Fordham Univerity Property Swap

A majestic Gold Coast mansion St. Ignatius Jesuit Retreat House in Manhasset used as a retreat house by

Jesuit priests for the last half-century is close to being sold, and a rare chapel inside where a future pope once prayed will be saved and given to Fordham University, the Roman Catholic order said Friday. The 87-room medieval-style mansion in Manhasset, considered one of the grandest on Long Island, went into contract about two months...

Link (here)

Archbishop John Nienstedt, "I Have Been Impressed With His Scholarship, His Teaching Abilities And His Organizational Skills.”

Archbishop John Nienstedt

Jesuit Father Peter Ryan has been named the new executive director of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat of Doctrine and Canonical Affairs. The selection of a Jesuit spiritual director, teacher and scholar, who has defended Church teaching in his academic work, will draw renewed scrutiny of the U.S. bishops’ efforts to address problematic theological texts, while also recruiting academics to help advance the New Evangelization. Father Ryan’s primary responsibility is to serve the USCCB doctrine committee, which provoked a furor among some American theologians after it issued a 2011 statement strongly criticizing a popular undergraduate textbook written by Sister of St. Joseph Elizabeth Johnson, a theologian at Fordham University and the former president of the Catholic Theological Society. The USCCB announced on May 28 that Father Ryan would replace Capuchin Father Thomas Weinandy, who had signaled his decision to resign earlier this year.

Archbishop John Nienstedt of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, the chairman of the doctrine committee, told the Register that Father Ryan first came to his attention “eight years ago, when we worked on the Vatican seminary visitation together. I have been impressed with his scholarship, his teaching abilities and his organizational skills.”

Archbishop Nienstedt also underscored the distinctive mission of the committee: “Unlike other USCCB committees, doctrine is less pro-active in terms of initiatives, serving, rather, as a resource to the bishops in clarifying doctrinal issues.” However, the committee has also reached out to scholars, organizing a March 2013 exchange between bishops and academics that addressed the need to promote the New Evangelization and focused on potential areas of collaboration.

“Father Ryan’s work as a moral theologian will prepare him for his duties as the director of the committee on doctrine of the USCCB. Much of the committee’s work will deal with questions emerging from the field of moral theology,” Brian Benestad, a professor of theology at the University of Scranton, told the Register.

“He is a very fair person who will listen carefully to what theologians have to say about their approach to theology and to the various theological issues that are being discussed today. Thinking with the Church will always be an important source of guidance for Father Ryan,” added Benestad, who has served with the Jesuit on the executive board of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars.

Link (here) to the National Catholic Register

Notorious Activist Jesuits

Fr. James Carney, S.J.

The Rev. Joseph McShane, president of the Jesuit Fordham University, opened a recent event with a quip

playing on the order's reputation and Francis' no-frills papacy. The pope has kept the simple, iron-plated pectoral cross he used as bishop and living in the Vatican guesthouse rather than the grand papal apartment.

"A humble Jesuit? An oxymoron. A Jesuit pope? An impossibility. A humble Jesuit pope? A miracle," McShane said.

In the 1970s, when the church was debating how it should relate to the modern world, the order's General Congregation, or legislative body, decreed that "the service of faith" and "the promotion of justice" would be the focus of every Jesuit ministry. 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.

Link (here) to The Chronicle

John Brennan, President Obama’s Nominee For CIA Director Graduated From Fordham University

As a college student in the 1970s, John Brennan, President Obama’s nominee for CIA director, traveled in Indonesia where – he recalled in a speech in New York in 2010 – “despite my long hair, my earring and my obvious American appearance, I was welcomed throughout that country, in a way that is a reflection of the tremendous warmth of Islamic cultures and societies.” Brennan’s Feb. 13, 2010 address to a meeting at the Islamic Center at New York University, facilitated by the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), provided an insight into his views on Islam, a faith which he said during the speech had “helped to shape my own world view.”  Travels around the world over more than three decades had taught him about “the goodness and beauty of Islam,” said Brennan, whose 25-year career at the CIA until 2005 included a stint as station chief in Riyadh. “Like the president during his childhood years in Jakarta, I came to see Islam not how it is often misrepresented, but for what it is – how it is practiced every day, by well over a billion Muslims worldwide, a faith of peace and tolerance and great diversity.” In the speech, during which he drew applause after speaking in Arabic for more than a minute, Brennan used terms evidently designed to appeal to his audience, such as “Al-Quds” for Jerusalem, “Palestine” and “as the Qur’an reveals” – in keeping with the Muslim belief that the Qur’an was “revealed” directly by Allah to Mohammed through the angel Jibril (Gabriel). He condemned what he said were negative stereotypes in the U.S. about Muslims and hostility towards Islam, adding that government actions and policies had contributed to the problem but saying this would change under Obama.... 

