Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex

John Milbank is a fascinating mixture of insight and insanity, as is made clear by a recent interview that he’s given concerning Cardinal Newman’s forthcoming beatification and Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to England.

He is insightful at times in the area of the relation of theology to economics. He refuses, at least on the surface, to let theology be placed by the social sciences. Concomitantly, he recognizes that something is very wrong with a purely secular culture that has cut out any connection between itself and the divine, lacking any reference to the Christian sacred. He realizes that such a culture tends to promulgate barbaric practices in the realm of politics and economics. He even, on occasion, laments the “consumerizing” of sexual practices in post-1968 European culture.

In the recent  interview linked to above, published just today, in fact, he even goes so far as to argue that Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to England is very much needed and that the beatification of Cardinal Newman is a work of unity: as Newman, he argues, was both Anglican and Catholic and a treasure to both communions.

Anyone who is concerned with the integrity of the traditional faith, might, on occasion, be taken in by his words. But it is not long before a strange dissonance creeps in. For he speaks out of both sides of his mouth.

No sooner does he commend the high tradition of Patristic and Scholastic theology, then he starts in odd directions in regard to sexual issues. So, for instance, in the programmatic book on “Radical Orthodoxy,” which he compiled and edited, he publishes an essay (by another author, but presumably representative of the radically orthodox position) commending the practice of homosexual sexual unions as a sign of Trinitarian love, a position that he has never, to my knowledge, refuted. His critique of consumerism in the realm of sexual ethics can only fall to the ground with such an ideology in place.

In commending Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Great Britain, he adds the remark that the ordination of women to the episcopacy in the Anglican Church will prove to be, in the long run, a great ecumenical achievement,  especially now that, on Milbank’s opinion, the Pope’s recent provision to Anglicans who want to convert to Catholicism, Anglicanorum Coetibus, has shown that the Catholic Church recognizes Anglicanism to be a valid tradition, along the lines of Eastern Orthodoxy. This will, he implies, lead to a fluidity between the communions that will force the Catholic Church to confront the issues of homosexuality, the ordination of women, and married priests more forthrightly than it has done previously.

I suppose that this an interesting point to some extent, inasmuch as it gives a different perspective on Anglicanorum Coetibus than one generally hears from the Catholic side. Many traditionalist Catholics think that the provision will strengthen Catholic tradition, because it will presumably bring in converts who want more of that tradition and not less of it. Milbank in fact argues precisely to the contrary.

But this is why I think Milbank comes across as rather delusional in the end. The Catholic Church is not going to ordain women — ever, just as it has never done in 2,000 years, and not simply because of cultural conditioning that has presumably affected the Church’s disciplinary practice. The debate is closed, and it will not be opening any time soon, except among aging college professors who will be long dead before they ever have had a chance to carry out the revolution that they have so long desired. To the extent that Anglicanism pushes in that direction, the Catholic Church will close its ears. At the same time, the Catholic Church is not going to canonize the act of homosexual sex — ever, just as it has never done in 2,000 years. Milbank has accused John Paul II of being a Romantic for arguing for traditional marriage on the grounds of the nuptial analogy of the body. But, in fact, it is Milbank who has accepted, hook, line, and sinker, the libertine premises that have traditionally accompanied the Romantic ideology.

Milbank’s reading of the tradition comes across as tendentious and twisted. In the end, I think that the best that can be said of him is that he is a theological modernist who just happens to love some smells and bells. And, by the way, he is completely out of touch with the direction in which the Catholic Church is headed. Few young Catholics today, who take their faith seriously, are attracted to the kind of pansexualism that Milank would have us submerged in. The young priests, who will soon be bishops and popes, are going in a direction diametrically opposed to the Milbankian option. And, besides, he has hardly spearheaded a renewal of the life of faith in his own Anglican communion. We’re hardly talking about a personage on the level of John Paul II here. Radical Orthodoxy may be appealing to a handful of subversive and socially awkward eggheads, but it is not the path to spiritual renewal in Christianity.

I have not yet had the chance to speak to Ken since the U of I made their offer and I have not heard whether he has accepted it or will accept it.  However, it seems obvious to me that even if Ken does teach in the fall, there is no way that he can stay there for very long on a paltry $20k a year.  Even if he does choose to accept the resolution, without tenure and without an agreement with the Newman Center, Ken will have no recourse if they simply discontinue his classes without providing him a reason.  In any case,  it is nearly certain that someone other than Ken will be teaching classes on Catholicism at the U of I in the near future, or as the UI associate chancellor for public affairs called it, “the theory of Catholicism.”

The head of the Religion Department, Robert McKim, made it clear on a number of occasions in the year I was there, that he did not like the arrangement between the U of I and the Newman Center.  His preference was that we use the money the Newman Center was paying the faculty toward a Catholic Chair.  He and other professors mentioned the type of person they thought should have such a chair.  First among the qualifications was someone who was capable of criticizing his faith (is it any wonder why many of my students could not distinguish between critical thinking skills and criticizing things they did not like?).

As if to demonstrate what they meant by who should be teaching Catholicism at the U of I, the department invited two “Catholic” scholars in two consecutive years to give their annual “Thulin Lecture on Religion and Contemporary Culture.”  Can you guess who their preferred type of Catholic scholars might be?  In 2007 they invited Charlie Curran and in 2008 they brought in Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza.  Certainly here they have scholars who have no compunction about criticizing the faith, but I would argue that neither do they have the capacity to critically explain the Catholic faith from an inside perspective.  With “Catholic” scholars such  as these, you may as well have a Buddhist or Muslim teaching Catholicism…in fact, the latter might even be more even handed.

Whether it will be a Catholic chair, one of the existing professors of Christianity (both of whom have exhibited animus toward authentic Catholic thought in a variety of ways), or a new hire there is little doubt in my mind that after Ken Howell those who teach these classes will no longer be engaging the students with authentic Catholic thought.  As an example, one of the existing professors of Christianity was assigned to “mentor” me in establishing a syllabus I was developing for a class on Catholic morality.  He advised me that since there was no continuity between the early Church Fathers and Scripture, that I should remove the Scriptural background from my syllabus.  You see, in the department of religion, those teaching about Christianity have to hold to Harnackian orthodoxy (i.e. the Hellenization of Christianity).  He also advised that I remove all discussion of Church documents from my syllabus because no one really cares about what the Church teaches anyway.  Of course, I indicated to him that to follow his recommendations would give a distorted view of Catholic morality.  I said that Harnack’s theory was simply that, a theory about which we disagreed.  I also told him that the Magisterium was one of the unique things about Catholicism; that whether you followed it or not, everyone teaching about Catholicism has to take it as a point of reference.  Of course, one can see more clearly now why I was deemed ill suited to teach in their department.

