Reknowned Jesuit Fr. Edmund Walsh On Defense Of Christian Civilization

Fr. Edmund A Walsh, S.J. and Gen Douglas MacArthur

Fr. Edmund Walsh, S.J. was an enthusiastic supporter of Cold War militarism, praising in particular the building of the US navy's first nuclear powered submarines and giant aircraft carrier. As the strongest citadel of Christian civilization, America needed to be vigilant and well armed. Addressing graduates of the FBI academy in 1947 he declared that never before was there

"greater need for clear heads, steady hands and great hearts at the controls of human destiny, for men who walk humbly in the sight of God but keep their powder dry"

Walsh's most stridently militarist position was his justification of a peremptory nuclear first strike by the United States against the Soviet Union. Writing immediately after the outbreak of war on the Korean peninsula which he interpreted as the "final confrontation" between "two great centers of world power whose basic and irreconcilable character" was known to Soviets decades ago, Walsh argued that all states were obligated to protect their populations from attack. Preemptive attacks were morally just. The United States, for example, would have been justified in intercepting and destroying the Japanese aircraft attacking Pearl Harbor. With a "Soviet feint in some remote area of Asia or the Middle East," the U.S. defense system had better keep its eyes fixed on the Northwest and Arctic sector for a sneak surprise attack. 

If the U.S. government had "sound reason to believe (that is, had moral certitude)" that a surprise attack was being planned then President Truman was justified in "taking measures proportionate to the danger" including use of atomic bombs. 

While the results would be tragic and horrific, there was no immorality in the United States government choosing the lesser of two evils. Walsh justified military force in the abstract by pointing out that "even Christ himself did not disdain to seize the lash and drive the hypocrites out of the Temple". Writing on this same issue of the atom bomb and the Christian conscience in Total Empire he ends the book with the rather ominous sentence: "The debate is not whether we can afford to do the necessary things for the defense of Christian civilization -- but can we afford not to do them?"

Link (here) to read the full paper with citations.

One Thing Is For Certain: Administrators At Georgetown Are Unrepentant

precisely what Archbishop Zani has in mind when he states that CCE is “taking the issue seriously” and is “cooperating with the Society of Jesus [SJ] in this regard” is impossible to know from those phrases. Is CCE sufficiently serious enough in this issue to bring pressure upon SJ leadership in Rome to introduce the kind of changes at Georgetown that Blatty seeks? Or, lacking “hierarchic recourse,” is CCE going to communicate with SJ leadership in Rome (perhaps over a very nice lunch and glass of wine) and then place Blatty’s canonical petition in the circular file, Archbishop Zani having done what said he would do?  One thing is for certain: Administrators at Georgetown are unrepentant. According to Inside Higher Ed, a Georgetown spokeswoman, Rachel Pugh, wrote in an email that the University has received no formal correspondence from the Vatican regarding the petition, and that Georgetown’s Catholic identity “has never been stronger.”  Perhaps the petition has already been placed in the circular file.

Link (here) to The American Catholic

precisely what Archbishop Zani has in mind when he states that CCE is “taking the issue seriously” and is “cooperating with the Society of Jesus [SJ] in this regard” is impossible to know from those phrases. Is CCE sufficiently serious enough in this issue to bring pressure upon SJ leadership in Rome to introduce the kind of changes at Georgetown that Blatty seeks? Or, lacking “hierarchic recourse,” is CCE going to communicate with SJ leadership in Rome (perhaps over a very nice lunch and glass of wine) and then place Blatty’s canonical petition in the circular file, Archbishop Zani having done what said he would do?
One thing is for certain: Administrators at Georgetown are unrepentant. According to Inside Higher Ed, a Georgetown spokeswoman, Rachel Pugh, wrote in an email that the University has received no formal correspondence from the Vatican regarding the petition, and that Georgetown’s Catholic identity “has never been stronger.”
Perhaps the petition has already been placed in the circular file.
- See more at: http://the-american-catholic.com/2014/05/14/william-peter-blatty-georgetown-and-the-congregation-for-catholic-education-headed-for-the-circular-file/#sthash.sv8k5YMI.dpuf

The Success Of William Peter Blatty

Archbishop Angelo Vincenzo Zani

Last September, William Peter Blatty, the author of The Exorcist and an alumnus of Georgetown University, sent a canonical petition to the Vatican, requesting that the Church “require that Georgetown implement Ex Corde Ecclesiae, a papal constitution governing Catholic colleges.” If that effort proved fruitless, his petition called for “the removal or suspension of top-ranked Georgetown’s right to call itself Catholic and Jesuit in any of its representations.” Many months later, Blatty and the 2,000 other men and women who signed his petition have received a response from the Congregation for Catholic Education, sparking cautious hope that the Holy See will press the Society of Jesus to address festering problems on the Washington campus.