As Obama’s counterterrorism adviser, Brennan – a Jesuit-educated Catholic with a degree from Fordham University – has played a prominent role in the administration’s outreach to Muslims, American Muslims especially. He has also been a leading proponent of the effort to stop using terms many Muslims find offensive, such as “jihadist” as a descriptor for terrorists acting in the name of Islam.

“They are not jihadists,” he told the NYU audience in 2010, “for jihad is a holy struggle, an effort to purify, for a legitimate purpose. And there is nothing, absolutely nothing holy or pure or legitimate or Islamic about murdering innocent men, women and children.” Brennan had made similar comments the previous August, telling a Center for Strategic and International Studies event that “describing terrorists in this way, using the legitimate term ‘jihad’ – which means to purify oneself or to wage a holy struggle for a moral goal – risks giving these murderers the religious legitimacy they desperately seek but in no way deserve.”

Link (here) to read more at Jihad Watch

I Don’t Have Children Because I’m A Jesuit.

“I have seven niece and nephews.  Other kids are children of close friends of mine.  I don’t have children because I’m a Jesuit.  But I have a lot of friends who are young couples having children now and raising children.  The biggest difference between other careers and being a priest is that I give up a lot of controls of my own life.  I can’t decide where I work.  We have leaders in the Jesuit school help us decide where we should work.  We can not get married because we feel if we don’t have our own family to take care of we will be more available to work for other people.  Many times in my life I had the desire of having my own family.  Seeing these pictures must show you that I love kids.  That is why I enjoy visiting my friends and seeing pictures of the children.”

Link (here) to Fordham Observer to read the full piece about Fr. Vincent De Cola, S.J.

288 Georgetown University Employees Donate To Obama

The report at CampusReform.org looks at the “top 23” Catholic colleges, but it is not clear how they were selected. Bias in favor of President Obama is found especially at Georgetown University, where 288 employees gave to his campaign—35 percent of the total Obama donors at all 23 colleges—and only 39 employees gave to Romney. Other colleges weighted heavily toward Obama include the University of Notre Dame (89-9), Boston College (84-7) and Fordham University (66-4).

Link (here) to The Cardinal Newman Society

Meet Fordham's Tracy Higgins And Bridgette Dunlap

Fr. Joseph McShane, S.J.

I’ll admit that I was slightly disheartened at first to read that Campus Notes, the Cardinal Newman Society (CNS) blog, was covering this controversy at Fordham. What it entails is a group of faculty at Fordham University Law School arguing that since Father McShane did not cancel the Ann Coulter event, the university should provide funding for pro-abortion groups and The Vagina Monologues. Tracy Higgins, professor at the law school, and Bridgette Dunlap, who is known for her involvement in reproductive rights groups and is a human rights fellow at the Leitner Center for International Law and Justice, wrote an open letter to Father McShane, which is included in the linked article.  It is true that Father McShane did express “disgust” in the College Republicans for inviting Ann Coulter to campus, but he did not cancel the event. The decision to rescind the invitation was made by the College Republicans Executive Board. It was perhaps questionable to invite Ann Coulter, and the College Republicans did realize this. I am not trying to rehash the Ann Coulter controversy, which has been explained sufficiently enough in the article regarding Peter Singer, but it is important to put the matter into context, in order to explain why the faculty group’s logic is so faulty.

Link (here) to read the rather lengthy article at Live Action News

The Society Of Jesus’s Position On Same-Sex Marriage

Martyr's Court

..the Vatican has continued its fight against same-sex marriage, calling it

“an ideology founded on political correctness which is invading every culture of the world.” 

Father Phil Florio, S.J., Fordham University's director of campus ministry and resident priest of Martyr’s Court Jogues Hall, affirmed that the Society of Jesus’s position on same-sex marriage is identical to the Vatican’s.

