Free Republic

[Catholic Caucus] Cardinal O'Malley's Former Episcopal Vicar to "Marry" a Man 32 Years His JuniorJames Flavin, 62, a former priest of the Archdiocese of Boston, is to 'marry' Michel E., a man 32 years his junior. A two-day celebration is planned for February 2025 in Mexico.Flavin was ordained a priest in June 1987. He was a favourite of Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley, who appointed Flavin an episcopal vicar in 2014.Flavin worked as a psychotherapist, specialising in internet addiction and treating priests with drug, alcohol or psychiatric problems. In 2019, Flavin took a sabbatical time.In May 2020, he bought a $1...

[Catholic Caucus] Cardinals, theologians gather to plan how US church can support Pope FrancisCardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago celebrates Mass March 25 in Chicago. Cupich was among about 70 cardinals, bishops and theologians gathered privately March 25-26 for conversations focused on how the U.S. church can better support Pope Francis. (NCR screengrab)Chicago — A group of about 70 cardinals, bishops and theologians gathered privately for two days here from March 25-26 for conversations focused on how the U.S. Catholic Church can better support the agenda of Pope Francis.Through a series of keynote presentations and panel discussions centered on tracing the...

Cancels entire business competition Loyola University Maryland’s business school removed a video that proposed a project to match black entrepreneurs in Baltimore with black students to provide them with mentoring on business skills and financial literacy. Several students at the Catholic university in Baltimore submitted the video to the “Building a Better Baltimore” competition as part of the Sellinger School’s annual “Building a Better World Through Business” series that involves various events. “How might the Baltimore business community effectively advance racial equity?” the proposal competition asked. The video quotes from slavery abolitionist Frederick Douglass and former President Barack Obama to...

Economics Professor Walter Block at Loyola University of New Orleans faces dueling petitions as students try to oust the self-described libertarian academic. Economics Professor Walter Block at Loyola University of New Orleans faces dueling petitions as students try to oust the self-described libertarian academic over what some claim are racist comments in The New York Times six years ago. Walter supposedly said slavery was “not so bad – you pick cotton and sing songs,” but his comments were so misconstrued by the Times that the publication settled with him in a defamation lawsuit.Nevertheless, students dedicated to “social justice” are now...

Loyola University Chicago offers a campus club “for self-identified White students” to admit their own racist feelings and to complain about the racism they perceive around themselves. The segregated “affinity group,” called Ramblers Analyzing Whiteness, allows all students “who self-identify as White” to talk about their “anger and confusion about institutional racism” and to confess “guilt and hope about internalized racism.” Members can also “examine what it means to be White” and “begin the journey of operating in solidarity with others and their privilege.”

When Catholic colleges and universities embrace diversity, Catholics should worry. “Loyola University Chicago recently christened a new pagan student club, with its student organizer saying the group aims to help pupils at the private Catholic college find the God they seek, not just the one featured in the Bible,” Dominic Lynch, a student there, wrote on The College Fix on October 23, 2014. I’ll bet they didn’t have a hard time finding a faculty adviser. “The Loyola Student Pagan Alliance was granted official recognition by the university earlier this month by its Student Activities and Greek Affairs board,” Lynch reported....

A Catholic university’s course on slavery has apparently been updated to include a new threat to African Americans: Donald Trump. The upper-level history course, “Slavery and Abolition Then and Now,” will be taught in the spring semester by Prof. John Donoghue, an expert in the Atlantic slave trade. The description of the course on the class registration website LOCUS says it “will introduce students to the long durée of global slavery as a means to convey slavery’s ubiquity across time and space.”

Paramilitary tactics may be necessary in California to prepare for, or head off, an apocalyptic future with flooded coastal communities, scorched central valleys and rampant wildfires in the Sierras. That was the advice and prediction from one of the experts at a recent hearing on climate change adaptation by the state watchdog agency the Little Hoover Commission. Said Robert Verchick, an environmental law professor at Loyola University, New Orleans: “The way that you build resilience and robustness is to think about everything at once and then move forward in some kind of regimented, maybe paramilitary, way. Because it’s essential. It’s...

It certainly makes for a good story: a scrappy kid from Baltimore flunks out of an English class at what is now Loyola University Maryland only to become an international bestselling author. The problem is that the oft-told tale concerning Tom Clancy is just as fictitious as Jack Ryan. “It was an urban legend that just wouldn’t die,” said Carol Abromaitis, the English professor accused of giving Clancy an F in her class. For decades, Abromaitis urged English majors to let others know the truth. Her efforts bore little fruit. “One major said to me, ‘Of course not. It makes...

Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Tony Blair addressed a packed arena at Loyola University Maryland April 9 on the challenges of political leadership in the face of globalization. “The challenges of political leadership today are probably as difficult – if not more so – than any point in time I can remember,” Blair said. Blair’s presentation was the inaugural Hanway Lecture in Global Studies, supported by H. Edward Hanway, chairman of Loyola’s board of trustees. In a 20-minute lecture, Blair said the “chief characteristic of the world today in my view is the scope, the scale and the...

February 15, 2005, 10:17 a.m. Father, Vagina?A Catholic-college prez defends the ridiculously indefensible. On Valentine's Day, some school administrators were focused not on chocolate valentines full of sweets but on another v word. Yesterday an e-mail went around to Loyola University (New Orleans) supporters from the school's president. It was a defense of the school allowing a production of the Vagina Monologues on campus. Father Kevin William Wildes, the school's president, goes into the usual knee-jerk free-expression and diversity muck in his letter — "Loyola University, like any university, is committed to the free expression of ideas and the...

In a previous column, I reported that Loyola University Chicago School of Law will, on Oct. 30, 2004, give the ‘St. Robert Bellarmine Award’ to Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, an avowed pro-abortionist. An update: A reliable source has informed me that Francis Cardinal George, O.M.I., Archbishop of Chicago, contacted the university to implore its administration to cancel the award. Loyola reportedly has refused the cardinal’s request. Concerned Catholics who wish to contact Loyola University Chicago School of Law to express their concerns about this latest development can send an e-mail to loyolachicagolaw@luc.edu.

NOW president warns of conservative agenda Alumna returns for Loyola speech 03/21/02By Bruce Nolan Staff writer/The Times-Picayune Kim Gandy, the former New Orleanian who heads the National Organization for Women, returned to her old law school Wednesday to warn of "ultra-conservative" judges' growing threat to a broad liberal agenda, while demonstrators protested her stand on abortion rights and claimed Loyola University had compromised its Catholic identity by inviting her. For 55 minutes, Gandy sketched a vision of conservative federal appellate courts quietly dismantling legislation protecting the environment, employee rights and workplace safety standards. The reversals are occurring in bits...