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"…Numbering among America’s oldest Catholic Universities, Xavier was also one of only 28 Jesuit colleges and universities in the country. Of late, however, the Cincinnati, Ohio-based school has increasingly fallen under the sway of a different kind of faith: radical leftist politics.
For evidence of this development, one need only consider Xavier’s Peace and Justice program. To judge by its mission statement, the program makes no effort to disguise the left-wing activist agenda—including a reflexive aversion to war and a palpable hostility to free-market capitalism—that underpins the Peace and Justice curriculum. “Using spiritual and intellectual resources, the programs work toward global economic justice, basic human rights, a culture of non-violence, and a more orderly and humane way of making decisions on an international level,” it explains.
In this, Xavier’s Peace and Justice program borrows directly from the program’s founder and co-director, Fr. Benjamin J. Urmston. It was Urmston who, in 1981, inaugurated the Peace and Justice program. A Jesuit minister, Urmston is also a devout radical. In fact, Urmston’s personal website at Xavier is a veritable windmill of leftist propaganda.
Aside from reproducing fringe conspiracy theories invoking the “Israeli lobby’s neo-conservative network,” Urmston regularly rails against free market capitalism, globalization, and what he calls the American "military-industrial complex."Thundering like a Hebrew prophet,Urmstonmakes clear his view of the United States,stating,“We can change sinful economic and social structures.” He is equally contemptuous of the idea of a nation state, asserting that “a single nation state or a group of nation states are incapable of judging fairly or acting promptly.” To replace the nation, Urmston calls for an expanded United Nations. In addition, Urmston, who has called for every country to create a “Council of Conscience,” is an enthusiastic supporter of the United States Department of Peace extolled by far-left Congressman Dennis Kucinich. Urmston’s views on terrorism, meanwhile, call to mind the lunatic ravings of Ward Churchill. “What goes around, comes around,” Urmston declareson his website, “A nation which inflicts violence and injustice on others cannot expect to live in peace and security within its own borders. Its victims will find some way to inflict violence and harm on it.”
Urmston’s disdain for the United States is equaled only by his enthusiasm for the communist cause. It is no accident that one of the earliest programs sponsored by Xavier’s Peace and Justice program, under Urmston’s direction, was a discussion series called Comprehending Communism. The unambiguous aim of the discussions was to sell Xavier students on the proposition, then in vogue among the pro-communist Left, that anti-communism was far more pernicious than communism itself. At one such discussion, as Urmston recounts on the Peace and Justice website, Dr. John Fairfield, a history professor at Xavier, “stated that the US fought Communism with all the ferocity of Stalin’s totalitarianism, that the thought control of anti-communism was often as oppressive as what it said it was fighting.” Urmston remained an eager celebrant of communist revolution in Central America throughout the 1908s, taking “study trips” to “worker cooperatives” in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Cuba.
frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=17293
For evidence of this development, one need only consider Xavier’s Peace and Justice program. To judge by its mission statement, the program makes no effort to disguise the left-wing activist agenda—including a reflexive aversion to war and a palpable hostility to free-market capitalism—that underpins the Peace and Justice curriculum. “Using spiritual and intellectual resources, the programs work toward global economic justice, basic human rights, a culture of non-violence, and a more orderly and humane way of making decisions on an international level,” it explains.
In this, Xavier’s Peace and Justice program borrows directly from the program’s founder and co-director, Fr. Benjamin J. Urmston. It was Urmston who, in 1981, inaugurated the Peace and Justice program. A Jesuit minister, Urmston is also a devout radical. In fact, Urmston’s personal website at Xavier is a veritable windmill of leftist propaganda.
Aside from reproducing fringe conspiracy theories invoking the “Israeli lobby’s neo-conservative network,” Urmston regularly rails against free market capitalism, globalization, and what he calls the American "military-industrial complex."Thundering like a Hebrew prophet,Urmstonmakes clear his view of the United States,stating,“We can change sinful economic and social structures.” He is equally contemptuous of the idea of a nation state, asserting that “a single nation state or a group of nation states are incapable of judging fairly or acting promptly.” To replace the nation, Urmston calls for an expanded United Nations. In addition, Urmston, who has called for every country to create a “Council of Conscience,” is an enthusiastic supporter of the United States Department of Peace extolled by far-left Congressman Dennis Kucinich. Urmston’s views on terrorism, meanwhile, call to mind the lunatic ravings of Ward Churchill. “What goes around, comes around,” Urmston declareson his website, “A nation which inflicts violence and injustice on others cannot expect to live in peace and security within its own borders. Its victims will find some way to inflict violence and harm on it.”
Urmston’s disdain for the United States is equaled only by his enthusiasm for the communist cause. It is no accident that one of the earliest programs sponsored by Xavier’s Peace and Justice program, under Urmston’s direction, was a discussion series called Comprehending Communism. The unambiguous aim of the discussions was to sell Xavier students on the proposition, then in vogue among the pro-communist Left, that anti-communism was far more pernicious than communism itself. At one such discussion, as Urmston recounts on the Peace and Justice website, Dr. John Fairfield, a history professor at Xavier, “stated that the US fought Communism with all the ferocity of Stalin’s totalitarianism, that the thought control of anti-communism was often as oppressive as what it said it was fighting.” Urmston remained an eager celebrant of communist revolution in Central America throughout the 1908s, taking “study trips” to “worker cooperatives” in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Cuba.
frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=17293