Link (here) to The Ram

The Fordham University "Trainwreck"

We appreciate your statement distancing the University from Ms. Coulter’s hateful rhetoric and defending free speech and academic freedom. We remain deeply troubled, however, by the University’s inconsistency regarding which events it denies funding or otherwise censors on campus. We would like you to explain how the decision was made to allow the College Republicans to use student activity funds to pay for the Coulter event while denying the use of such funds for other purposes deemed not to be in keeping with the University’s mission. For example, we understand that student groups may not use their budgets for the productions of the Vagina Monologues mounted by Fordham undergraduates each year to raise funds to combat violence against women. Along these same lines, Fordham’s anti-abortion club receives funding while pro-choice advocacy is censored. Why are these forms of student expression and association denied support while the Coulter event was not? 

Is pro-choice advocacy or the Vagina Monologues more inconsistent with the University’s mission than Coulter’s hate speech you rightly decry? Are they less entitled to respect in the free exchange of ideas in the Academy? We would also appreciate a clear statement of the policy regarding advertising of events on campus, another form of speech recently censored by the University. 

 In stark contrast to your position that prohibiting Ms. Coulter from speaking would “do violence to the academy, and to the Jesuit tradition of fearless and robust engagement,” the University recently prohibited the posting of flyers for Prescribe Fordham 2, an off-campus event sponsored by a number of academic departments at which volunteer doctors provided students with uncensored sexual and reproductive health counseling and services. The event, which was banned from campus, was aimed at addressing the problems that result from the restrictions the University places on the medical providers at its student health centers and the prohibition on condom distribution.

Link (here) to "Members of the Fordham Community"

Will Peter Singer Speak At Fordham University?

Friday, February 16, there is a speaker who most certainly is not pro-life enough to speak at Fordham University. That speaker? Peter Singer. Fr. McShane has not sent out any statement in an e-mail addressed to the entire school about having such a speaker. The president not only did that in the instance of Ann Coulter’s invite, but expressed his “disgust.” I am disgusted with Peter Singer, and I expect Fr. McShane to be as well. Yet there has been no such e-mail.

In case you are not aware, Peter Singer is an advocate for abortion, as a woman’s right and as a form of population control; bestiality; and euthanasia, and he has made the moral case for infanticide, particularly for disabled infants. Yet from the description of the event and of Peter Singer on “FORDHAM NOTES: A NEWSBLOG FROM FORDHAM UNIVERSITY’S NEWS AND MEDIA RELATIONS BUREAU,” you would not know this.

The event is titled “Panel: Christians and Other Animals” with the subtitle “Christians and Other Animals: Moving the Conversation Forward.” Peter Singer is listed as the top panelist, with his credentials listed as “Peter Singer, Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics, Princeton University.” There is also a brief one-sentence bio listed about him at the end: “Peter Singer—in addition to being the most influential philosopher alive today—was the intellectual heft behind the beginning of the animal rights movement in the 1970s.” Regardless of whether that bio was written by a person from Fordham, which it may very well have not been, by attaching it to a Fordham advertisement for a Fordham-held and sponsored event, it seems as if the university is standing by Peter Singer “being the most influential philosopher alive today,” and influential in not such a bad way.

Ann Coulter was invited by a student group on campus, an invitation which is to be approved or denied. Regardless how one feels about Fr. McShane’s statement or the decision by the College Republicans to (dis-)invite Ms. Coulter, one surely realizes that the university could have denied the speaker even before approving her, and that neither the event nor Ann Coulter’s views are endorsed by the university or Fr. McShane. However, not only is Fordham University displaying the panel with Peter Singer on a web page for the university, but the panel is also co-sponsored by the Department of Theology, the Center for Religion and Culture, the Office of the Provost, the dean of Fordham College at Rose Hill, and the dean of Fordham University faculty.
Link (here) to Live Action News

A Letter From Fr. Joseph McShane, S.J. Of Fordham University On Ann Coulter

The College Republicans, a student club at Fordham University, has invited Ann Coulter to speak on campus on November 29. The event is funded through student activity fees and is not open to the public nor the media. Student groups are allowed, and encouraged, to invite speakers who represent diverse, and sometimes unpopular, points of view, in keeping with the canons of academic freedom. Accordingly, the University will not block the College Republicans from hosting their speaker of choice on campus.

To say that I am disappointed with the judgment and maturity of the College Republicans, however, would be a tremendous understatement. There are many people who can speak to the conservative point of view with integrity and conviction, but Ms. Coulter is not among them. Her rhetoric is often hateful and needlessly provocative — more heat than light — and her message is aimed squarely at the darker side of our nature.

