Posted on 05/06/2005 7:29:18 AM PDT by murphE
MANASSAS, VA (May 5, 2005) – At least 13 Catholic colleges and universities—which this spring have invited 14 commencement speakers and honorary degree recipients who are public opponents of fundamental Catholic teachings—are at odds with the U.S. bishops who forbade such honors and platforms in a statement last June.
“We are blowing the whistle on any Catholic college or university 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 219 Catholic colleges and universities. “After decades of scandal at secularizing colleges, last June the bishops drew a line in the sand. No college that crosses that line deserves the label ‘Catholic’ or the support of the faithful—most especially monetary support.”
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 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 more than one in nine U.S. institutions. 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. 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.
“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. Bishops have ended recognition of four historically Catholic colleges since Ex Corde Ecclesiae was issued in 1990, although it appears none of the colleges sought to preserve that recognition. In late April, officials of the Archdiocese of New York confirmed that Marymount Manhattan College would no longer be listed in The Official Catholic Directory. Cardinal Newman Society had protested the College’s planned commencement speaker, Sen. Hillary Clinton, prompting the College—which had secularized since its split from Marymount College in Tarrytown, New York, in 1961—to insist that it is nonsectarian. Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York, also was no longer listed in The Official Catholic Directory after CNS protested its 2003 commencement speaker, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. Nazareth College and St. John Fisher College, both in Rochester, New York, are also no longer recognized as Catholic.
“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?”
There are, however, reasons to celebrate this year. Despite the brazen defiance of 13 Catholic colleges and universities, the number thus far—several institutions have not yet identified their commencement speakers and honorees—appears better than last year’s 25 inappropriate speakers and honorees. Also, Cardinal Newman Society has asked its members to write congratulatory letters to 12 Catholic colleges and universities that will be honoring bishops or other leading faithful Catholics. Many other speakers and honorees not given special notice by Cardinal Newman Society were excellent choices that represent the values and mission of Catholic higher education.
“We can tentatively say that the bishops’ June directive may have had a demonstrable positive impact on the choice of commencement speakers and honorees this year,” Reilly said. “If the bishops are able to effectively enforce their policy where it is violated, then we may witness the beginning of a new renaissance in faithful Catholic higher education.”
2005 Commencement Speakers and Honorees That Violate U.S. Bishops’ June Directive
White House journalist Helen Thomas will deliver the commencement address and receive an honorary degree on May 15 at Cabrini College in Pennsylvania. In her columns, Thomas has defended the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion, criticized President Bush for halting U.S. aid for foreign abortion facilities and advocated embryonic stem cell research.
CONTACT: Dr. Antoinette Iadarola, President, Cabrini College, 610 King of Prussia Rd., Radnor, PA 19087; Phone: (610) 902-8200; E-mail: Antoinette.iadarola@cabrini.edu
Actress Cicely Tyson will receive an honorary degree on May 26 at the College of New Rochelle in New York. Tyson is an advocate for Planned Parenthood and its contraceptive and abortion services. At a Planned Parenthood fundraiser in 2002, Tyson said, “Sex is a part of life. It’s just like eating or drinking, and it shouldn’t be treated any differently.” She also has publicly defended the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion.
CONTACT: Dr. Stephen Sweeny, President, College of New Rochelle, 29 Castle Place, New Rochelle, NY 10805; Phone: (914) 654-5430; E-mail: ssweeny@cnr.edu
California Secretary for Education and former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan will deliver the commencement address and receive an honorary degree on May 14 at the Dominican University of California. Riordan—who once argued “abortion is murder”—reversed his position while running for California governor in 2002. He campaigned as “consistently pro-choice” and advocated state-funded abortions. During the gubernatorial race, Riordan also said he was “open to discussion” of Vermont-style homosexual “civil unions” and advocated expanding benefits under California’s domestic partners law. In 2000 Riordan opposed Proposition 22, a statewide initiative defining marriage as between a man and a woman, which was overwhelmingly approved by California voters.
CONTACT: Dr. Joseph R. Fink, President, Dominican University of California, 50 Acacia Ave., San Rafael, CA 94901; Phone: (415) 485-3200; E-mail: jrf@dominican.edu
Wisconsin Court of Appeals Judge Paul Higginbotham will deliver the commencement address on May 15 at Edgewood College in Wisconsin. While campaigning for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 2003, the Capital Times reported that Higginbotham “said he believes in abortion rights, and would do what he could to deal with limitations placed on abortion by the Legislature.” At a forum for Supreme Court candidates, Higginbotham said Wisconsin “absolutely” needs a constitutional amendment protecting abortion rights. “It’s about a woman’s power over herself and a woman’s ability to control her own life,” he said. His candidacy was backed by the pro-abortion National Organization for Women.
