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Posted on 04/15/2005 4:09:25 PM PDT by Coleus
Sen. Hillary Clinton to Give Commencement Address at Catholic College defying Cardinal Egan
MANASSAS, VA (April 14, 2005) – Marymount Manhattan College has invited pro-abortion Sen. Hillary Clinton to deliver its commencement address and receive an honorary doctoral degree on May 20, publicly defying New York’s Cardinal Edward Egan and the U.S. bishops who forbade such honors in a statement last June.
Sen. Clinton has consistently supported legalized abortion, speaking at gatherings of abortion-rights advocates and voting against a ban on partial-birth abortion. She also has advocated expanding embryonic stem cell research and has declared contraception “basic health care for women.” During a January 2005 speech to New York State “family planning providers,” in which Clinton was widely reported as softening her stance on abortion, Clinton in fact began by repeating her firm commitment to keeping abortion legal: “I am so pleased to be here two days after the 32nd anniversary of Roe v. Wade, a landmark decision that struck a blow for freedom and equality for women. Today Roe is in more jeopardy than ever, and I look forward to working with all of you as we fight to defend it in the coming years.”
“We are blowing the whistle on this and any other Catholic college that blatantly disrespects the bishops by defying their clear command and teaching,” said Patrick J. Reilly, president of the Cardinal Newman Society (CNS), a national organization dedicated to the renewal of Catholic identity at America’s 220 Catholic colleges and universities. “After decades of scandal at secularizing colleges, last June the bishops drew a line in the sand. No college that deliberately crosses that line deserves the label ‘Catholic’ or the support of the faithful—most especially monetary support.”
CNS has written Marymount Manhattan president Judson Shaver, urging him to immediately cancel both the honorary degree and Clinton’s commencement address “in order to restore fidelity to the College’s Catholic mission, obedience to your bishop and public trust in your commitment to not lead astray the College’s students, your employees and the general public.”
CNS has also written Cardinal Egan—and other diocesan officials in his absence, as the Cardinal prepares to help select a new Pope—suggesting “immediate action to prevent scandal in the Archdiocese of New York.” CNS asked Cardinal Egan to consider advising the College privately to withdraw Clinton’s invitation, but also cautioned against waiting “until it is too late to inform the public that the invitation is in direct conflict with the U.S. bishops’ statement and the Church’s expectations for Catholic colleges, as presented in the 1990 apostolic constitution for Catholic higher education, Ex Corde Ecclesiae.”
In June 2004 by a near-unanimous vote, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops approved the statement “Catholics in Political Life” including the following mandate:
“The Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions.”
The highly unusual demand from the bishops was heavily influenced by Cardinal Newman Society’s annual protest against inappropriate commencement speakers and honorees at Catholic colleges and universities—now in its seventh year. Last year, CNS protested 25 speakers and honorees at one in nine U.S. institutions. Just weeks prior to the bishops’ June meeting, CNS also released a special report, “The Culture of Death on Catholic Campuses: A Five-Year Review,” documenting nearly 200 incidents of speakers and honorees who vocally opposed Catholic teaching on abortion, euthanasia and contraception.
In December 2003, CNS wrote a letter to all the U.S. bishops urging them to consider diocesan policies banning inappropriate speakers and honorees at Catholic institutions.
“While sanctions against pro-abortion politicians are welcome, we urge you to implement diocesan policies that forbid all public advocates of legal abortion—regardless of whether they are Catholics or politicians—from speaking at Catholic facilities or receiving Catholic honors,” CNS wrote to the bishops on December 9, 2003. “This can be more easily enforced on Church-owned property, but it can also set an expectation for legally independent colleges and other Catholic services and organizations useful when determining their right to use the label ‘Catholic’—in the case of colleges and universities, according to the guidelines established by Ex Corde Ecclesiae.”
“We are monitoring the commencement speakers and honorees at all 220 Catholic colleges and universities in the U.S.,” Reilly warned, “and we will fight with bulldog tenacity to oppose any college president who chooses to embarrass his or her bishop. Our purpose is to restore Catholic identity where it has diminished, but if it has finally come to the point when a bishop must declare a college non-Catholic, he can rely on the support of our 16,000-plus members and many more grateful parents nationwide.”
Reilly points to precedent for such action. Three historically Catholic colleges have been declared no longer Catholic by their local bishops since Ex Corde Ecclesiae was issued in 1990. They include Nazareth College and St. John Fisher College, both in Rochester, New York, and Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York. The latter college was singled out by CNS in 2003 for inviting pro-abortion New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer to deliver a commencement address. Cardinal Egan, already well aware of Marist’s long path of secularization, resolved the issue definitively by declaring Marist “no longer Catholic.”