In an April 4 letter, Archbishop Angelo Vincenzo Zani, the secretary of the Congregation for Catholic Education, stated that technical impediments prevented the department from granting the petitioners’ request for “hierarchic recourse.” But Archbishop Zani offered hope that the Vatican would pursue the matter further.

“Your communications to this dicastery in the matter of Georgetown University … constitute a well-founded complaint,” wrote Archbishop Zani. “Our congregation is taking the issue seriously and is cooperating with the Society of Jesus in this regard.” Archbishop Zani’s response fell short of Blatty’s request for a formal assessment of Georgetown’s adherence to Ex Corde Ecclesiae (Catholic Universities), St. John Paul II’s apostolic constitution that directs Catholic universities to adhere to Catholic teaching and advance the mission of the Church in their institutional culture, faculty hiring and retention, curricula and student affairs. However, Blatty remains optimistic that his ultimate goal — the revival and strengthening of Georgetown’s Catholic identity — will gain traction as the Holy See’s talks with the Society of Jesus move forward. "I am deeply gratified that the prayers of my 2,000 fellow petitioners have been answered,” Blatty told the Register.

Link (here) to the National Catholic Register

Cardinal On Fordham's Sr. Johnson, "Doctrinal Errors In That Theologian’s Writings,”

Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller

The CDF prefect said that the LCWR considered one of “the more contentious aspects” of the mandate to be the need for speakers and presenters at major programs to be cleared by the apostolic delegate overseeing the reform, Archbishop J. Peter Sartain of Seattle. This aspect, he said, was not a “sanction,” but, rather, “a point of dialogue and discernment” designed to avoid speakers using an LCWR forum “to advance positions at odds with the teaching of the Church.” It also was meant to help the LCWR leaders anticipate issues of concern to the Holy See. “It saddens me to learn that you have decided to give the Outstanding Leadership Award during this year’s assembly to a theologian criticized by the bishops of the United States because of the gravity of the doctrinal errors in that theologian’s writings,” Cardinal Müller said, referring to the LCWR 2014 award going to Sister of St. Joseph Elizabeth Johnson. “This is a decision that will be seen as a rather open provocation against the Holy See and the 'Doctrinal Assessment,'” the cardinal continued. “Not only that, but it further alienates the LCWR from the [United States] bishops as well.” Had Archbishop Sartain been involved in the conversation about choosing an honoree, “he would have added an important element to the discernment,” the cardinal said. “The decision taken by the LCWR during the ongoing implementation of the 'Doctrinal Assessment' is indeed regrettable and demonstrates clearly the necessity of the mandate’s provision that speakers and presenters at major programs will be subject to approval by the delegate,” Cardinal Gerhard Müller said.

Link (here) to the National Catholic Register

Georgetown Platitudes

If you attend a Jesuit institution you are bound to hear the same platitudes over and over again: “Men and Women for Others,” “Ad maiorem Dei gloriam” and, especially, “cura personalis.” That phrase is supposedly what sets the Georgetown community apart from everyone else. I challenge the vast majority of students here, however, to actually live out a lifestyle of caring for the whole person, because right now cura personalis doesn’t exist at Georgetown. Instead, what dominates is cura ipsius: care of the self.

Of course, this doesn’t mean everyone at Georgetown is self-serving and arrogant. Nonetheless, in my experiences, I’ve been surrounded by far too many living cura ipsius than cura personalis.

Cura personalis would have you thinking that come Thursday, or Friday, or Saturday, Georgetown students would be looking towards enjoying simply the company of their friends, whatever that may entail, or using the down time to do something for others. That’s what the Jesuits will have you think, but the truth is the vast majority of students care about one thing and one thing only: alcohol and whatever may follow from a night of heavy alcohol consumption.