CONTACT: Dr. Daniel J. Carey, President, Edgewood College, 1000 Edgewood College Dr., Madison, WI 53711; Phone: (608) 663-2262; E-mail: dcarey@edgewood.edu
Former New York Times reporter Peter Steinfels and former Commonweal editor Margaret O’Brien Steinfels will deliver the commencement address and receive honorary degrees on May 22 at Le Moyne College in New York. Both are seasoned defenders of dissent within the Catholic Church. Both have been outspoken about their dissent from the encyclical Humanae Vitae and its teaching on contraception. Both also have publicly opposed Catholic teaching on women’s ordination.
CONTACT: Rev. Charles J. Beirne, S.J., President, LeMoyne College, 1419 Salt Springs Road, Syracuse, NY 13214; Phone: (315) 445-4120; E-mail: beirnecj@lemoyne.edu
Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani will deliver the commencement address and receive an honorary degree on May 20 at Loyola College in Maryland. As mayor of New York and later as a U.S. Senate candidate, Giuliani was very public about his support for abortion rights and special rights for homosexuals. “I’m pro-choice. I’m pro-gay rights,” he declared during an interview on CNN in 1999. His views are radical: he has opposed federal and state bans on partial-birth abortion, and he has opposed restrictions on federal, state and city funding for abortions. In a 1989 interview with New York Newsday, Giuliani said, “I’d give my daughter money for it [an abortion].” On gay rights, Giuliani has endorsed “domestic partnerships” and took steps to extend special benefits to gay and lesbian couples employed by New York City.
CONTACT: Dr. David Haddad, Interim President, Loyola College in Maryland, 4501 N. Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21210; Phone: (410) 617-2201; E-mail: dhaddad@loyola.edu
An honorary degree will be presented to the entire family of former New Orleans mayor and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Maurice “Moon” Landrieu—including daughter U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu and son Louisiana Lt. Gov. Mitchell Landrieu—on May 13 at Loyola University of New Orleans School of Law. Despite finally voting for a 2003 bill to ban partial-birth abortion, Sen. Mary Landrieu first supported motions that would have weakened the bill or effectively killed it by returning it to the Judiciary Committee. She supported amendments to the partial-birth abortion bill that would have provided the abortifacient “morning after pill” and would have affirmed the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion. Landrieu has voted to allow abortions on military bases, supported funding to provide the “morning after pill” in schools, and opposed a ban on foreign aid for groups that perform or advocate abortions. While a representative in the Louisiana legislature in 1991, Mitchell Landrieu voted against a law banning abortion except in cases of rape, incest and to save the life of the mother.
CONTACT: Rev. Kevin W. Wildes, S.J., President, Loyola University New Orleans, Box 9, 6363 St. Charles Ave., New Orleans, LA 70118; Phone: (504) 865-3847; E-mail: ramagos@loyno.edu
Journalist Cokie Roberts will deliver the commencement address and receive an honorary degree on May 22 at Marquette University in Wisconsin. Cokie Roberts showed her true colors when covering the announcement of Pope Benedict XVI for ABC News on April 19. She portrayed the new Pope as “really lacking in the theological virtue of charity,” “an extremely controversial choice” and “the most conservative voice of Catholicism” who caused priests to apologize for his document Dominus Iesus, which reconfirmed Catholic teaching that Jesus is the way to salvation. Together with husband Steve Roberts in their joint syndicated column, Cokie Roberts repeatedly called for “moderation” on the abortion issue, endorsing restrictions on abortion but also espousing abortion rights. The Robertses labeled those who respect the dignity of all human life as extremists, while labeling individuals like former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman—who vetoed a ban on partial-birth abortion—as moderates. The Robertses characterized the federal ban on partial-birth abortion as “off the track” and “cynical games-playing” by pro-life activists.
CONTACT: Rev. Robert A. Wild, S.J., President, Marquette University, P.O. Box 1881, Milwaukee, WI 53201; Phone: (414) 288-7223; E-mail: robert.wild@marquette.edu
Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, Chairwoman of the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, will deliver the commencement address and receive an honorary degree on May 15 at Regis College in Massachusetts. The MacArthur Foundation’s Population and Reproductive Health grant program is a leading contributor to international organizations advocating abortion, contraception and population control including the Center for Reproductive Rights, the International Planned Parenthood Federation, the Population Council and the United Nations Population Fund.
