedly “Catholic in name only”. I’m sure you could go to Georgetown or any number of other places and do a course paper on “The Kingdom” and no one would bat an eye, even if you agreed with the book, even if you weren’t a Catholic. Steubenville is not marketing itself like that. You need to serve your customer base. Not every customer base values absolute academic freedom or wants it. In a society where there are already (in my opinion) way too many colleges and they’re competing with each other, if a university positions itself in the market to attract the group of people who aren’t in the camp of “just let the students read everything in order to develop their minds”, then said university needs to serve its customers. You want absolute academic freedom, go to another school.
 
Last edited:
You really think people over time haven’t objected to the texts mentioned in the blog piece I shared? You really think their arguments were any different than those being used by Church Militant and LifeSite News?
 
That article ended with foul language (and should have had a warning): ‘Or at least be consistent, for f***k’s sake.’ I think that tells us all we need to know about the author. The points themselves were easily refutable, but why bother when the person arguing is foul mouthed and lacking in morals herself? She wouldn’t find anything immoral.
 
I’m inclined to agree with Tis_Bearself. Everyone that I ever knew that went to Steubenville didn’t go there to get an education like other colleges that wear the “Catholic” label. Call it more “conservative” or what have you, that’s why they spent the money to go there. Steubenville is apparently moving away from that which set them apart from other colleges that claim to be Catholic. They need to decide exactly what kind of school they want to be. As is, they once had a very different reputation than what is going on now and they have to decide whether or not they want to live up to that. I went to a public university and there was a lot of garbage in my curriculum but it came with the territory. If I was making sacrifices and paying an absurd amount of money for an education that claimed Catholicism in a way that set itself apart from the other private Catholic institutions, I’d probably take issue as well.

They certainly became a lot more apologetic once alumni called in and threatened to cancel their donations.
 
Last edited:
exnihilo said:
… the person arguing is foul mouthed and lacking in morals herself
Click to expand...
I don’t bother with people I do not trust either, but we cannot judge the souls of other. Jesus is rather emphatic that the throne is His.

I am the same way about LSN and Church Militant, but judging the morality of those who operate those sites would be wrong.
 
Last edited:
I figure that when people resort to profanity, they may simply lack the vocabulary necessary to express themselves in more elegant terms.
 
Last edited:
Thing is, the sort of stringent, militant atheism and lack of belief in basic Christianity is so prevalent in this world.

Used to be that we needed to learn Scriptural Aplolgetics in order to defend the Faith or evangelize to churched non-Catholics. That is not the world we live in today.

Your adult children, your teens, they are going out into a world where very very few have even had basic exposure to Christianity. If someone wants to do evangelistic world in this world, they need to be able to stand up and speak with authority. The idea of “I’ve never read XYZ but I know it is bad because someone told me” will not stand up to serious debate.

If I am going to be a cancer doctor, I have to study the cases of people who have been consumed by the cancer. That is the only way I can truly practice healing medicine.

It is NOT for the weak, not for those who might be easily influenced.

Years ago Planned Parenthood was trying to build an “abortion supercenter” in our town. They wanted to draw from the entire mid south. First thing was to get a foothold in the community, to be seen as helpful, so they formed a separate “educational org” that offered free training classes. They offered these services to all of the school districts, they would give lectures that would count as continuing ed for both educators and medical professionals.

I could have organized people to stand outside and protest, or, I could find a group of dedicated people who were willing to go sit in these lectures, these educational programs. It was VERY difficult to sit through some of these sessions and to see the graphic sexual nature of the “suggested books for teachers to have in the classroom”. To add icing on the discomfort, one of the most repulsive sessions was also attended by my priest who sat next to me.

None of us hid our identity, the regional director of Planned Parenthood knew she was going to see me and some of my cohorts in every single public session. That actually led to some real dialogue between her and me on down the line.

When we then went to school boards or community decision makers we were credible speakers. “Yes, I know that Blah Blah Blah is recommended because Mrs Such and Thus stated it in her lecture on June 1 at the public library. Here are the handouts from that session.” This was far, FAR more effective than sitting there saying “this is wrong because it is Planned Parenthood and everybody knows they etc.”

