Wednesday, May 30, 2012

A Brief Will Be Presented To The Archbishop Of Washington, D.C.

Archbishop Wuerl and Pope Benedict XVI
William Peter Blatty and other concerned alumni have created an online petition -www.gupetition.org - on which he asks donors to curb their contributions to Georgetown for one year. It also states that the rights of Catholics to a Christian education have been violated by Georgetown's "21-year refusal to comply fully with the law of the Church." Because of this, he is initiating the canon lawsuit against Georgetown. Among the remedies the petition seeks is that there be a "declaration by the appropriate ecclesiastical authority that Georgetown University is no longer entitled to call itself a Catholic or Jesuit University."  There is precedent for this, said Father Michael Orsi, the Chaplain and Research Fellow in Law & Religion at the Ave Maria School of Law, a Catholic law school in Naples, Fla. "Catholic theologians are given a mandatum by the bishops of the dioceses that they are qualified to teach Catholic theology," he said. The rulebook for this is the Ex corde Ecclesiae, an order issued by Pope John Paul II in 1990. It defined what Catholicism means for Catholic universities. All educational facilities must have the endorsement of the local bishop. "The other side of it is the bishop can remove a Catholic theologian," Orsi said. He mentioned two instances where this was done. One was the case of Father Charles Curran, a theologian at the Catholic University of America. He taught about subjects that were considered antipodal to Catholic teachings. He was determined by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to be ineligible to be a professor of Catholic theology and was fired from his teaching position in 1986. The Congregation was run by then-Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI.  The other cited by Orsi was more recent. St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix was stripped of its "Catholic" appellation in December 2010. Phoenix Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted issued a decree dissolving the hospital's affiliation with the Catholic Church. He wrote in his decree that he could not confirm the hospital was providing its services in line with Catholic precepts. "It is not done enough," Orsi said. 
If Blatty's lawsuit moves forward, a brief will be presented to the Archbishop of Washington, D.C. He must make the determination that Georgetown no longer conducts itself as a Catholic university should. 
"Georgetown, of course, will say they have mass, they have the Knights of Columbus on campus," Orsi said. "This will be their attempt to say they are Catholic. They will say that allowing Sebelius was merely an expression of free speech on campus."
Link (here) to the full article at Legal New Online

12 comments:

Maria said...

God bless Mr. Blatty and the Cardinal Newman Society.

"Any education which does not train people to see everything in this life as only a means of reaching heaven is not education. It is mental perversion, which has mesmerized whole nations into living in a dream world."
--John Hardon SJ

Anonymous said...

re. Fr. Hardon: ttp://www.sfweekly.com/2012-01-11/news/mother-teresa-catholic-church-john-hardon-donald-mcguire-child-abuse-jesuits/

Maria said...

By the same author:

Does San Diego Discriminate Against Thong-Wearing Gay Men ...
Does San Diego Discriminate Against Thong-Wearing Gay Men? By Peter
Jamison Tue., Mar. 13 2012 at 4:00 PM. Categories: LGBT, Law & Order ...

blogs.sfweekly.com/.../2012/03/thong_san_diego_discrimination.php

YIKES. Looks like the Jebbies have some allies in some rather unseemly places. Proceed with caution.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the citations--but what is the point? The articles are about discrimination in public accommodations. Oh, wait--is this supposed to discredit the author? Give me a break! Only you would think that a news item on gay men somehow invalidates one's journalism credentials.

The article on the wanna-be saint is a fine piece of investigative reporting with documentary evidence. Can you refute it? Please stop turning a blind eye to Fr. Hardon's actions--when you excuse his harmful behavior you are committing sin.

Robert H said...

I am sorry but people like Blatty - would drag us back to the 16th century. There is a huge conflict between operating as a True University where students should be exposed to all major ideas or operating as a seminary where only the catholic positions are taught.

Anonymous said...

Get a load of the two fancy boys kissing hands.

Anonymous said...

Some people thaink that everything in life revolves around sex - even unnatural sex. The human soul is not just a body, but also a wonderful mind and a dicerning spirit. Jesus taught us how to live our earthly lives. Serving our selfish desires has too many downsides for us.

Anonymous said...

There are many forms of "selfish desires." Stop worrying about which consenting adults are having sex.

Anonymous said...

Not worried about what people do in their bedrooms - that is an individual's problem. I am worried about the corruption of the one human phenomenon - marriage - that has for eon provided society with stability and continuity.

Anonymous said...

that has for eon provided society with stability and continuity.

Marriage as you understand it is quite recent.

Anonymous said...

Not so. It is built into our human nature. This is why it exists the way it is in every culture.

Anonymous said...

"It is built into our human nature. This is why it exists the way it is in every culture."

Modern marriage--entered into by a single adult man and a single adult woman--based on love is only about 200 years old (and few practiced it until about 100 years ago).