CONTACT: Dr. Mary Jane England, President, Regis College, 208 College Hall, 235 Wellesley St., Weston, MA 02394; Phone: (781) 768-7120; E-mail: (c/o secretary) phyllis.porrell@regiscollege.edu
Former U.S. Rep. Amory Houghton will receive an honorary degree on May 15 at St. Bonaventure University in New York. “We are pleased to be able to recognize his nine productive terms of Congressional service,” announced University president Sr. Margaret Carney, O.S.F., in a press release. In those terms, Houghton voted against making it a crime to harm a fetus during another crime, against forbidding human cloning for reproduction and medical research, against a ban on foreign aid for groups that perform or advocate abortions, and against a law forbidding the transportation of minors across state lines to have abortions. Houghton was an advocate for embryonic stem cell research and for requiring insurance companies to provide contraceptive coverage for women. He also supports homosexual civil unions and their blessing by the Episcopalian Church, to which Houghton belongs, according to an April 2005 article in Roll Call. Upon Houghton’s retirement in 2004, he was praised for his “consistent vote for choice” by the pro-abortion Republican Majority for Choice.
CONTACT: Sr. Margaret Carney, O.S.F., President, St. Bonaventure University, 3261 West State Road, St. Bonaventure, NY 14778; Phone: (716) 375-2222; mcarney@sbu.edu
Theologian Sr. Margaret Farley will deliver the commencement address on May 21 at Saint Xavier University in Illinois. Farley, who teaches Christian ethics at Yale University Divinity School, is an outspoken dissenter from Catholic teaching on sexual morality and human life. Farley has argued for the morality of cloning and destruction of human embryos in stem cell research, even claiming such actions are consistent with Catholic teaching despite the clear opposition of the Vatican and the U.S. bishops. Farley has signed a public statement urging President Bush to support embryonic stem cell research. Her argument—that the embryo prior to implantation in the uterus may not be a “person”—allows for early abortion. Farley signed a 1984 “Catholics for a Free Choice” statement published in the New York Times, defending Catholics who support abortion rights. Farley has also attacked Catholic teaching on sexual ethics, asserting that homosexuality is not disordered, homosexual and heterosexual relations that are not open to procreation can be ethical, and homosexual “marriage” should be allowed. She has misled Catholics and caused scandal by claiming support for her arguments within Catholic teaching despite her clear dissent from the Vatican and the bishops.
CONTACT: Dr. Judith Dwyer, President, Saint Xavier University, 3700 W. 103rd St., Chicago, IL 60655; Phone: (773) 298-3309; E-mail: jadwyer@sxu.edu
Former Washington Gov. Gary Locke will deliver the commencement address and receive an honorary degree on June 13 at Seattle University in Washington. “We must be vigilant in protecting against the political erosion of the right to choose [abortion],” Locke said in a January 2004 press conference celebrating the 31st anniversary of the Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, also declaring that “reproductive choice is critical to women’s rights.” As governor from 1997 through January 2005, Locke opposed legislation to ban partial-birth abortion and notify parents when girls seek abortions. He directed the Public Employee Benefits Board to provide benefits to same-sex partners of state employees, giving homosexuals effective parity with married couples. He fought to the U.S. Supreme Court to defend a state law that denies scholarships to college students majoring in theological studies—a law deemed “discriminatory” by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
CONTACT: Rev. Stephen Sundborg, S.J., President, Seattle University, P.O. Box 222000, Seattle, WA 98122-1090; Phone: (206) 296-1891; E-Mail: sundborg@seattleu.edu
Ireland President Mary McAleese will deliver the commencement address and receive an honorary degree on May 22 at Villanova University in Pennsylvania. McAleese, a Catholic, has angered the Irish bishops by her advocacy for homosexual rights and women priests. In a 1997 article in The Tablet, McAleese compared defenders of the male priesthood to “Communist Party apparatchiks hawking redundant clichés,” and she rejected the idea that opponents of Pope John Paul II’s infallible teaching on the male priesthood should “humbly submit to an edict which purports to bind in perpetuity.” At a 1995 Dublin seminar on women in the Church, McAleese responded with scorn to the 1994 declaration Ordinatio Sacerdotalis and statements by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) that the question of the ordination of women is settled: “They say the debate is closed. I think they had better turn up their hearing aids. …Now I have considerable difficulties coping with a God… who for reasons that look suspiciously like dressed up misogyny has confined priesthood to men, a God who never changes His mind even when the tide has turned completely against Him. …If I truly believed that Christ was the authority for the proposition that women are to be excluded from priesthood by virtue simply of their gender, I would have to say emphatically that this is a Christ in whose divinity I do not and will not and cannot believe.”
CONTACT: Rev. Edmund J. Dobbin, O.S.A., President, Villanova University, Tolentine Hall 1st, 800 Lancaster Avenue, Villanova, PA 19085; Phone: (610) 519-4511; E-Mail: edmund.dobbin@villanova.edu
Sr. Elizabeth Johnson, C.S.J., Distinguished Professor of Theology at Fordham University, will receive an honorary degree on May 22 at Villanova University in Pennsylvania. Johnson has argued against the Church’s infallible teaching on the male-only priesthood, which she has described as “patriarchal resistance to women’s equality.” Johnson’s feminist theology leads her to refer to God as “She Who Is.”