Link (here) to the Georgetown Voice to read the full story

Meanwhile.....Over At Georgetown

A young Varisco

“I don’t have any desire to debate Robert Spencer….I would never give someone like that a forum,” Hofstra University Professor Daniel Martin Varisco declared at Georgetown University on February 26, 2014.  Addressing the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Christian-Muslim Understanding (ACMCU), Varisco’s equally flawed outlooks on Islam and intellectual inquiry had disturbing implications for modern academia. Prior perusal of the opening pages of Varisco’s 2007 Reading Orientalism:  Said and Unsaid did not raise hopes for his briefing “Khutba vs. Khutzpa:  Islamophobia on the Internet.”  In this book, Varisco analyzes leftwing intellectual Edward Said’s Orientalism and its legacy, expressing agreement “with most of Said’s political positions on the real Orient.”  Varisco reveals his discipleship of Said with condemnations of post-World War II United States having “become by stealth and wealth the neo-colonial superpower” in which a “neocon clique…engineered the wars” not just “against” Iraq but also Afghanistan. Varisco’s one-sided estimate of historical harms includes a “PhD cataloguing of what the West did to the East and self-unfillfulling political punditry about what real individuals in the East say they want to do to the West.

Link (here) to Front Page Mag

Pro Abortion Clinton At Georgetown University

On February 25, Georgetown University will host former Secretary of State and likely 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton for the presentation of the annual Hillary Rodham Clinton Awards for Advancing Women in Peace and Security, according to the University’s website.

The award was created by the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security.  At Georgetown’s launch of the U.S. National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security (GIWPS) in2011, Clinton was present to announce the creation of the Institute.  Clinton still acts as Honorary Founding Chair.

Clinton once reportedly called a ban on partial birth abortion an “erosion of our constitutional rights” and is thought to be considering a run for the presidency of the United States in 2016.

Link (here) to Aleteia

Democrat Congressman John Lewis Speaking At Georgetown

Congressman John Lewis, who has voted against banning partial birth abortion, spoke at Georgetown University last week about civil rights, according to the university’s website. Lewis was reportedly invited to the Jesuit campus to speak to members of the Georgetown community about his new memoir March: Book One which details his experiences during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom with Martin Luther King Jr.

Link (her) to Lifesite

The Lords Of Georgetown

Lord Nicholas Windsor

For those who are unaware of the splendid track record of Lord David Alton and Lord Nicholas Windsor, This link will take you to the presentation given by Lord Nicholas Windsor, Jan Graffius and David Alton at Georgetown University's Berkley Centre, Washington DC. The session was hosted and moderated by Professor Tom Farr. The presentation describes the purpose of the Christian Heritage Centre Project, the Collections held at Stonyhurst,and the challenges to contemporary religious freedom. Please share it with others.

they are both tireless warriors in defence of the unborn, doing much great work in Europe and the United Kingdom for the culture of life. Lord Nicholas Windsor, a cousin of the Queen, converted to Catholicism a few years ago and has been an indefatigable crusader for the pro-life cause ever since. Lord Alton has been supporting the pro-life cause in the House of Commons and the House of Lords for several decades.

Link (here) to the St. Austin Review

Georgetown University And Abortion

A Washington D.C.-based private Catholic university is slated to offer a class next semester that is expected to teach students how to promote and protect abortion coverage provided under the Affordable Care Act. The course, “Regulatory Advocacy: Women and the Affordable Care Act,” is set to be taught at Georgetown Law, and it has upset staunch Catholics, according to The Cardinal Newman Society, which first reported on the new academic offering.

“We have long warned about Georgetown scandals that undermine the Church’s strong defense of innocent life,” Patrick Reilly, society president, told Catholic Education Daily. “But here students are being required to work for a pro-abortion lobby, making America’s oldest Catholic university an active agent of the culture of death.”

The course will hone in on “regulatory advocacy as it pertains to the implementation of the Affordable Care Act and women’s health,” and calls on students to work with the National Women’s Law Center “to develop projects that will assist in the organization’s regulatory advocacy efforts.” The law center publicly supports Obamacare and its mandate requiring religious institutions provide insurance coverage for abortions and other birth control.

Link (here) to The College Fix

The Blatty Effect

Protesting the speech by Kathleen Sebelius at Georgetown University

In over the year that the canon law Petition led by William Peter Blatty has been worldwide news, Georgetown University's "newspaper of public record," The Hoya, has given the matter scant news coverage, their last piece invented facts that were not true. By contrast, the managing editor of the blatantly liberal Georgetown Voice recently published an op-ed agreeing with one of Blatty's main allegations.