It seems that the U of I did not waste this crisis.  They took it as an opportunity to abrogate an almost century long agreement so that they now have the ability to choose a professor who thinks as they do; that is, one who may not be qualified to teach authentic Catholic thought but at least will not be given to call into question secular orthodoxy.

A  local Champaign reporter who has been interviewing me about the aforementioned affair told me earlier today about the U of I’s offer to Ken Howell.  Apparently they have rehired him to teach one class per semester for $10, 000 per semester but he has to cut all ties with the St. John’s Catholic Newman Center.  He asked me for my thoughts on the matter.  Here is what I told him:

On the one hand, this is positive news.  The commission of the faculty senate has put the lie to the claims by LAS that teaching about the Catholic faith in a class about Catholicism is hate speech.  Nevertheless, the good fruit is laced with poison.

The offer seems to be exactly what I was afraid of.  The prohibition against Dr. Howell’s association with the Newman Center is another violation of his academic freedom and it is likewise a violation of his freedom of religion.  How many other adjuncts or part time faculty are prevented from working for an organization associated with their faith as a condition of employment?

The U of I appears to be making an economically untenable offer with the intent of voiding a 90+ year relationship with the Newman Center.  I suspect that they are banking on the fact that since Dr. Howell cannot work for the Newman Center, which paid him a full professor’s salary, he will not be able to afford to take the position.  The U of I is offering him perhaps a little more than a quarter of his Newman Center salary.

Even if Dr. Howell does manage to figure out how to make such a situation work, at the very least this stipulation seems to corroborate my experience that all too many at the U of I have a prejudice against faith. To suppose that being paid by a religious institution somehow disqualifies a professor from academic rigor and fair-mindedness is bigotry of the first order.  The fact that seminaries all across the country, whose faculty are paid by religious bodies, are also accredited by such associations as that which accredits the U of I (North Central Association of Colleges and Schools) indicates that funding from a religious source provides no warrant for suspicion.  Indeed, Catholic Chairs at major universities usually involve funding from Catholic donors and consultation with the local bishop about faculty appointments.  I do hope that this offensive stipulation is challenged.

See here and here for my previous posts on this matter.

A few days ago, a reporter from the News-Gazette, the local Champaign paper asked me some questions.  They probably will not be used since the issue may now be settling down but for the record, here is how I responded:

Paul,

I apologize for the delay in responding but our summer session is wrapping up and a host of other issues makes this a very busy time for me so I was only able to grab a minute here and there to jot down some responses to your questions:

“what reason the religious department gave you for not rehiring you as an adjunct“

Technically, I was not an adjunct but I was on visiting professor status.  I explain this more fully in my blog post here (http://cosmos-liturgy-sex.com/2010/07/14/they-finally-won-background-on-ken-howells-firing/ ).  In that post I also explain the events surrounding the Program for the Study of Religion’s (as it was then called) decision, but in sum: I was informed about 2/3s of the way into the fall semester (2006) that I would not be granted an adjunct appointment for the following year.  Dr. Robert McKim, the director of the Program for the Study of Religion, called me into his office to tell me that evaluations of my classes by two faculty members from the Program had indicated that I was not suited to teach with them.  He would not share with me any specifics of the evaluations but he said in general the problem resolved around the fact that I had appeared “too much like I believed what I was teaching.”  I am not sure what other disciplines for which this is a problem, but for Dr. McKim and at least a voting majority of the faculty for the Religious Studies Department, belief when it comes to teaching about the Catholic Church seems to be a problem.

“Do you think your case is similar to Dr. Howell’s?”

Yes I do.  Dr. Howell’s case is much clearer of course.  He has taught at the U of I for almost a decade and at least since 2005, I believe, every semester he has been ranked by his students as an outstanding professor.  Many of these times, he was the only one in the religion department to receive such recognition.  Thus, he has a long and stellar record as an outstanding teacher with the department.  In his case, he was also told the explicit content which the University decision makers found objectionable.  This happened to be an articulation of the Catholic Church’s use of the classical natural law tradition to show its conformance with Church teaching in the context of same sex attraction.  The content of the class had been approved by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, as is the case with all approved classes.  The inability to teach what the Catholic Church teaches and why she does so when it is the explicitly approved topic of the class, simply because it does not comport with current dominant ideology about same sex attraction is unmistakably an infringement on the purpose of a university and the academic freedom that lies at the heart of a university’s mission. To do so in this case was called “hate speech” in a complaint. It seems to me that in this context, the phrase “hate speech” is being used as an ad hominem attack to censor discussion that calls into question an accepted popular dogma, in this case the belief by many in academia about what we might call the “secular sacredness” attached to same sex attraction. In my case, it was the very fact that I “appeared to believe” what the Church taught that was enough to disqualify me to teach.  The similarity in both cases is that academic freedom seemed not to apply to Christians teaching about the content of their religion merely because they also accepted that content as true.  It is important to note that no claim was made against either of us that we expected the students to believe, pressured them to believe, graded students based upon belief, or that we did not maintain academic standards.  I “seemed to believe” what I taught and Dr. Howell’s belief, which violated U of I’s (or at least LAS’s) “standards of inclusivity,” both were the reasons for our departure.

“Does the UI have a problem with Catholics expressing themselves?”

We will have to wait to see the results of the Faculty Senate Committee’s investigation to see if such a charge can fairly be made against the university as a whole, but this clearly seems to be the case within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Department of Religion.

“Do you have the right as a professor to express your personal opinions?”

I think that a professor has a duty to allow students to know where he is coming from.  In journalism this is often referred to as “full disclosure” I believe.  If students are to critically assess what is being presented, they should have the opportunity not simply to evaluate the arguments, they should also have access to information about the professor’s personal position in order to more clearly contextualize the arguments. Perhaps it may be the case that other relevant data may have been intentionally or inadvertently left out due to the professor’s position.  A student has a right, in fact a duty, to fully evaluate and so make up his/her own mind about an issue in a fully informed manner.  There are very few disciplines in which the professor’s personal views are deemed inappropriate to classroom discussion.  This includes some of the most controversial topics of our time.  That is of course, unless the views depart for accepted “orthodoxy.”  Academic Freedom standards in the academy actually protect the right of a professor to discuss relevant controversial topics.  The American Association of University Professors cites a Supreme Court decision in this regard on the matter of academic freedom:  “As the Supreme Court said in Keyishian v. Board of Regents, 385 U.S. 589 (1967), ‘Our Nation is deeply committed to safeguarding academic freedom, which is of transcendent value to all of us and not merely to the teachers concerned. That freedom is therefore a special concern of the First Amendment, which does not tolerate laws that cast a pall of orthodoxy over the classroom’” (http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/policydocs/contents/1940statement.htm ).  Unfortunately, the “orthodoxy” demanded by LAS and the Department of Religion squelches rational dialog about the very content of which the class is supposed to be about.