CONTACT: Rev. Edmund J. Dobbin, O.S.A., President, Villanova University, Tolentine Hall 1st, 800 Lancaster Avenue, Villanova, PA 19085; Phone: (610) 519-4511; E-Mail: edmund.dobbin@villanova.edu
2005 Commencement Speakers and Honorees Receiving Special Commendation by Cardinal Newman Society
First Things editor Rev. Richard John Neuhaus will deliver the commencement address and receive an honorary degree on May 14 at Assumption College in Massachusetts.
Boston Archbishop Sean O’Malley will receive an honorary degree on May 23 at Boston College in Massachusetts
Rev. Benedict Groeschel, Director of the Office of Spiritual Development for the Archdiocese of New York, will receive an honorary degree on May 13 at Christendom College in Virginia.
Mary Ann Glendon, the Learned Hand Professor of Law at Harvard University, will deliver the commencement address and receive an honorary degree on May 7 at Duquesne University’s Graduate School of Liberal Arts and School of Natural and Environmental Sciences in Pennsylvania.
Archbishop J. Michael Miller, Secretary to the Vatican Congregation for Catholic Education under Pope John Paul II, will receive an honorary degree on May 14 at the Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio.
Jamaican Bishop Gordon Bennett will deliver the commencement address and receive an honorary degree on May 22 at Mount Saint Mary’s University in Maryland.
Archbishop J. Michael Miller, Secretary to the Vatican Congregation for Catholic Education under Pope John Paul II, will deliver the commencement address on May 18 at Saint Michael’s College in Vermont.
Atlanta Archbishop Wilton Gregory will receive an honorary degree on May 8 at Spring Hill College in Alabama.
Cardinal Avery Dulles, S.J., Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society at Fordham University, will deliver the commencement address and receive the Saint Thomas Aquinas Medallion on May 14 at Thomas Aquinas College in California.
Cardinal Francis Arinze, once described as a leading papal candidate to succeed Pope John Paul II, will receive an honorary degree on May 15 at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.
Archbishop Celestino Migliore, apostolic nuncio and permanent observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, will deliver the commencement address on May 21 at the University of Saint Thomas in Minnesota.
Bishop Daniel DiNardo, coadjutor bishop of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, will deliver the commencement address and receive an honorary degree on May 14 at the University of Saint Thomas in Texas.
ping
Ugh! I have to listen to her when I go to my sister's commencement at Villanova!? Do I dare hold up a protest sign?
We need to FReep these so-called learning centers!
Hmmm. There must be something a Soldier of Christ could think of doing. Ask the Holy Spirit, ask your Guardian Angel, they'll help you. Then ask for the fortitude you'll need to carry it out. I'm sure it may not please some family members.
Do like the libs. If you don't agree with her throw a pie.
Perhaps in this case a bucket of Holy Water? - a joke, really it's a joke.
Only 13? That's gotta be down, what? 100 from last year? I didn't think any but a handful of colleges did NOT give honors to pro-abortion people each year. Mine gave one to a British socialist actress-turned-radical-MP when I graduated.
>> Theologian Sr. Margaret Farley will deliver the commencement address on May 21 at Saint Xavier University in Illinois. Farley, who teaches Christian ethics at Yale University Divinity School, is an outspoken dissenter from Catholic teaching on sexual morality and human life. <<
I propose a compromise: Give her an honorary Bachelor's Degree. (Quite a step down from her present PhD. Snicker, snicker.)
>> Cardinal Francis Arinze, once described as a leading papal candidate to succeed Pope John Paul II, will receive an honorary degree on May 15 at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. <<
Bravo! After the stir caused by Cardinal Arinze at Georgetown, the Notre Dame committee has courage to select him.
Thank God he caused that stir! For the benefit of others on the forum, IIRC, he spoke out against sexual libertariansm, abortion and homosexuality, and a bunch of Georgetown's feminist professors got up in the middle of the graduation ceremony and left the platform, after which Georgetown's first lay president, John deGioia, apologized. Do I have the facts correctly?
"Public dissidents"
Such a nice way to say, "heretics."
>> Perhaps in this case a bucket of Holy Water? - a joke, really it's a joke. <<
Only if you want to to be attacked by flying monkeys and hear her screech, "I'm melting..."
That's just nasty.
BTW, I checked: there's surprisingly little overlap between this list and the sponsors of the V*****-Monologues. Only Loyola of Maryland and Regis, IIRC. Many of these malefactors have recently been stricken from the list of v-monologues sponsors, though. That means they're capable of seeing the light (or at least feeling the heat).
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