If FUS is going to equip their grads to go out as evangelists to the churched, that is their prerogative. Someone is going to need to form the other evangelists, those who can speak with authority to the virulent atheists.
 
exnihilo said:
That article ended with foul language (and should have had a warning): ‘Or at least be consistent, for f***k’s sake.’ I think that tells us all we need to know about the author. The points themselves were easily refutable, but why bother when the person arguing is foul mouthed and lacking in morals herself? She wouldn’t find anything immoral.
Click to expand...
I think you’ve made the author’s point. When we become ultra sensitive to language, we fail to absorb ideas – or even learn how to properly challenge them.
 
From Catholic author and former FU employee Emily Stimpson Chapman:
Lastly, please keep in mind that it is Church Militant who published—with no context, no discussion, no good intent—all those bits from the book that people are finding so scandalous. They disseminated those words to THOUSANDS. At Franciscan, they were read in context, with discussion, and good intent by FIVE upper level students, who will read far, far worse if they go on to grad school. (I studied English at a major secular university, so this, I know). All this is to say that, as far as I can tell, Church Militant is much more guilty of the sin of scandal than anyone at Franciscan University. If you want to be outraged, be outraged at them. I am.
Click to expand...
Indeed.
 
So presumably a warning about Carrère’s work would suffice, as well.

FWIW, I completed grad school in English and teach the subject at college now. I’ve never received a warning about anything in The Canterbury Tales, nor have I ever issued one. How people don’t recognize this as akin to providing “trigger warnings” for “snowflakes” is really strange.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
If it’s actual libel, I would think Rebecca could find a lawyer to take her case quite quickly.

I get a little bothered when some adjunct acts like she has an entitlement to teach at a particular university. It’s not like a tenure situation; adjuncts come and go all the time.
Click to expand...
I’m not sure how I missed this earlier – but why is Rebecca Bratten Weiss’ academic rank relevant in any way to this issue? In fact, how is Rebecca Bratten Weiss relevant to this issue?
 
exnihilo said:
That article ended with foul language (and should have had a warning): ‘Or at least be consistent, for f***k’s sake.’
Click to expand...
Yeah, that was grossly immature and destroyed any credibility the author might have had. Because you know they just threw it in in hopes of getting a rise out of the conservative reader.

I’ve heard people swear all day long and I swear myself sometimes. I’m not impressed when people throw it into some article whining about academic freedom. 1969 was over 50 years ago.
 
Last edited:
I’m not the one who brought Rebecca up. I was responding to someone else’s post about her. I believe she came into the discussion because she was mentioned in one of the earlier posted articles about Steubenville. Maybe you want to address your post to the person who brought her up the first time.

Time to go on mute. Have a good day all
 
Last edited:
Tis_Bearself said:
I’m not the one who brought Rebecca up. I was responding to someone else’s post about her. I believe she came into the discussion because she was mentioned in one of the earlier posted articles about Steubenville. Maybe you want to address your post to the person who brought her up the first time.
Click to expand...
She shouldn’t be part of this discussion and she shouldn’t have been part of LifeSite News’ piece on this topic. They’re obsessed with smearing FU faculty that they don’t believe pass whatever arbitrary Catholic allegiance test they’re working with. I wouldn’t worry about whether she’s full-time or adjunct. LSN ensured that she’s now neither.
 
That has become my opinion as well. After seeing the actual excerpts, and seeing that the priest who had it in his curriculum was teaching on how a secular world viewed the Church in literature, and seeing where he dropped it before Church Militant even knew about it, I would say the greater sin, the only sin in this story, is that of calmuny and gossip on the part of an organization that plays to its base to rile and anger people, and not in the Christian way.
 
She aptly demonstrated why she should not be teaching there, or any other Catholic university.
Oh, well, theres always Evergreen State.
 
Last edited:
Once published, an author has no control over his or her work. This means he can’t interpret, explain, or otherwise comment on it authoritatively except to note his initial intentions and personal reactions. Once literature is published, it exists independently and will be interpreted in any number of ways by any number of readers. You can consult Foucault for more on this. Essentially, then, it doesn’t matter that Chaucer disavowed his own work. Like any other reader, he’s welcome to interpret in his own fashion. Nothing compels one to read it in like fashion.

I certainly agree agree with your final point, however.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top