On Friday, The Hoya finally weighed in with some substance, publishing an interview of Georgetown University's canonist, Rev. Ladislas Orsy, S.J., still going strong at 92!

Orsy was one of the earliest critics of Ex corde Ecclesiae when it was issued 23 years ago and has argued for years that it has minimal reach. He does so again in The Hoya. Orsy had previously made the same argument regarding the canons of the 1983 Code of Canon Law addressing Catholic universities. Both documents were promulgated by Blessed Pope John Paul II and were each unfinished matters called for by the Second Vatican Council. (Vatican II). Both documents ended the "Land o' Lakes" apostasy, at least in words. Unfortunately, part of the problem with the Orsy interview is The Hoya's uninformed questions. Orsy clarifies that the Blatty Petition is not a lawsuit. There is no disagreement there. A recent press release by the Father King Society states: "The canonical procedure being employed is not a 'lawsuit'." Astonishingly, however, Fr. Orsy tells The Hoya that "[Ex corde Ecclesiae} says that the president of a Catholic university should be voted on by the board of trustees and agreed upon by the Vatican." In fact, Ex corde neither says nor suggests that! Orsy tells The Hoya that the Church has no power to remove its consent for Georgetown University to call itself "Catholic," suggesting that there is a difference between a university like Georgetown and a university that has "Catholic" in its name. Orsy's opinion has been repeatedly contradicted by Church officials and other canonists for decades now. 

Link (here) to Catholic.org

William Peter Blatty, "Georgetown Takes Pride In Insulting The Church And Offending The Faithful,"

William Peter Blatty

Concluding that his alma mater "takes pride in insulting the Church and offending the faithful," William Peter Blatty, author of the best-selling book The Exorcist, filed a Canon Law petition with the Vatican this summer asking that Georgetown University be denied the right to call itself Catholic. Calling Georgetown a "Potemkin village," Blatty complained that at "alumni dinners, a Jesuit would be placed at every table like a flower centerpiece." For Blatty, Georgetown is "merely the leader of a pack" of schools that are failing to live up to their Catholic identity.

Mr. Blatty's 200-page papal petition contains more than 480 footnotes, 99 appendices, 124 witness statements. It also includes a commissioned 120-page institutional audit of Georgetown. According to Manuel A. Miranda, who serves as Mr. Blatty's counsel, "We have documented 23 years of Scandals and dissidence, over 100 Scandals in the most recent years alone."

The petition -- with the signatures of more than 2,000 Catholics -- asks Pope Francis to require that Georgetown implement Ex Corde Ecclesiae, the 1990 papal document requiring all Catholic colleges to teach "in communion" with the Church. The goal of Blatty's petition is to revoke Georgetown's right to call itself Catholic -- unless it complies with Church teachings. Since 1967, when Catholic college leaders gathered in Land O' Lakes, Wisconsin, to create a manifesto that declared their "true autonomy and academic freedom in the face of authority of whatever kind, lay or clerical," most Catholic college presidents have ignored any attempts by their presiding bishops to bring the Catholic colleges and universities into communion with the Church. 

Link (here) to The Huffington Post

Vinegar Monologues At Georgetown University

Georgetown Law Students for Reproductive Justice Auditions for Vagina Monologues and Vinegar Tom

Event Type:	Theatrical Preparation
Location:	Gewirz 109
	Thursday, January 24, 2013 3:30 PM - 5:30 PM
Calendar:	Campus Life & Wellness
Contact:	Maura Hayes
:	Link (here) to the Cardinal Newman Society

Georgetown University’s Law Students for Reproductive Justice held auditions for the vile play Vagina Monologues last week, according to the university’s law school website. The auditions took place in the Gewirz Student Center on campus.
The obscene play distorts human sexuality by placing sinful activity in a favorable light, including lesbian activity and masturbation. It seems to take delight in reducing sexuality to the satiation of selfish pleasure and even declares a lesbian rape of a teenage girl her “salvation” which raised her into “a kind of heaven.”
The Cardinal Newman Society reported last year that nine Catholic colleges and universities hosted the depraved play in 2012. That was the lowest number of Catholic institutions to host the play in a single year. That was down from a high of 32 in 2003.
- See more at: http://www.cardinalnewmansociety.org/CatholicEducationDaily/DetailsPage/tabid/102/ArticleID/1892/G%E2%80%99Town-Law-Students-for-Reproductive-Justice-Holding-Auditions-for-%E2%80%9CVagina-Monologues%E2%80%9D.aspx#sthash.ddo3xk8s.dpuf

