Free Republic

Marking the culmination of a four-year legal effort that went all the way to the United States Supreme Court, the U.S. government on Friday agreed to a settlement that will permanently exempt Thomas Aquinas College from the so-called HHS Contraceptive Mandate of the Affordable Care Act. “This is an extraordinary outcome for Thomas Aquinas College and for the cause of religious freedom,” says Thomas Aquinas College President Michael F. McLean “It is a relief to know that the College can continue its 46-year mission of offering excellent Catholic liberal education without facing the threat of crippling financial penalties resulting from...

A SCENE FROM THE PRO-LIFE MOVIE, 'UNPLANNED' Over three dozen faculty members of a Catholic college in Canada are calling for an apology after a film about a former abortion worker’s departure from the industry was screened on campus. Forty-three faculty members of the King’s University College at Western University in Ontario signed onto a letter criticizing the Catholic liberal arts university for allowing the pro-life film “Unplanned” to be shown to students.“Unplanned” is based on the life of Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood clinic manager who created an organization to support those who decide to leave the...

You can have your opinion’ as long as it doesn’t ‘deny my existence’It’s uncommon at Jesuit universities these days for someone to openly share a traditional Catholic viewpoint. When it happened at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, the school was so spooked it called the Los Angeles Police Department. Both the police and the university’s Bias Incident Response Team are investigating the stated belief that only two genders exist, male and female, as a hate crime. A Loyola alumni office employee discussed her views on sexual orientation, which align with the Roman Catholic Church, with three students who were...

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday (May 5) called on Catholic colleges and universities in the United States to do more to affirm their “Catholic identity,” particularly by ensuring the doctrinal orthodoxy of their faculty and staff. Speaking to a group of bishops from Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Wyoming, who are in Rome on a regularly scheduled visit, Benedict said there has been a “growing recognition” on the part of Catholic colleges of the need to “reaffirm their distinctive identity.” But “much remains to be done,” the pope said, singling out the church law requirement that Catholic...

Christmas in America is a season of time-honored traditions — the sacred performance of the annual ACLU lawsuit over the presence of an insufficiently secular “holiday” tree; the ritual provocations of the atheist displays licensed by pitifully appeasing municipalities to sit between the menorah and the giant Frosty the Snowman; the familiar strains of every hack columnist’s “war on Christmas” column rolling off the keyboard as easily as Richard Clayderman playing “Winter Wonderland” . . . (snip) One sympathizes, up to a point. As America degenerates from a land of laws to a land of legalisms, much of life is...

...There are a growing number of authentically Catholic Colleges and Universities. They are among our greatest missionary resources. They are forming the "living stones" the Apostle Peter wrote of in his first letter to the dispersed Christians (1 Pet. 2:5) for the work of the Church in the Third Christian millennium. The men and women graduating from these Colleges will lead the West out of darkness and serve the new missionary age of the Catholic Church. The missionary task we face requires the preparation of young men and women in the fullness of the authentic Catholic faith which only an...

...Jim Towey's friendship with Mother Teresa of Calcutta. He served as her legal counsel for twelve years. He offered himself, both in Mexico and Washington, DC, to her work of loving and serving the poor. This is clearly a man who "walks the walk" when it comes to his Catholic faith. As a Catholic lawyer with a commitment to authentic Catholic Social Doctrine, I followed Jim Toweys early work as Director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives and as Assistant to President George W. Bush from 2002 to May 2006... ...President Elect Towey released this statement,...

Catholic Colleges and Universities are an indispensable missionary resource for the New Evangelization. The task we face in the West requires the solid preparation of young men and women, fully formed in the fullness of faith and equipped with the excellence which an only an authentically Catholic education can provide. That is why I am pleased to write about Catholic Colleges and Universities which are worthy of the name. In the Apostolic Constitution on Catholic Universities, From the Heart of the Church (Ex Corde Ecclesia) the Venerable John Paul II explained the vital link between the mission of the New...

...I arrived to a packed out restaurant filled with men and women in their twenties with the same kind of commitment to living the Catholic faith that my persistent host showed me. They listened attentively to my talk and when I opened the floor to questions, they would have gone all night! The quality of the questions they asked revealed that they are genuinely trying to live their Catholic faith and share it with others. ...I found many of them were the good fruit of new or renewed Catholic Colleges like Franciscan University, Ave Maria, Belmont Abbey and the growing...

...Imagine you are a 20 year old College student at Southern Catholic College. Even though the school was only in its infancy, when it was purchased by the Legion of Christ your parents presumed it was going to be placed on solid financial ground. Maybe they were concerned that the Legion was under a cloud, being investigated by the Holy See because of the duplicity, deceit, and evil acts perpetrated by its founder... It is Easter Week and you are still celebrating the Octave of the central mystery of the Christian faith and the source of our Hope. ... You...