“…have you kept any documents from the time in question?”

I have some documents.  One that may be of interest is attached.  It is a copy of the e-mail notifying Dr. Howell the Program’s refusal to allow me to teach.  It is very vague and it was never explained to me what exactly was meant by the reasons given.  As a result, I was never given a chance to respond to the charge that I was “not well equipped” and that point never came up as a separate issue in the discussion I had with Dr. McKim about their decision and so I am left to assume this is also a reference to the “offending” manner in which I taught.  Furthermore, the topics of the classes which Program faculty evaluated were theological and philosophical matters associated with the First and Second Vatican Councils, topics about which I am well suited to teach and about which I was evaluated in my graduate studies.  Thus, I would be very surprised if the two faculty members evaluating me would have been qualified to critique my expertise in these areas.  Nevertheless, the e-mail’s reference to “the way in which they need to be taught at a secular university” was clearly citing Dr. McKim’s explanation to me that I taught too much as though I believed what I was teaching.

My last post on this topic provided my thoughts about it.  However, I thought that a little background as to how this came about might be of interest to some. I think it helpful to go back to the beginning of the association between the Institute of Catholic Thought (ICT), of which Ken Howell was the director, and the University of Illinois in terms of credit classes.

The ICT had its predecessor in a cooperative arrangement between the Spaulding Guild (the original instantiation of what is now St. John’s Catholic Newman Center, the parent organization of the ICT) and the University of Illinois.  The director of the Spaulding Guild, Fr. John A. O’Brien, joined with nine other campus ministry organizations to petition the University to accept for credit in the university, some courses the student centers would teach in their respective institutions.

On December 9^th 1919 the faculty Senate and the Board of Trustees approved an arrangement with these centers.  This allowed the Guild to teach Catholic courses for university credit under the supervision of a university appointed committee.  The stipulations for this arrangement required that the Guild follow certain guidelines.  These included that it incorporate, submit their proposed courses to the university for approval, provide instructors with a Ph.D. or equivalent education, provide their own facilities, and limit enrollment in the courses to students of sophomore standing or higher.

In the 1970s, controversy erupted over the credit course system that had been created by these campus ministers in 1919.  The controversy began developing in the late 1950s.  At that time, credit course enrollment had been integrated into the university’s registration process and the committee which had supervised the courses had been abolished (though their supervision was transferred to another body). These changes angered a small but powerful group of faculty members from the philosophy and sociology departments.  These faculty were members of the local chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and through the AAUP began making formal assaults on the credit course system, pressing for its discontinuance.

The ministers of the campus ministries, organized through the Religious Worker’s Association (RWA), fought the attack throughout the 1960s.  As the decade wore on, however, the heads of several foundations backed down, fearing that unless they compromised, they would have no voice in future decisions.  By the late 1960s, Fr. Duncan (the director [1943-1997] of what was now the Newman Foundation), was waging an increasingly lonely battle to keep the credit-course system intact, arguing that theology, which was the heart of religion, should be taught as an academic subject only by those trained in it. To the surprise of many, on May 17, 1972, the Trustees voted six to two to keep the credit courses (the above two paragraphs are from an unpublished history assembled by a friend of mine).

In 2000 the issue erupted again in which the Program for the Study of Religion again tried to eliminate the courses being offered in the Newman Foundation.  By this time, the Foundation, thanks to Msgr. Duncan’s influence , was the only remaining campus ministry center to be teaching these credit courses.  The director of the Foundation was now Msgr. Stuart Swetland who continued the battle with the same vigor.

The compromise he was to reach now included the discontinuation of teaching the courses as theology courses in the Newman Foundatoin.  The arrangement was modified in 2001 with the Program for the Study of Religion within the Liberal Arts School, subsuming these courses into its program and appointing two Newman Foundation professors as adjuncts within the Program.  These faculty would not receive any compensation from the University.  The courses were now taught as religious studies courses.  They were taught from an interior perspective, but they did not presume or expect faith on the part of the students.  These course turned out to be some of the most popular courses offered by the Program for the Study of Religion.  All of the classes offered by Msgr. Swetland and Ken Howell were regularly full and the instructors were ranked as excellent by their students almost every semester.

When Msgr. Swetland was reassigned in the spring of 2006, the battle erupted again.  The plan was for me to replace Msgr. Swetland in his classes.  Ken Howell notified the Program of this desired change.  The director was Robert McKim (the same person who “fired” Ken Howell earlier this year).  He was of course quite cool to the idea.  This stage of the controversy began with an invitation from the Program for me to meet with the faculty so “we could get to know one another.”

The meeting turned out to be something of an inquisition for which I was unprepared.  Three days after hearing that I would be taking Msgr. Swetland’s courses over, I was asked to cite the books I would use, layout on the fly a syllabus for these courses and answer specific questions about the topics posed by each of the faculty members.  Perhaps I should have expected this, but of course I was unprepared as I had not taught the courses before.

The faculty deemed me not competent to teach and declined to allow me to replace Msgr.  Swetland.  This was at the end of the academic year in the spring of 2006.  Over the summer Ken pushed Robert McKim on the issue.  McKim agreed that it was probably an unfair evaluation and that things likely would have gone differently if I had been given a chance to prepare for the meeting.  Much to the chagrin of the faculty, McKim relented and gave me a one year visiting appointment.  I have to admit that McKim did recognize he would take a lot of heat for this but decided to do the right thing.  Generally, I think McKim tried to be fair, even if his heart is with those who wanted to see us gone…or else his penchant for getting along weighed in our favor.  Nevertheless, he was always quite candid about his distaste for the current arrangement and his desire for a Catholic Chair whom the department would select (given they took to inviting “Charlie” Curran and Elizabeth Fiorenza as their guest lecturers one can see whom they would want to be the Catholic Chair).

However, during the fall semester of 2006 I was informed that the faculty had decided to begin a program to evaluate their adjuncts just in time for my inaugural semester.  I do not know if any others ever were evaluated, but McKim admitted that this was something new.  I had two faculty members sit in on two of my classes.  One of these members, one of them very hostile about Christian beliefs.