Georgetown University’s Law Students for Reproductive Justice held auditions for the vile play Vagina Monologues last week, according to the university’s law school website. The auditions took place in the Gewirz Student Center on campus.
The obscene play distorts human sexuality by placing sinful activity in a favorable light, including lesbian activity and masturbation. It seems to take delight in reducing sexuality to the satiation of selfish pleasure and even declares a lesbian rape of a teenage girl her “salvation” which raised her into “a kind of heaven.”
The Cardinal Newman Society reported last year that nine Catholic colleges and universities hosted the depraved play in 2012. That was the lowest number of Catholic institutions to host the play in a single year. That was down from a high of 32 in 2003.
- See more at: http://www.cardinalnewmansociety.org/CatholicEducationDaily/DetailsPage/tabid/102/ArticleID/1892/G%E2%80%99Town-Law-Students-for-Reproductive-Justice-Holding-Auditions-for-%E2%80%9CVagina-Monologues%E2%80%9D.aspx#sthash.ddo3xk8s.dpuf

Georgetown University’s Law Students for Reproductive Justice held auditions for the vile play Vagina Monologues last week, according to the university’s law school website. The auditions took place in the Gewirz Student Center on campus.
The obscene play distorts human sexuality by placing sinful activity in a favorable light, including lesbian activity and masturbation. It seems to take delight in reducing sexuality to the satiation of selfish pleasure and even declares a lesbian rape of a teenage girl her “salvation” which raised her into “a kind of heaven.”
The Cardinal Newman Society reported last year that nine Catholic colleges and universities hosted the depraved play in 2012. That was the lowest number of Catholic institutions to host the play in a single year. That was down from a high of 32 in 2003.
- See more at: http://www.cardinalnewmansociety.org/CatholicEducationDaily/DetailsPage/tabid/102/ArticleID/1892/G%E2%80%99Town-Law-Students-for-Reproductive-Justice-Holding-Auditions-for-%E2%80%9CVagina-Monologues%E2%80%9D.aspx#sthash.ddo3xk8s.dpuf

Public Relations Director Defends Georgetown University Against Canon Law Petition

Rachel Pugh

Georgetown University has responded to the canon law petition submitted last week to Archdiocese of Washington, D.C.'s Cardinal Donald Wuerl by William Peter Blatty, author of "The Exorcist," calling for the University to comply with canon law or be stripped of its right to describe itself as a Catholic institution.

"Our Catholic and Jesuit identity on campus has never been stronger," Rachel Pugh, director of communications told the student newspaper The Hoya.  

"Academically, we remain committed to the Catholic intellectual tradition. We are proud of the countless ways that our students put their faith into action through service and justice programs."

Link (here) to the Catholic Education Daily

Georgetown Hardly Reflects That St. Ignatius Who Stood Preaching In The Pouring Rains Of Paris To Stop Young Men From Losing Their Souls For The Sake Of Carnality,”

Academy Award winner William Peter Blatty, whose best-selling book and blockbuster film The Exorcist were situated at his alma mater, Georgetown University, announced today that he has delivered a “Petition” on behalf of more than 1200 alumni, students, parents, teachers, and other laity from around the world. The “Petition” prays that the Catholic Church will grant several remedies, including, if made necessary, the removal or suspension of top-ranked Georgetown’s right to call itself Catholic and Jesuit in its fundraising and representations to applicants. The Petition cites a Vatican Decree issued on July 11, 2012, at the request of the Archbishop of Lima, that ordered the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, a very prominent Latin American university, to cease calling itself “Catholic” and “Pontifical” while declaring that it continued to be ecclesiastical property and subject to the requirements of Church law. On the order of Pope Benedict XVI, the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, based the decision on the university’s failure to comply with Ex corde Ecclesiae, the 1990 Apostolic Constitution for Catholic Universities and that the University of Lima persists “in continuing to orient its institutional initiatives according to standards that are inconsistent with the norms and morality of the Church.”

Georgetown University is, likewise, Church property legally entrusted to the Society of Jesus nearly 200 years ago and to a civil corporation that administers it. Georgetown also received a pontifical charter that has never been abrogated.