A renewed push by students for the reintroduction of regular celebrations of the Tridentine Mass, or a traditional Mass conducted in Latin, will provide the Georgetown community with a new option for Roman Catholic worship on campus. Starting Feb. 11, the traditional Latin Mass will be offered one weekday per week every other week. This will be the first time that this Mass has been offered on campus since May 2008. The main advocate for the pre-Vatican II Mass (Mass said entirely in Latin]) Kieran Raval (COL ’13) describes the Latin Mass as a way to feel a greater connection...

For those of you who have been following the acquisition of Southern Catholic College by the Legionaries of Christ, I’m sure that you will be glad to hear that resolution has finally come and Southern Catholic's future finally seems to be secure. Just yesterday (Friday, July 10) SCC's vice-president of academic affairs made the announcement that the school had indeed been acquired by the Legion of Christ, and that the last of the paper work had finally gone though. The full story is available at: Veritatis Praeco

Thursday March 5, 2009 Stonehill College Upholds Catholic Identity: Stops Unauthorized Distribution of Condoms in Dorms MANASSAS, VA, March 5, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The administration at Congregation of Holy Cross-founded Stonehill College in Easton, Mass., has removed boxes of free condoms placed in campus dormitories by student activists, according to a story in today's Boston Globe. "Stonehill College should be commended for its swift and clear affirmation of the moral values that parents and students expect at a Catholic institution, said Cardinal Newman Society (CNS) President Patrick J. Reilly in response. CNS is dedicated to renewing and strengthening Catholic identity...

Misericordia University, as a Catholic institution, has a responsibility for helping the community achieve these goals. However, precisely because it is a Catholic institution, it also has a responsibility to transmit Catholic teaching to its students in ways that are not ambiguous or confusing. SCRANTON, PA (Catholic Online) - Once again, Bishop Joseph Martino has acted in a manner which not only displays fidelity to his teaching office as a Catholic Bishop but great courage - in an age too often characterized by its opposite, cowardice. He has released further reflections on the issue of properly teaching authentic diversity and...

Statement of the Diocese of Scranton in Response to Misericordia University’s Plans to Host Speaker Keith Boykin "Misericordia University’s Diversity Institute is twice providing at the University on February 17, 2009, a platform for Keith Boykin. "Mr. Boykin has authored three books and all three have been nominated for a Lambda Literary award. Lambda is a legal advocacy effort for homosexual causes. Mr. Boykin is an avid supporter of same sex marriage and is an activist for positions disturbingly opposed to Catholic moral teaching. "Bishop Martino wants Catholics of the Diocese of Scranton to know of his absolute disapproval of...

In a study of hospital discharge data for the State of Texas, whistleblowing Catholic medical researchers found that Catholic hospitals reported at least 9,684 cases of sterilizations and 39 legally induced abortions from 2000-2003. While sterilizations and abortions are legal in the United States, they are considered immoral by the Catholic Church and many Catholics.

US Closeted No More by: Malcolm A. Kline, February 04, 2008 No wonder I haven’t been getting any alumni mailings. It seems that my alma mater is trying to embrace “diversity” without becoming Catholic in Name Only. “The University of Scranton is one of a number of Jesuit schools currently working on ways to add resources for its gay and lesbian students,” Network Notes, a newsletter for the University of Maryland at College Park’s Rainbow Terrapin Network reported in 2003! “This fall, in fact, the small northeast Pennsylvania college will debut its ‘Ally’ program, a program intended to train interested...

20 US Colleges and 1 Canadian are North America's Most Faithful to Catholic Identity Solid alternatives to larger number of sexually liberal, dissident, secularized Catholic colleges in US today MANASSAS, VA, October 3, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Today The Cardinal Newman Society announced the publication of a new comprehensive college guide for students and parents, The Newman Guide to Choosing a Catholic College: What to Look for and Where to Find It. Edited by Joseph A. Esposito, The Newman Guide will be officially published on Nov. 1, 2007. The culmination of two years of research and interviews, the unique Newman Guide...

By JIM McCAFFREY The Philadelphia Evening Bulletin Villanova University — A renovated study space in the main library of Villanova University is being dedicated tomorrow to the memory of a woman who slashed her six-month old Down syndrome daughter’s throat — twice — and later killed herself. Villanova’s director of public relations and communications defends the dedication as an act of “compassion.” The vice president of the Board of Trustees, Herbert Aspbury, said he could not comment because the first he heard of the dedication was when he was contacted by this newspaper. The woman who organized the memorial, Christine...

By CANDACE SMITH, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - The president of the NAACP is criticizing a decision by Catholic University of America not to recognize a chapter of the civil rights group on campus. "It is outright discrimination and intolerance all rolled into one," NAACP President Kweisi Mfume said Friday, just outside the campus and surrounded by about 20 activists and student chapter leaders from other universities. AP Photo He said it was the first time in decades that a university had not allowed a student chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (news - web...