Of the two classes evaluated, one was on Vatican I and the Church’s response to Liberalism.  The other was on the background leading up to the calling of the Second Vatican Council.  While I think I was fair, I clearly laid these issues out from an interior Catholic perspective trying to explain the Catholic worldview and how this led to the events we were studying.  A few days later, I was called in to Robert McKim’s office.  He informed me that the “star chamber” had decided that I was not appropriate to teach within the Program.  He said that he could not share with me their deliberations and that the decision was final.  He did indicate to me that in general, the feeling was that I came across too much as though I believed what I was teaching.  McKim is one (perhaps the only one in what is now a Department) who thinks that students should not know what the professor thinks about what he teaches, presuming that this is the only way to be “objective.”

With my departure, this left finding a way to eliminate Ken Howell as the final step in a battle that had begun nearly 60 years prior, that is to eliminate people of faith from teaching subjects having to do with their faith.  To be fair, there are others who practice their faith who teach about their faith.  Conspicuously missing are those of the Judeo-Christian traditions.

It seems to me that this prejudice against people of faith is predicated upon a secular presupposition that there is an inherent conflict between faith and reason.  This premise is likely a vestige of the presumption that any kind of faith demands fideism which has permeated much of the Protestant religious experience in the United States.  While this fideism has its most obvious manifestation in Fundamentalism, it has its roots in the Reformed and Lutheran schools who adopted Ockham’s Voluntarist Nominalism.  Nevertheless, this premise is simply a rationalization as I see it.  My experience was that there seems  to be almost a fear of engagement with Catholic thought among many of these academics.  The U of I Department of Religion (it transitioned from a Program to a Department in 2007 or 2008) represents a gamut of responses to Catholic thought: from hostile ad hominem attacks, to snobbish dismissal, to fearful avoidance of any discussion.  This is not all of the faculty, but it describes at least the vocal leaders.

Ken’s firing was made easy by the 2001 arrangement.  Adjuncts have no rights and I suspect that this was foreseen.  Even though the arrangment was supposed to continue into the indefinite future, an almost century old agreement, the stipulations of the agreement made it only a matter of time before the desires of the hostile faculty members would prevail.  In some ways, it is amazing that they did not find a reason to get rid of Ken earlier.   I suspect that because he always had full classes, no complaints, and was rated excellent by his students for at least 10 consecutive semesters, and they were not paying for his services they found it very difficult to justify.

It is easy to see that they needed something like this sensitive, politically correct scheme to complete their nearly 6 decade-long effort to expunge people of particular faith perspectives from the classroom.  One even wonders if this might have been a set up.  Based upon Ken’s description of the events and an evaluation of the two documents upon which the U of I seems to have made its decision (Ken’s e-mail to his students and the anonymous complaint by an ostensible friend of one of Ken’s students), it seems that the “star chamber” decision was simply a calculation that they could get away with it this time.  I suspect they thought no one would be able to defend Ken’s e-mail because they have never seriously engaged with Catholic thought.  For the time being any way, they seem to have won…

It is ironic.  In academia today there exists the prevailing notion that universities are bastions of freedom to pursue truth…though paradoxically, all too many in the academy no longer accept the notion of truth.  In reality, truth has been replaced by freedom as an end in itself. And there is almost nothing off limits in this pursuit of academic freedom: pornography, blasphemy, bigotry against select religions, except for authentic academic freedom.  In any case, the self-appointed guardians of “freedom as an end” will so often look down their noses at people of faith who are “encumbered” by dogmatic thinking and so are unable “to think for themselves.”

In truth, man is a dogmatic animal.  He is made to pursue the truth (i.e. dogmas) and cannot abide with falsity nor with those who are unwilling to see the truth.  As it turns out, even in the most secular of institutions dogmas of faith will trump academic freedom. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is one such institution.

As a matter of full disclosure, I must say that I experienced the University of Illinois’ squelching of  academic freedom myself a few years ago.  I was a visiting professor for an academic year at this institution.  The Religious Studies department was not happy with my teaching there, but through an almost century old agreement with the Newman Center, they initially were compelled to allow me.  Because of this, they decided that  they should start sitting in on classes of their adjuncts/visiting professors.  Two faculty members sat in on my class on US Catholic History.  Some days after my class visit I was called in to the department head’s office to be told that I would not be allowed to continue the following academic year.   It seems that I had committed a very grave sin against the new orthodoxy.  My sin?  I appeared as though I believed what I was teaching.  I was not accused of proselytizing, being unfair to students, or expecting them to believe what I taught.  Nevertheless, since my subject matter did not conform to secularist orthodoxy, it was deemed that there was too great a danger in exposing students to rank heresy without an “orthodox” professor there to refute it for them.

Thus, I was not surprised a couple of weeks ago when my former colleague who has been teaching there since 2000, called to tell me that after 10 years his appointment at the university was not being renewed.  Kenneth Howell was a very popular teacher.  He had been ranked excellent by his students every semester for years (at least since I got there in 2005).  His classes were always full.  Even his students who disagreed with him, respected his ability to clearly and dispassionately explain to them what the Catholic Church teaches.  However, now he too has been found to be so grave a sinner against secularist orthodoxy that he too must be purged from the ranks of the orthodox.  Indeed, his sin was much more grave than my own.  Here is Ken’s explanation sent to his friends:

“Dear Friend:

I write this short narrative to explain why I am no longer teaching at the University of Illinois and am not employed by the Diocese of Peoria as of 30 June 2010. First, a little background.

I came to Champaign-Urbana in August of 1998 to be employed by the St. John’s Catholic Newman Center as a teacher in the courses of the Catholic faith that were then taught through the Center. For seven years I enjoyed a working relationship with Monsignor Stuart W. Swetland, the Director of the Center, who taught alongside me in that program. In 2000, Monsignor Swetland negotiated an agreement with the Department of Religion in which he and I would be adjunct professors in the department and would teach courses on Catholicism. We simultaneously established the Institute of Catholic Thought of which I became the Director and Senior Fellow. The purpose of the Institute was to promote the intellectual heritage of the western world in which Catholicism played such an integral role.

Since the Fall of 2001, I have been regularly teaching two courses in the Department of Religion. Since Monsignor Swetland’s departure in May of 2006, I have taught the equivalent of a full-time professor every semester, sometimes even more. This past semester (Spring 2010) something occurred which changed an otherwise idyllic academic life. One of the courses I have taught since 2001 has been “Introduction to Catholicism.” I think that it is fair to say that many students at the University of Illinois have benefited greatly from this and other teaching I have done. Every semester in that “Introduction” class, I gave two lectures dealing with Catholic Moral positions. One was an explanation of Natural Moral Law as affirmed by the Church. The second was designed as an application of Natural Law Theory to a disputed issue in our society. Most of those semesters, my chosen topic was the moral status of homosexual acts. I would happy to explain more fully the Catholic Church’s position on this matter but, for the sake of brevity, I can summarize it as follows. A homosexual orientation is not morally wrong just as no moral guilt can be assigned to any inclination that a person has. However, based on natural moral law, the Church believes that homosexual acts are contrary to human nature and therefore morally wrong. This is what I taught in my class.