The Georgetown effort was first announced two months before the Peru decree, on the heels of an unprecedented rebuke of Georgetown and its first lay president by His Eminence, Donald Cardinal Wuerl, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Washington, over Georgetown’s invitation to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to be a graduation ceremony speaker in may 2013. 

Despite this and two petitions collecting almost 60,000 voices, Georgetown did not relent. The editors of the Archdiocesan newspaper wrote in an editorial then regarding Georgetown: “When the vision guiding university choices does not clearly reflect the light of the Gospel and authentic Catholic teaching, there are, of course, disappointing results.” The Father Kings Society’s Canon Law action, based on Georgetown’s failure for more than two decades to comply with the requirements of Ex corde Ecclesiae, was being planned even before the Sebelius scandal. 

“The Scandals that Georgetown has given to the faithful are too many to count, and too many to ignore any longer,” Blatty said. “Today Georgetown is the Borgia university, reflecting more the spirit of Alexander VI, than of Archbishop John Carroll, John Henry Cardinal Newman, or Pope John Paul II. Georgetown hardly reflects that St. Ignatius who stood preaching in the pouring rains of Paris to stop young men from losing their souls for the sake of carnality,” Blatty said. 

Link (here) to The Father King Society to read the full release.

Grade Inflation At Georgetown University Law Center

Georgetown University Law Center adjusted its grading policy in 2009.
Prior to the change, 10% of law students received an A, 15% received an A-, 15% received a B-, and 5% received a C+ or below.
Now, 12% get an A, 19% get an A-, and only 5-10% get a B- or below.
It puts failure that much further out of reach.

Link (here) to Business Insider

Why Commencement Speakers Are Chosen

The university delayed announcement of the 2013 commencement speakers until nearly the end of final exams, finally revealing a lineup that some find underwhelming. While those receiving honorary degrees Saturday are likely deserving, the Georgetown community also deserves a selection process that is transparent and timely.

Each of Georgetown’s schools has its own graduation ceremony and commencement speaker. The process for securing speakers can take as long as eight months, yet the university released the news May 9. Other colleges announced their commencement guests months before graduation — Howard University and The George Washington University in March, the University of Virginia in January.

We have commended Georgetown in the past for finding speakers tailored to each undergraduate school’s academic focus. Yet the university hurts its cause by making these selections entirely in the dark. That is made even worse when news of the speakers breaks hardly a week before graduation, giving people little time to digest and appreciate the choices. It would not be appropriate to have students vote on speaker options, and the reasoning behind these choices as it currently stands might be entirely sound. A simple explanation from the university of why commencement speakers are chosen would benefit everyone involved.

Link (here) to The Hoya

SEIU Union Victory At Georgetown

Georgetown University's part-time faculty members have overwhelmingly voted to form a union affiliated SEIU Local 500, which now represents more than three-fourths of the adjunct work force at colleges in the District of Columbia. "This victory will help improve conditions at Georgetown, but because we are joining adjuncts at other institutions across the region, the implications go far beyond Georgetown," Kurt Brandhorst, an adjunct instructor in the Georgetown philosophy department, said in an SEIU news release announcing the results of the vote. The union election did not cover adjuncts at the Georgetown University Law Center or the Georgetown University Medical Center.

with the Service Employees International Union, marking a major victory for the SEIU's effort to organize adjunct instructors throughout the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. Just under half of the 650 adjunct instructors eligible to vote on unionizing at Georgetown did so, and more than 70 percent of voters opted to form a collective-bargaining unit. With that vote, counted on Friday, Georgetown is set to join American University and George Washington University in having adjunct faculty unions affiliated with

The goal of the SEIU's regional organizing campaign is to bring adjuncts at enough area colleges into the union to put all colleges here under market pressures to improve adjuncts' pay, benefits, and working conditions. 

The SEIU also has unionized adjuncts at Montgomery College, a public institution with campuses in three of Washington's Maryland suburbs, and is considering campaigns at other colleges in the area. Last month it began a similar regional organizing campaign in Boston, and it said it is considering another one in Los Angeles. The effort to organize adjuncts at Georgetown was made easier by the Roman Catholic university's decision not to oppose the campaign. "They were not just neutral but very cooperative throughout the entire process," Christopher Honey, a Local 500 spokesman, said on Friday in an interview. "They really upheld their social values."