Last year, Marymount Manhattan College also hosted Spitzer as a commencement speaker with no apparent consequence, despite a CNS protest. Spitzer, a fervent advocate for abortion rights since becoming New York State Attorney General in 1988, has received campaign donations and get-out-the-vote support from NARAL Pro-Choice America and other pro-abortion organizations. One of Spitzer’s first actions as Attorney General was to seek an injunction against a coalition of pro-life groups. He later filed papers in federal court labeling abortion clinic protesters “nuisances” and demanding 60-foot buffer zones around clinics, a restriction on free speech for which he was rebuked by an appellate court. In 2002, Spitzer investigated 10 crisis pregnancy centers claiming their pro-life services were deceptive to women seeking abortions. He created his office’s first Reproductive Rights Unit to intimidate pro-life activists.
“Last year Spitzer, this year Hillary Clinton,” Reilly remarked. “Can anyone trust this college’s claim to a Catholic mission? They seem to have tried their hardest to honor the Church’s opponents in the fight against abortion, and now they publicly brush aside the bishops’ clear expectations. We trust there will be consequences from the bishops, but lay Catholics also need to stand up and confront this scandal.”
“Pope John Paul II has been laid to rest, but his legacy continues to be desecrated by heretics and public dissenters in ‘religious studies’ departments, campus entertainment like the offensive ‘Vagina Monologues’ and college officials who fail to uphold their colleges’ Catholic mission,” Reilly said. “The time to implement the Holy Father’s Ex Corde Ecclesiae is now, not later. Which class of students will finally be liberated from false teaching and fraudulent institutions? For how many more years do we abandon our young adults?”
For more information about Cardinal Newman Society and updates on Catholic college commencement speakers and honorees, see www.cardinalnewmansociety.org.
USCCB Guidelines Concerning theAcademic Mandatum
Ex Corde Ecclesiae: An Application to the United States
I just saw a new thread about the U. Penn---they have started a website to protest having Kofi Annen as their commencement speaker--
Good on them---they need to lend a hand to the Marymount College students!
He'll do as much as Roger Phoney-Mahony did last year when Loretta Sanchez D-CA, pro-abortionist, spoke at the Mount St. Mary's commencement in Los Angeles last year.
Not much, would be my call. Anything more would be a surprise.
I suspect many of the so called "Catholic Colleges" are anything but...basically CINO's.
They won't ever get one red cent of my alumni dime....ever.
They won't ever get one red cent of my alumni dime....ever.
If you can; Let them know it.
There is a statistic to the effect that for every correspondence received, there are another hundred people who hold similar sentiment.
Oh you bet.
Graduation will be coming up soon, and they'll be phoning me for a pledge.
They will get an earful, then a follow up letter to boot.
You are what changes our culture for the better.
Thanks. :)
But hey, someone's gotta speak up. I went there. When they wonder why I don't freely donate my spare coin to them, it's only right they know why.
After all, it's all about principle.
(re: my tagline :)
Outrageous!
The Cardinal is out of town -- just a little busy at the conclave -- for who knows how long. And my understanding is that he (and all his bretheren) are strictly imcommunicado. Do you suppose he has left someone in charge back home who can act on this?
Yes, but can they, or will they act to disinvite her if they get enough complaints from the public?
Invited? She has been INVITED?
Nah, I choose to believe that it's more likely that one of Hillary's obedient associates leaned on Marymount to extend an invitation, sort of like how the Corleones might be "invited" to a social engagement.
My thesis is simple, Hillary is currently pretending to be a person of such great religious faith that Catholic colleges are bestowing commencement honors upon her.
Its all part of a scrupulously choreographed act, and its as transparent as holy water.
.
Thanks for the contact info!
Freep 'em folks!
No Hillary at a Catholic College!
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And in addition to this offense, the Catholic Church seems to have no problem with allowing Cardinal Bernard Law to participate in the election of the next pope. Cardinal Law was involved in the pedophilia scandal, to the extent that he shuffled pervert-priests around within the church without getting rid of them.
Sometime sooner or later, the laity's going to need to rise up against this arrogance.
Time for a Freep.
It's not shameful for snakes to slither. What's really shameful is that people of "faith" would be pandered to.
Pandering to people of faith... Shameful! >>>
The clintons have no shame.
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