Catholic Campuses Head for Showdown Over Obedience to Church, Academic Freedom.

Yahoo News ^ | 5/28/02 | Arlene Levinson

[Steve0113]

taking students' tuitions in exchange for a Catholic education, and then NOT TEACHING THEM CATHOLIC DOGMA?

I believe it's called fraud.

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

Or the issue could fade away. That's the prediction of the Rev. Peter Phan, a Catholic University professor and president of the Catholic Theological Society of America.

Catholic U is a notorious sinkhole of the lavendar clergy, and, as has been pointed out, so is the Theological Society. I believe that makes it pretty clear how likely we are to get Catholic teaching from this man.

[Rita289]

We have two teens who are choosing colleges. Which Catholic colleges would you recommend in the New England area? Thanks!

[Remole]

I have been amazed at the level of ignorance and lack of subtlety in the public statements of Catholic Theologians who oppose the mandatum.

In graduate studies in Catholic Theology, there is a clear distinction made between Positive Theology and Speculative Theology. The former is the presentation of the Tradition of the Catholic Church on some matter, such as Christology or Scripture or Morality; here the instructor reviews the history and the important literature. The latter consists of a review of various unanswered questions on the matter, plus some theories proposed by important theologians over the centuries.

The Mandatum concerns on the former: that the instructor presents the Catholic Tradition fairly and fully and does not consciously propose anything that is contrary to the Tradition as if it were the Tradition.

The Mandatum does NOT concern the latter. The Catholic Theologian is still free to think, speak, and write on matters of Speculative Theology, so long as the person makes clear that what is proposed is not normative Catholic teaching on the matter.

I think the distinction is clear and so I requested and received the Mandatum 10 months ago without fanfare.

[Romulus]

The document, which the bishops agreed should be obtained by June 1 — this Saturday — attests the theologian teaches only authentic Catholicism.

This document is to be issued by AmChurch bishops? Stop; you're killing me.

Faculty have complained it tramples their academic freedom.

There's no freedom in the service of a lie. Alienated autonomy is an act of ontological suicide and as such it's the direct opposite of freedom.

[Cap'n Crunch]

I'm so happy our daughter chose Franciscan U to attend this fall. What a tragedy and a scandal these CINO colleges will not be obedient.

come on crusade, come on crusade, come on....

[LaBelleDameSansMerci]

Mood music for our daily dose of "Catholic Adventures in America"

There now.....We can read with calm, steely-eyed equanimity the delightful assertion that a requirement that beauticians, manicurists, dog-groomers, cake bakers, plumbers, carpenters, ear-piercers, tatoo artists, and even lawyers and surgeons submit to---that they actually know something of their advertised service--is, on Catholic Campuses an odious sign of impending inquisitionalism!!! A battle for academic freedom!!!

"I refuse to submit to this ghastly, authoritarian requirement of scientific mandatum and, by god, if I want to dig around in a man's brain I'll do it with liberty or I'll die!!"---Doctor Candy Highsmith--Finkleborough being led to prison for performing full frontal lobotomies as treatment for migraine headaches in Slops-on-Swan, England.

Oh God!!! Is every Catholic woman who opens the black hole on the front of her face and speaks for the record about Church matters required by law to be a bimbo!! God almighty!!! Listen to this one:

"....Wealthy, conservative Catholics could exert pressure on some campuses to fire dissenting professors, even when bishops do not,said Monika Hellwig, executive director of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities and a theologian....."

This is such a typical example of the sheer stupidity, the complete lack of familiarity with human nature that progressive female Catholics routinely evince; It is the exact opposite you cretin!! It is the poor who are most likely to be "conservative" (whatever the hell that may mean to this sirocco-head). It is only the rich who can afford to pay their way through the minefield of spinelessness, limpness, chaos, dopiness, and ugliness that is Christianity in America.

Oh no! Another one!! It's never ending! Is his name really the Rev. Peter Phan??? Is the scourge of our humiliation never to end?

Peter Phan--and, one assumes, the rest of the Lost Boys---predict the issue could fade away. It's the ANTI-Tinker-Belle. We clap our plump, flabby, sweaty hands and the issue will just fade away. Ta-ta nasty, ugly mean-spirited suffering, sacrifice, death, atonement and resurrection. Hello wispy angels and smiley-faces and tinker-belles on their toes.

"... That's the prediction of the a Catholic University professor and president of the Catholic Theological Society of America...."

And that's my prediction too. There is no hope for us. A healthy, middle-aged class of parasites is now feeding to its heart's content and We the People do not have the stomach to do what must be done. Vampires never leave of their own accord. They don't set out and found new dispensations. They are not pioneers. They just feed until the host is gutted and dessicated....