Link (here) to The Chronicle of Higher Education

Went Straight To The Garbage Can

a scandal is erupting across the internet and the mainstream involving  prestigious Georgetown University and The Feminist Conservative, Pattek laid out precisely what she was doing in very clear terms: tied to one of their former employees, Arianna Pattek, a Georgetown grad student who says she was hired to read and process applications for admissions to the school. She claims she had a very interesting system for screening applicants. The applications from white males were trashed, regardless of qualifications. And now it appears that Georgetown University may be trying to cover it up.  The background of this story is pretty disturbing. Pattek, who clearly has issues with sexual and racial bigotry, decided she would not only trash the applications of white males on sight, she also decided to blog about her activities under what she assumed was anonymous conditions. Writing for a web blog called

…I can’t tell you how many applications I saw that were just dripping with white male privelege[sic].  Any of those that I saw basically went straight to the garbage can regardless of how good their qualifactions [sic] were.  If I saw an application from a white male that basically was just good test scores, and activities like chess club or math club or what not then it shows me this person is not interested in a diverse environment.  Obviously he made no effort in integrating with minorities or to sympathize with them and is counting on male privilege to get in.  So that kind of application should get ignored.  In their place I admitted a female student.  This goes double especially for math/science majors.

Apparently the prejudicial screening criteria she employed were not limited to just white males who played chess and were interested in mathematics. 
Link (here) to read the extensive piece at A Voice For Men

Fr. Thomas P. Gaunt, S.J., "The Changing Jesuit Geography.”

Fr. Thomas P. Gaunt, S.J.

In the 1970s, when the church was debating how it should relate to the modern world, the order’s General“the service of faith” and “the promotion of justice” would be the focus of every Jesuit ministry. 

Congregation, or legislative body, decreed that

This coincided with a period of high-profile — detractors would say notorious — activist Jesuits, including the Rev. Daniel Berrigan, a founder of the anti-nuclear Plowshares Movement.

In Latin America, the Jesuit emphasis on helping the poorest peoples often drew the society into political upheaval, including the cause of liberation theology, a Latin American-inspired view that Jesus’ teachings imbue followers with a duty to fight for social and economic justice. U.S. Jesuit James Carney was killed in 1983 serving as chaplain to a rebel column from Honduras.

Pope John Paul II, hoping to re-direct the religious order, took the extraordinary step in 1981 of replacing the Jesuit’s chosen leader with his own representative. 

The society encompasses a range of outlooks, including tradition-minded men. Still, conservative Catholics often view Jesuits as a band of disloyal liberals. The day after Francis was elected, George Weigel, a John Paul biographer, wrote in the conservative National Review magazine that the pope “just might take in hand the reform of the Jesuits” that Weigel argued was never finished. (Smolich rejects any suggestion that the order isn’t faithful to the church or its teachings.)

It’s too early to say how these past conflicts could influence Francis and his relationships with the society. He had disavowed liberation theology as a misguided strain of Catholic tenets, while still maintaining a focus on the economic failings of Western-style capitalism and the need to close the divide between rich and poor.

Jesuits also worry that the religious order could suffer in the spotlight. Maybe the new pope will keep his distance from the society, for fear of giving an appearance of favoritism. Or, he could use his new authority to become — from their perspective — too involved in the society, like John Paul. And they wonder if Jesuits would somehow be blamed for any of Francis’ decisions that prove unpopular.

Jesuits were already at a crossroads when Francis was elected. Although the order remains the largest in the church for men, membership has dropped by more than half since peaking in 1965, Gaunt said.

The decline came mostly in the West. But In South Asia and India, Christianity — and Catholicism specifically — have been growing, and so, too, have the numbers of Jesuits in those areas. 

Fr. Thomas P. Gaunt, S.J. calls it “the changing Jesuit geography.” India now has the largest national group of Jesuits with just over 3,900 members, followed by the U.S., with just under 2,500. Nearly one-third of the world’s 17,287 Jesuits came from developing countries, a figure that is expected to rise in coming years.

For U.S. Jesuits, this has meant a long season of wondering where they go from here. The order is restructuring in the U.S., merging their 10 smaller provinces into four larger ones. Lay people now staff most Jesuit schools and ministries, so the order has started Jesuit spirituality retreats and instruction for lay faculty and staff to help maintain the religious identity of what they’ve built. Among the newer Jesuit initiatives are high schools or middle schools in poor communities, and programs that bring online college-level classes to refugees in Africa and elsewhere

Link (here) to Thetandd.com