This past semester was unusual. In previous years, I had students who might have disagreed with the Church’s position but they did so respectfully and without incident. This semester (Spring 2010) I noticed the most vociferous reaction that I have ever had. It seemed out of proportion to all that I had known thus far. To help students understand better how this issue might be decided within competing moral systems, I sent them an email contrasting utilitarianism (in the populist sense) and natural moral law. If we take utilitarianism to be a kind of cost-benefit analysis, I tried to show them that under utilitarianism, homosexual acts would not be considered immoral whereas under natural moral law they would. This is because natural moral law, unlike utilitarianism, judges morality on the basis of the acts themselves.

After the semester was over, I was called into the office of Robert McKim, the chairman of the Department of Religion, who was in possession of this email. I was told that someone (I presume one of my students) sent this email to the Office of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered Concerns at the University. It was apparently sent to administrators in the University of Illinois and then forwarded on to Professor McKim. I was told that I would no longer be able to teach in the Department of Religion.

Professor McKim and I discussed the contents of the email and he was quite insistent that my days of teaching in the department were over. I offered that it would be more just to ask me not to address the subject of homosexuality in my class. In fact, the other class I regularly taught (Modern Catholic Thought) never dealt with that subject at all. I also avered that to dismiss me for teaching the Catholic position in a class on Catholicism was a violation of academic freedom and my first amendment rights of free speech. This made no difference. After that conversation and a couple of emails, Professor McKim insisted that this decision to dismiss me stood firm.

I then consulted with our Diocesan lawyer, Mrs. Patricia Gibson, to see if the St. John’s Newman Center could sue the university for breach of contract. Mrs. Gibson, kind in spirit and articulate as regards the law, told me that unfortunately the university had made very careful provisions to protect itself and so would not be liable in a law suit. I am still consulting with other lawyers about possible legal action on the grounds of the first amendment.

Then Monsignor Gregory Ketcham, the current Director of the St. John’s Catholic Newman Center and my superior, informed me that the Center would not be able to continue employing me since there was no longer any teaching for me to do. I then reiterated what I had mentioned to him the day before. I suggested that we work together to have courses on Catholicism taught at the Newman Center that could be accredited by a Catholic university and that could be transferred into the University of Illinois for credit. In this way, the students whom we had been called to serve could continue to be instructed in the Catholic Faith. I told him in fact that I had once had conversations with professors in Catholic universities who were willing to make such arrangements. Monsignor Ketcham said that he had no interest in such a plan.

Thus, after more than sixty years, students at the University of Illinois will have no classes on Catholicism available to them. If the Department of Religion continues to offer the courses I taught, I have no idea how accurately Catholicism will be represented. I know this subject well enough to say it can be easily distorted. I have tried in this document to portray in a straightforward manner what happened. I also am preparing another document giving my own interpretation of all these events.

I look back at the twelve years I have spent in this position with memories of wonderful times with my students and friends with whom I have labored. It has been a time of great growth and joy. I thank God from the bottom of my heart. I don’t know what the future holds but I do know Him who holds it. He is faithful and can be trusted.

Sincerely,

Kenneth J. Howell “

A dispassionate presentation of the Catholic Church’s position on natural law apparently cannot be tolerated by the magisterium of the new orthodoxy.  After all, the dogma that same sex attraction disorder is a preferred orientation is a revealed truth that cannot be rationally defended; thus, it must simply be accepted.  Those who will not accept it cannot be tolerated in polite society.  It is ironic that this is exactly what these same thinkers claim about the Catholic faith and why they are so suspicious of any believer who would attempt to teach about the Catholic faith in a public (or secular as they would say) institution.

If you want to keep up with this, or if you would like to weigh in with the U of I administration, you can go to a Facebook page started by Ken’s former students.

A friend of mine recently told me that Fr. Corapi’s credibility is being questioned by an organization called P.O.W. Network. What is at question is his military service.

This website claims that Fr. Corapi has presented himself as a former Green Beret who had served in Vietnam. They link to his DD-214Freedom of Information Act released records (a document every service member receives when separating from active duty which summarizes his service) which, in fact, does not show that he ever received Special Forces training, served in any SF units, or that he served in Vietnam. Assuming no errors were made in documenting his service (something that is very common) we will take it as given that Fr. Corapi did not ever earn the Green Beret and never made it into the Vietnam theater during his time in the Army.

The question remains, has Fr. Corapi ever made the claim that he served in Vietnam or that he wore the Green Beret? The P.O.W. Network says that he has. I might note that their website does not appear to me to have been professionally done and the quality of their claims seem to follow this same do-it-yourself pattern.

They begin to make their case with a “cut and paste” from Las Vegas Marian Center which makes the claim that Fr. Corapi had been a Green Beret. Then POWN follows this up with the claim that suddenly in August 2007 Fr. Corapi’s website was changed to remove all references to his having been a Green Beret and had served in Vietnam. Their proof that he changed the site. Well, I suppose it is the link to Fr. Corapi’s bio on his website. Sure enough, it doesn’t claim that he was a Green Beret or that he served in Vietnam.

So let’s see what we have so far. A website that Fr. Corapi apparently has nothing to do with makes a claim about him. We go over to his website and he doesn’t make that same claim. We have nothing documenting that his website ever did make that claim. I don’t know about you, but it seems to me that Fr. Corapi cannot be held responsible for what the Las Vegas Marian Center puts on their website. At this point, I am not impressed.

POWN then provides links to a variety of websites, some saying that he was a Green Beret and two saying that his hopes of becoming a Green Beret serving in Vietnam “dissolved” after a helicopter accident. I am not sure if they read these posts very closely because this would appear to me to be testimony that is in conflict with their claims.

It doesn’t take a trained detective to suspect that those quotations with the additional details (about the helicopter accident) which say that his hopes of becoming a Green Beret were never realized might merit further investigation. They clearly indicate that he did not say he earned the Green Beret and one seems to indicate that he says he never went to Vietnam. I still do not see that they have any case . . . except perhaps, that they may be guilty of libel.

