The Upside-Down World of Catholic Higher Education

Catholic World Report ^ | 12.16.12 | Anne Hendershott

[marshmallow]

Recent controversies at the University of San Diego underscore the prevalence and influence of dissent on Catholic campuses.

In an ideal Catholic world, if a Catholic theologian promoted a woman’s right to choose abortion and encouraged access to same-sex marriage, while also comparing the sacrifice of the Mass to an act of homosexual intercourse, the work of that theologian would be marginalized. But, in the upside-down world of Catholic higher education in 2012, such dissidence is applauded. Case in point: Tina Beattie, the British theologian whose book, God’s Mother, Eve’s Advocate: A Gynocentric Refiguration of Marian Symbolism in Engagement with Luce Irigaray, promotes such heresy, has been honored as a visionary on Catholic campuses here and abroad.

Conflict and confusion at the University of San Diego

However, after a decade of honors and accolades from Catholic institutions, Beattie’s writings are finally receiving some criticism. In 2011, Bishop Declan Lang, of the Diocese of Clifton in the UK, cancelled a lecture to be given by Beattie as part of a diocesan speaker series celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council. And last month, Beattie’s invitation to serve as a visiting fellow at the University of San Diego’s Frances G. Harpst Center for Catholic Thought and Culture brought protests from the Catholic community in San Diego and beyond. In fact, the protests were so strong that Mary Lyons, the university’s president, abruptly withdrew the invitation just two weeks before Beattie was scheduled to arrive on the USD campus.

Lyons’ decision to cancel the Beattie fellowship resulted in a vote of “no confidence” from 99 members of the university’s Academic Assembly of the College of Arts and Sciences (the vote was 99 in support, 16 against, and 19 abstentions). Writing that “[t]he president has shown herself to be ethically bankrupt,” the 99 faculty......

[all the best]

People can believe whatever nonsense they want. I don’t get people who hold views totally contrary to the church and then still claim to be Catholics. Even worse is those who don’t bother to label them as heretics and then excommunicate them.

[Last Dakotan]

“It is to my mind unacceptable in today’s world that a religious hierarchy made up exclusively of celibate men should claim the right to make authoritative decisions regarding these most intimate areas of women’s lives.”

The Church provides teachings, not decisions - you have to free will to accept them or not.

[sitetest]

Dear Last Dakotan,

“The Church provides teachings, not decisions - you have to free will to accept them or not.”

Yes, that's true. But the question here is whether those who have used their free will to reject the teachings of the Church should be employed as faculty at Catholic colleges and universities.

From my perspective, they're more qualified to clean toilets. And even there, not at a Catholic school.

sitetest