Mood music for our daily dose of "Catholic Adventures in America"

[ThomasMore]

U.S. bishops have ordered Catholics who teach their faith's doctrine, morality, Scripture, law or history at Catholic schools to obtain a "mandatum"

Not an unreasonable request. Would you go to a doctor for health reasons that didn't have his "mandatum" hanging over his desk?

[ThomasMore]

opponents have derided the requirement as a "loyalty oath."

"DUH"

[ThomasMore]

"Self-appointed censors who give the bishops a hard time and write to Rome behind their backs."

Too effin bad, Monica. Pardon my french. If the SOB heretic that has been teaching "Sacraments" and "Ecclesiology" at Providence College is still teaching there after June 1, I also will contact Rome and work towards his dismissal. 'Nough's enough!

[ThomasMore]

Some professors will gravitate to secular institutions to teach, or turn away from the discipline altogether, he said.

I'll start a fund to expedite the process.

[ThomasMore]

Or the issue could fade away. That's the prediction of the Rev. Peter Phan

I don't think so. The remnant clergy and laity have had enough. We'll let the bishops set the time table, then if no action is taken, we will force the issue. There is rumor that some very heavy orthodox hitters are waiting in the wings until the bishops meet in June on the sex scandal issue. If it's "business as usual" they are going to organize.

[Steve0113]

Some professors will gravitate to secular institutions to teach, or turn away from the discipline altogether, he said.

I'll start a fund to expedite the process.

I'll gladly contribute to it.

[Antoninus]

"I hope nobody's going to lose their job over it, but it is possible," said Monika Hellwig, executive director of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities and a theologian. Wealthy, conservative Catholics could exert pressure on some campuses to fire dissenting professors, even when bishops do not, Hellwig said. "That is where the threat comes from," Hellwig said. "Self-appointed censors who give the bishops a hard time and write to Rome behind their backs."

These people are amazing. They think they have some 'right' to teach dissent at Catholic universities. This woman should herself be fired immediately for not supporting the Mandatum. Then, there's this...

Many U.S. bishops opposed the mandatum until the Vatican insisted on it, he said. He also noted the risk of lawsuits if a job is lost or tenure is denied for lack of a mandatum. Phan expects most bishops to say "to hell with it." Sister Mary Ann Hinsdale, a Boston College theologian, agreed, noting the clergy sex-abuse scandal now rocking the church is absorbing the bishops' attention. "I don't think they're thinking about the mandatum," she said. Hinsdale said Boston Cardinal Bernard Law told her faculty he wouldn't ask them to seek mandatums. An archdiocesan spokesman said Law has yet to reply even to those who did request one.

Is there any doubt remaining that Cardinal Law tolerates/encourages dissent? Aside from coddling pedophiles, homosexuals, pro-aborts, and those with heterodox opinions of Church teaching, WHAT EXACTLY HAS THIS GUY BEEN DOING FOR THE PAST 15 YEARS!??!

[Antoninus]

Some interesting information about the aforementioned Dr. Hellwig

[Antoninus]

Oops! My previous post containing the link should have a major

BARF ALERT

warning attached to it...

[Antoninus]

YET MORE ON MONIKA THE MODERNIST

by James Likoudis

It was Pope St. Pius X who observed of the modernists: "They seize upon chairs in the seminaries and universities and gradually make of them chairs of pestilence. From these sacred chairs they scatter, though not always openly, the seeds of their doctrines; they proclaim their teachings without disguise in congresses; they introduce them and make them the vogue in social institutions" ( no. 43).

Anyone observing the current Catholic university and college scene, the "systematic theology" taught in seminaries, and the activities of the religious education establishment the last three decades, cannot help but comment on the obvious erosion of Catholic identity and solidarity that has taken place in North America. This phenomenon has adversely affected the faith of millions.

Leading the neo-modernist attacks on Catholic faith and morals has been a "para- magisterium" of theologians, academics, journalists, and religious educators thoroughly dissatisfied with the "Church of the encyclicals" and seeking to accommodate traditional Catholicism to the "modem mind." Boasting of their scholarly "expertise" and with their own "modern minds" betraying both philosophical confusion before a world of bewildering cultural change as well as a loss of faith in irreformable Catholic doctrine, this "New Class" of theological innovators has sought to grasp the reins of Vatican II renewal from the Magisterium itself.