But not to fear; there is more. They have posted two e-mails from a stellar . . . errr cosmic might be a better term “detective.” He is a certain Don Bendell. A quick perusal of Mr. Bendell’s website gives some illuminating and relevant insight into his personality I think. These suspicions I believe can be confirmed from his rather surprising ramblings when asked to produce evidence of his claims in this e-mail exchange with my friend (as with all e-mail trails, read from the bottom up). His attacks on a Desert Storm veteran and the Catholic Church for nothing more than that veteran’s request for primary source documentation of their claims says all I need to hear to make up my mind. Ad hominem is often the first line of defense for those who have been caught a bit short in the intellectual department. Nevertheless, I will let you decide about this for yourselves. It appears to me that this Bendell character is the source of P.O.W. Network’s interest? As with the latter, the former is large on accusations but short on evidence.

I have looked over the evidence that these activists have provided and I have to say that at this point it is clear to me that some good Catholics have believed that Fr. Corapi has said that he was a Green Beret and served in Vietnam. However, I have not seen from Fr. Corapi’s himself any words that would justify this belief. Further, I do not know if any of these good Catholics would have had the background to make the proper distinctions that it seems to me, Fr. Corapi may have been making.

What I mean is that it is possible for Fr. Corapi to have made reference to training that he, and every soldier, underwent during basic training and subsequent advanced individual training that all infantrymen received as preparing him for his plans to become a Green Beret. Fr. Corapi has said that he was enlisted under a contract guaranteeing him a slot in Special Forces training. As such, he could legitimately have said that his initial training was preparing him for Special Forces (Green Beret’s) school. This would be valid even though he was injured and disqualified prior to such an assignment proper. Again, saying that he served in the Army during the Vietnam War does not mean to suggest that he went to Vietnam. It locates the service in time; not geographically.

In the absence of evidence and the good possibility that the manifold erroneous biographies are due to the propagation of perhaps one or two people’s mistaken understanding of Fr. Corapi’s biography, it is necessary to give Fr. Corapi the benefit of the doubt. If anyone has any direct evidence to the contrary (transcripts, recordings, published quotations, etc. of Fr. Corapi’s exact words), please provide such.

By the way, many have heard that Fr. Corapi is no longer traveling because of some unidentified ailment that his doctors have not yet been able to identify. Please keep him in your prayers.

Erratum: I erroneously referred to the document providing Fr. Corapi’s service history as a DD-214. The information was actually a summary of his records on a National Archives form (NA 13164) along with his assignment history apparently directly from his personnel file.

Update: The POW Network’s claim above that Fr. Corapi “suddenly” changed his website in August 2007 after having been confronted can be seen to be patently false.  They imply by this that it previously had referred to him as a “Green Beret soldier.” The Wayback Machine has this page of Fr. Corapi’s website back as early as September 2005 and this is what it says of him: “From small town boy to the Vietnam era US Army, from millionaire businessman in Las Vegas and Hollywood to drug addicted and homeless, to religious life and ordination to the priesthood by Pope John Paul II, to a life as a preacher of the Gospel who has reached millions with the simple message that God’s Name is Mercy!”  (Underline added).  The more we check into the POW Network and their SF investigator the more we find that they make unfounded accusations following incompetent investigators apparently motivated by a precommitment of the guilt of their target.

Italian activist Gabriele Paolini earned five months in jail for a 2005 incident of accusing Pope John Paul II of being ‘gay‘. He interrupted a live broadcast when he yelled his ‘offensive’ words against JPII as the state run television was updating the pontiff’s deteriorating health. Italian law forbids any interruption of a public service which carries a sentence of up to one year in jail. For offending Italy’s state religion, one can be punished with up to two years in prison.

Paolini, officially entered into the Guinness Book of Records for appearing on television more than 20,000+ times, is notorious for positioning himself with television reporters, wearing a condom necklace and waving sexual paraphernalia or photos of the Pope. He apparently blames the Pope and everyone else opposed to sexual immorality for the death of his friend who contracted AIDS from a prostitute.

While common sense would dictate that if the teachings of the Church/Pope were responsible for the spread of AIDS, it would be evident by a significantly skewed prevalence of AIDS among practicing Catholics, while those outside the Church should be relatively AIDS free. While obviously illogical to any outside observer, to the perpetrators of blame aimed at the Church, it’s about as clear as mud.

Blame is based on anger, hatred and revenge. Blame is a convenient defense mechanism used extensively throughout our developmental years which is largely outgrown as we mature; unfortunately, those who have experienced a trauma typically experience an arrested stage of developmental maturity. We typically depend on blaming others when we believe ourselves to be helpless and hopeless. As these feelings progress into our adulthood, we fully incorporate these feelings of inadequacy, and become convinced of never being “good enough” to successfully protect ourselves and others against the injustices of the “unfair” world.

Consequently, we adopt self-destructive behaviors which ultimately become the source of our own pain and anger, and we become embittered towards the world for all the unpunished abuses by the powers of the world. With every disappointment, comes a convenient means of self-destruction and a perceived justification in blaming others for all of our self inflicted wounds.

For you say, “I am rich and affluent and have no need of anything,” and yet do not realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. – Revelation 3:17

This one goes a leap beyond the believable I think, even for the most fervent Catholic haters. We become defiled through our desire for revenge. Forgiveness is an act of the will, a gift to another which comes from sorrow.

Atheist, Jeremy Hall claims that pressure within the Army to believe in God is so strong, it got to the point “I was ashamed to say that I was an atheist.” Hall, a recent atheist convert and school drop out, plans on leaving the Army next year and also filed a lawsuit against the Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. He insists, “I’m not in it for cash, I want no one else to go what I went through.” He employed the assistance of the notoriously anti-christian organization , The Military Religious Freedom Foundation to represent him.

“Our new Federal lawsuit will show the almost incomprehensible national security risks to America and the world as a result of the destruction of the wall separating Church and State in the United States armed forces. The United States military is actively engaged in a pernicious and pervasive pattern and practice of unconstitutional rape of the precious religious freedoms of our honorable and noble sailors, soldiers, airmen, marines, national guard, reservists and veterans. This evil is a noxious, institutional force-feeding of fundamentalist Christianity by our nation’s military command structure in complete defiance of the United States Constitution.”

The truth behind our motivations are very rarely initially understood. Given that faith in God doesn’t depend on knowledge as much as with understanding, atheism can never be the conclusion of a scientific or philosophical theory, but a premeditated act of the will. One cannot disprove that which isn’t learned, but received. God will not allow Himself to be revealed to the proud through theory and logic, but to those willing to seek Him with a sincere heart.

I believe the conversion to atheism has less to do with one’s intellectual discovery, and more to do with a calculated cop out based on a human weaknesses (sin). A term known as cognitive dissonance can be explained as the feelings we all experience when our beliefs and behaviors don’t match up. The most powerful type of dissonance are those which are based on our self-image when we experience feelings such as foolishness, shame, embarrassment, and guilt. In order to avoid these uncomfortable and most undesirable feelings about ourselves, we are left with three choices; we either change our behaviors (faith, religion), justify and rationalize our behaviors by changing the conflicting beliefs (atheism/agnostic), or justify our behaviors by adding new cognitions (heretics). Proof once again that more sin is the punishment of our sins.

“Once I taste of the spirit, all carnal things become meaningless” - The Ascent of Mount Carmel by Saint John of the Cross

“How often have I yearned to gather you as a mother hen gathers her young under her wing, but you refused Me.”
– Mt 7:9-11

The notorious 80 year old Marxist artist Hrdlicka had his most obscene work removed from the Dommuseum of Vienna. As with most of the Utopian Narcissists who blame religion for the world’s problems while pushing their own brand of religion on the rest of us, hope for a future world without restraint, where the human person and condition can be reduced to ideological talking points and slogans – Hrdlicka, like a window into his soul, attacks the most sacred Sacrament with a sexual perversion most begotten by his “marxist” god which has incidentally killed more than 100 million people during the twentieth century.

Good, short article at the CERC called Totaled Utopia on the always angry and frustrated totalitarian left’s attempt to create a Marxist heaven on earth.

A month or so ago I ran into a lady at a pro-life gathering peddling a stack of yellow flyers, promoting a Christian pro-life film “like” Bella, called “Noelle” and while enduring my brief but painful inquisition, it took her no more than 15 seconds to convince me something wasn’t right about her and/or the film as I tend to get a tad suspicious when a disclaimer is followed by a but, as was the case of a pro-life advocate, who felt “we” needed to stop judging women who were getting abortions. I was then introduced to Noëlle, a film about a priest – girl – pregnant – abortion…., but we mustn’t get defensive – it’s Christian, it’s pro-life, it’s all about forgiveness!! She admittedly didn’t know the details of the film, but none-the-less, continued to walk among the crowed promoting it.

I admit it, I do get defensive and tend to over react to what appears to be this relentless stereotyping agenda of Catholic priests and the Church by the media, I just get so sick of it, so I called her on it. “But don’t be so quick to judge, it’s a Christian film and it’s pro-life!!” Look as I could, I never found anything on-line that could definitively identify this movie as being anti-Catholic, until yesterday.

In short:

If you’re in the Catholic camp, it’s a (1) anti-Catholic smear movie which (2) denigrates Catholicism .

If you’re in the NOT Catholic group, and you (1) liked ‘Bella,’ You’ll Love ‘Noëlle’ it’s a (2) powerhouse with a message to heal millions, (3) which offers Inspirational Message of Forgiveness and Second Chances for the Christmas Season.

Apparently, for some christians the only thing better than a pro-life film for the holidays is a pro-life film flavored with fumbling Catholics .

I’ll try to be careful here, but all this brings out an issue that came to light as we tried to bring together the pro-life community for the 40 Days for Life. We were optimistic and enthusiastic about including the Protestant community in the campaign, but despite our pleading among the mega churches and abundance of pro-life Christians in our fine city, we had absolutely zero participation. From what I perceived and heard, it was more important that it NOT be Catholic than it being pro-life, or maybe they were just too busy preparing for the Pro-Life event of the year – the one hour long Life Chain. Then again, if they came knocking on my door, would I be open to support their pro-life endeavors? I hope I would be. In the name of fairness, there were also plenty of Catholic churches who were not receptive of supporting the cause.

Anyway, I heard the movie stunk, hooray for Christian unity and Merry Christmas!

Militant atheist Philip Pullman came out swinging after hearing the news of the American League calling for a boycott of his anti-catholic film, The Golden Compass. He insisted the reason behind the movie was to attract readers and for, “people to be allowed to make up their own mind” while flatly denying being a militant atheist with any sort of agenda. He proceeded to go on the offensive with a condescending rant aimed directly at Mr. Donohoe and other Catholics calling for a boycott:

“To regard it as this Donohoe man has said – that I’m a militant atheist, and my intention is to convert people – how the hell does he know that?” he said, in an interview with Newsweek magazine.

“Why don’t we trust readers? Why don’t we trust film goers? Oh, it causes me to shake my head with sorrow that such nitwits could be loose in the world.”

Perhaps the Catholic “nitwits” suspicions were prompted from the words which came directly out of the mouth of Pullman himself. The Washington Post and others have reported that he has claimed as one of his key goals,……… to “undermine the basis” of Christian belief.

Well,… to regard it as this Pullman man has said – that there are “nitwits” who would actually take a conniving man at his word- it causes me to shake my head with sorrow of the wickedness of exposing unsuspecting children to an atheistic fantasy of systematically destroying God, all through the doings of a pompous and self-righteous fraud. Although it sure looks as though he’s having a blast reading to the monkey and all those kids!!!

Credits (Story and Image) – TimesOnLine

Teen Wins Legal Battle for H.S. Pro-Life Club - 16-year-old Stephanie Hoffmeier started a  Pro-Life club in a public high school which attracted approximately 20 people at it’s first meeting. After originally denying her request, school officials quickly conceded they were wrong after discovering she had filed a law suit. Hoffmeier said her legal fight was a matter of equity. (more)

Atheist Gun Man Pummeled by Church Choir – 65-year-old atheist armed with a gun terrorized a Catholic church before the evening Sunday Mass. While yelling that there was no God and no religion he assaulted a priest after calling him a child molester and had to be taken down by members of the Choir. (more)

Britney Spears, following in the footsteps of her mentor Madonna, has chosen to use the Catholic Church as a launching pad for some cheap, controversial publicity to market her new album release. While Spears posed in several pictures that depict her seducing a priest in the confessional, you have the usual suspects in the press eagerly anticipating a reaction from Church representatives. In walks William Donahue (for whom I have respect along with the belief that he does as best he can) of the Catholic League who proceeds to launch a bunker buster Scud by taking a personal swipe at Spears.

The conundrum on how to fulfil our obligation to protect the Church from slander and abuse while not feeding in to the hands of the desperate publicity hounds and those who take joy in wounding the Church is nothing short of frustrating. In my opinion, a great place to start would be to focus mainly on the issue at hand and not on the perps themselves.  Given the fact that there will always be attacks at some level aimed at the Church, we must not only do our best to avoid doing any collateral damage which may feed the fire of anti-catholicism but also train ourselves to remain calm, couragous and sincere in our defense of Catholics and the truths within the Church. Easier said than done, I know. That’s not to say that from time to time I haven’t indulged in the guilty pleasures of seeing Donahue giving them hell.