The supreme authority of the Pope has been regarded as the main obstacle to their doctrinal revisionism and "new morality." Thus the contempt they have heaped upon the 1989 Oath of Fidelity, and most recently,

For many years, Monika Hellwig has distinguished herself as one of the leading spokesmen for the "para-magisterium" in the Church, lecturing especially to religious educators, priests, and many adult groups. On the occasions when lay people dared to protest the forums given her suspect teachings, it was they who were discredited by diocesan authorities, and not Georgetown's award-winning professor with her peculiar reluctance to speak plainly of Christ as God. In she again is found questioning our Lord's true divinity. For example, she declares that Jesus admitted "there were things he did not know, gradually becoming more fully aware of his own mission and destiny. The whole New Testament shows Jesus gradually becoming more fully aware of all human existence, within a good creation.... Jesus struggled to express [his mission] in Aramaic words" (pp. 36-37).

In this and her other books there is a serious question as to whether Dr. Hellwig believes in the pre-existence of Christ as the Eternal Son of God. In this latest work she even voices her satisfaction that a few new books in Christology now are able to avoid the question whether Jesus is properly named the only savior" (p. 146). After attending Hellwig's lecture in Auckland, reporter Carolyn Moynihan observed that "Dr. Hellwig's 'Jesus' is at best of only doubtful divinity.... She belongs to the school of theologians who give a radically new meaning to traditional Catholic concepts" ( August 12th, 1992).

The Georgetown professor's disdain for the Church's dogmatic definitions is reflected in such statements as: "What is central and enduring is not a collection of ready- formulated eternal and unchanging truths" (p. 42). For her the Vatican appears continually engaged in "blocking the action of the Holy Spirit," especially when "frequently punitive actions" are taken against dissenter theologians. Her "anti-Roman complex" leads her to applaud those dissidents by making "pastoral decisions on the basis of local experience and local discernment" (see pp. 63-64). Her distorted notion of "collegiality" makes her hostile to the proper exercise of papal authority in safeguarding Catholic faith and morals. Vatican I's and Vatican II's teaching on papal authority and infallibility offends her democratist understanding of the nature of the Church. It is obvious that she regards as "oppressive" efforts of the hierarchical Church to suppress dogmatic pluralism and doctrinal dissent. Dissenters who cause "anxiety in Rome" are heralded as among those "Catholic believers" who "take more responsibility for their own decisions and their own lives" (p. 133).

Many of her assertions are couched in a studied ambiguity, but even under the guise of continued questioning and speculation, her views cannot fail to disturb Catholics. On page 132, she states baldly, "What Jesus taught was in no way a new code of behavior." On page 131 she writes, "The New Testament does not give us a code of behavior." She scorns the idea that the Popes can give "definitive interpretations of the natural law" (p. 130). Giving vent to the more radical forms of liberation theology, she expresses far more concern for "the transubstantiation of the world about us" than for the Church's effort to maintain orthodox belief in the Eucharist via the doctrine of transubstantiation (see p. 73).

What we have in is Monika Hellwig's testimony of personal indebtedness to and fervent eulogy of the major dissenter theologians wreaking havoc in the Church: Hans Kung, Charles Curran, Karl Rahner, Edward Schillebeeckx, Luis Bermejo, Piet Schoonenberg, Mary Collins, Gerard Sloyan, Leonardo Boff, Juan Luis Segundo, Gustavo Gutierrez, Ernesto Cardenal, Jon Sobrino, and their myriad followers and imitators.

Her book breathes a poisoned atmosphere. It serves, however, as a handy checklist of the most significant writers spreading serious errors in the Church and contesting the Magisterium. In this sense, Monika the Modernist's book is an invaluable resource for identifying today's "chairs of pestilence."

This article was taken from the June 23, 1994 issue of "The Wanderer,"
201 Ohio Street,
St. Paul, MN 55107.

Is anyone else amazed at how these newspaper reporters managed to find the most liberal dissenters within the Catholic Church to quote for their articles?

[Antoninus]

mhellwig@accunet.org

Anyone care to give Ms. Hellwig a little wake-up call? I think it's about time that the libs hear that we're mad as heck and aren't going to take it anymore! Ms. Hellwig looks like a classic example of a liberal dissenter who managed to climb the ladder in spite of (because of?) her heterodox teachings. It's just her type we need to excise from leadership positions.

Visit the ACCU Website

[ThomasMore]

They think they have some 'right' to teach dissent at Catholic universities. This woman should herself be fired immediately for not supporting the Mandatum.

A few centuries ago we would've toasted her. Where is Sherman and the way-back machine?! LOL!

[ThomasMore]

Fordham and Georgetown are Jesuit run. I'm not sure of Notre Dame and CUA. But aren't these Universities under the authority of the Jesuits and not the local ordinaries? And aren't the Jesuits only under the authority of their own order and the Pope? IMO, the Pope needs to squash the Jesuits big time. Same with all the other orders. These guys are really getting away with murder(first degree heresy).