If misery no longer existed, I sometimes wonder what some people would do with their lives. Despair is the tool of the devil, and a particular disciple of despair named Jan Egesborg has dedicated his life as an artist to dealing with the misery of world the only way he knows how–by spreading it. The idea behind Surrend.org, his website, is to make fun of the world’s powerful men and crazy ideological conflicts by using the street as it’s exhibition space with stickers and posters to express themselves. His latest project was created specifically for the Polish speaking Catholics as he slandered John Paul II by placing him in hell with notorious Nazi’s. Egesborg commented that the initial response from Poles has been a strong reaction to his “satirical” webpage, “for Poles it is just as controversial as the Mohamed cartoon was for Muslims,” he said.

Based on his exploitation of real victims of repression and abuse, this guy revels in his own vain glory while at the same time he redistributes his own anger and resentment on to those whom he despises. Join us in congratulating Jan as today’s C-L-S Misery Loves Company poster child.

Historian Sergio Luzzatto’s latest book The Other Christ: Padre Pio and 19th Century Italy has deduced that Padre Pio faked his stigmata through pouring carbolic acid on his hands. A secret Vatican document found by Luzzatto revealed how a pharmacist remembered a young Padre Pio buying four grams of carbolic acid in 1919. The testimony was originally presented to the Vatican by the Archbishop of Manfredonia, Pasquale Gagliardi, as proof that Padre Pio caused his own stigmata with acid.

What I suspect is conveniently omitted from Luzatto’s novel is a fair disclosure on the truth surrounding Archbishop Gagliardi’s “veritable satanic war” waged against Padre Pio. For what ever reason, the Archbishop was bent on sabotaging St. Pio’s ministry through baseless accusations of sexual and monetary improprieties and soliciting falsified letters which were then forwarded to the Vatican. When in truth, it was the archbishop himself who was the center of controversy which included public accusations of sexual molestation, unchastity and faulty accounting errors, in addition to his diocese being infected with continued and habitual pederasty as well as acts of cleric sodomy. The Vatican eventually removed him from his diocese.

Saint Pio never retaliated nor ever criticized Archbishop Gagliardi and immediately said Mass for him after his death. It is said that the angriest he was ever seen about the archbishop’s attacks was against one of his own supporters who had verbally attacked Gagliardi – another fact that will most likely never come to light in Luzzatto’s book which has the stench of anti-catholicism which far exceeds that of carbolic acid.

Attorney John Aretakis’ tactics of exploiting sex abuse victims as a means of inflicting damage to the Church has been fined $10,000 by a federal judge for what was deemed a frivolous lawsuit, using the case to advance his own agenda. Aretakis was representing a woman in a pro bono lawsuit against the Church when he was found guilty for misconduct, an act for which he’s been previously sanctioned, for having no basis for any of the causes of action that are alleged in his false complaints. His common practice (eerily similar to those of SNAP) between the filing of a complaint and publicized press conferences support the inference that Mr. Aretakis’s intention is to injure.

The judge said that Aretakis’ complaint was “sloppy and filled with mistakes, for example, it names a dead man as a defendant”.

That intent is confirmed by Mr. Aretakis’s statements in which he describes himself as an activist for clergy sexual abuse victims and is quoted as intending to “continue to humiliate and embarrass the Church” by bringing incidents of sexual abuse to light, even if he cannot bring them in court.

This intent to humiliate and embarrass is further manifested in the amended complaint which is littered with wholly irrelevant, inflammatory, and embarrassing facts concerning defendants and non-defendants alike that have no bearing on the actions brought, such as ‘it was widely known that he [one of the defendants] was an alcoholic.’ Accordingly, the Court finds that sanctions are necessary in this case”. The $8,000 fine represents $2,000 to be paid to each of the four law firms representing the defendants.

Sadly, this circus which surrounds the sex abuse crisis is merely a mirage of justice and has allowed those with the likes of Aretakis to steal from individuals in the Church who are no more culpable of the crimes than the victims themselves as well as providing a public forum on which to inflict unjust harm to the Church. To think that this is an isolated incident among Catholic antagonists is naive and unfortunately will continue to occur until someone in the position of authority stands up to the bullies and says no more.

In Transylvania and throughout Romania, Catholics who lost more than 2,000 churches to the Russian Orthodox church after the Second World War when the Russians banned Catholicism now want their churches back.  In most cases, the Orthodox church had said no, so Catholics have had to set up chapels in local villages, using borrowed rooms, basements, schools and even open fields to hold Mass.  The Orthodox Church is a powerful force in today’s Romania and as a result, a total of 2,200 Catholic properties remained in Orthodox hands and court actions by Catholics to recover the properies, including houses and land, has been met with very limited success.

In January, Romania was admitted to the European Union after promising to respect the rule of law and consequently some properties have been returned to Catholics which now have the Orthodox up in arms, resisting with anger towards the Catholics and vice-versa.

Apparently, Catholics are not the only ones to complain against the strong arm of the Orthodox as reported by the United States’ state department of the church’s campaigning against other Christian faiths. Allegedly, there have been cases of Orthodox priests inciting the local population against Seventh Day Adventist Church, the Baptist Church, the Greek Catholic Church and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Meanwhile, the Orthodox church have their hands full of battling accusations that it collaborated with the former Communists.

For the Mccanns, in their darkest hours of wondering the fate of their 4 year old daughter, it was their faith that kept them going…..that was until the Pope yanked his support and pulled their images from the Vatican website. Get the story here.

In their dark hours, it was faith that kept them going. They had nowhere else to go.

They took their torment to the very seat of their faith – to the Vatican, where the Pope held their hands and told them he would pray for them. They seemed to gain great strength from that.

But now, in their hour of need, like Pontius Pilate, he has washed his hands of them. A whiff of guilt, and the Catholic hierarchy distance themselves. And this from an organization built on guilt and hypocrisy.

Ouch! Whether or not this obviously bigoted author believes her ill written tripe about the Pope isn’t the point of my post. What I found most glaring was the common thread (of which some of us are guilty of from time to time) of her prideful and self righteous hypocrisy. In this case, her condemnation of the media (and Pope) was for the exact same sin of which she, herself, is guilty. As judge and jury, her unfounded mindset of guilt and judgment blindly and without cause – condemns the Pope, than proceeds to criticize the press for simply duplicating her deeds of prejudging others. In fact, she says it best in her own words, like a self fulfilling prophecy, when she writes, “there is a condemnation mindset creeping in that is sickening to watch.”