As members of a Jesuit institution, we are called upon to deal with one another with civility and compassion, not to sling mud and impugn the motives of those with whom we disagree or to engage in racial or social stereotyping. In the wake of several bias incidents last spring, I told the University community that I hold out great contempt for anyone who would intentionally inflict pain on another human being because of their race, gender, sexual orientation, or creed.

“Disgust” was the word I used to sum up my feelings about those incidents. Hate speech, name-calling, and incivility are completely at odds with the Jesuit ideals that have always guided and animated Fordham.

Still, to prohibit Ms. Coulter from speaking at Fordham would be to do greater violence to the academy, and to the Jesuit tradition of fearless and robust engagement. Preventing Ms. Coulter from speaking would counter one wrong with another. The old saw goes that the answer to bad speech is more speech. This is especially true at a university, and I fully expect our students, faculty, alumni, parents, and staff to voice their opposition, civilly and respectfully, and forcefully.

The College Republicans have unwittingly provided Fordham with a test of its character: do we abandon our ideals in the face of repugnant speech and seek to stifle Ms. Coulter’s (and the student organizers’) opinions, or do we use her appearance as an opportunity to prove that our ideas are better and our faith in the academy — and one another — stronger? We have chosen the latter course, confident in our community and in the power of decency and reason to overcome hatred and prejudice.

Joseph M. McShane, S.J., President

Fr. Joseph Koterski, S.J. On Hell

Last Judgement by Hans Memling

....in the abandonment of the Dies Irae (Day of Wrath), a hymn used in funeral rites. ''It's a terrifying hymn,'' Sister Elizabeth Johnson said. ''It describes the tortures of the damned in great detail and ends with a plea for God's mercy.'' Both the Jesuit editorial and the Pope made a point of saying that hell is real. Yet in discussing what the church teaches about damnation, they showed that contemporary Catholic theology has outstripped popular beliefs about a fiery, subterranean hell. ''Where the tension comes,'' said Lawrence S. Cunningham, a professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame, is between popular  imagination about hell and what church doctrine actually says.

The Rev. Joseph Koterski, an associate professor of philosophy at Fordhman, who lives in a residential college among freshmen there, said awareness of contemporary church teaching on hell is largely confined to students majoring in theology. Among many students, he said, more traditional ideas of hell exist as unexamined background images that they carry with them along with a general fear of the unknown.

If those traditional ideas remain real for many people, it may be because the art and literature expressing them remain so abundant. Religious art depicting heaven or hell remains widely accessible on church buildings, in art books and in museums. During the Middle Ages, said Prof. Peter Casarella, a theologian at the Catholic University of America in Washington, ''because beliefs about purgatory and hell were not known through literary documents, they were known through visual depictions, frescoes and reliefs and the fronts of cathedrals, and they were known through popular preaching.'' A common illustration showed naked sinners engulfed in Satan's mouth.

Link (here) to the 1999 New York Times Article.

Rejecting Repentance

Richard Giannone

Richard Giannone’s new book, Hidden: Reflections on Gay Life, AIDS, and Spiritual Desire. Giannone is a Professor Emeritus at Fordham. His book’s title strongly suggests its contents; it describes the quest of a man to find spiritual acceptance with his ex-priest gay lover, for the sake of whom he ended six years of sexual abstinence. It also describes the author's personal growth in caring over the years for two elderly women, one with dementia (his mother), and perhaps even a growing recognition of God. I do not mean to minimize this suffering, this service, or this recognition. 

But Giannone is determined to recast God to suit himself, holding Him apart from the moral teachings of His Church, which he rejects with the standard clichés. God definitely enters the picture only on the author’s terms, and Giannone’s conclusion, on the last page, is by now predictable: “God will have to take me as I am and evermore shall be. For him who dined with sinners, tax collectors, and the uncircumcised who did not follow Mosaic law, that should be no obstacle.” 

Here, then, is a thoroughly contemporary man, mired in the spirituality of changing cultures, accepting sin but rejecting repentance—the quitessential modern figure who has refused “to repent and believe the Gospel” (Mk 1:15). Unsurprisingly, therefore, the book is endorsed as a “classic in the revered genre of spirituality”, placed in the same class as Thomas Merton’s Seven Story Mountain, by the Jesuit Mark Massa of Boston College. And naturally his book is proudly published by Fordham University Press.

Link (here) to Catholic Culture to read the lengthy and thought provoking piece

Geraldine

Geraldine Ferraro, the 1984 candidate for the vice presidency whose position on abortion repeatedly put her at odds with New York’s late John Cardinal O’Connor, will soon be memorialized at Fordham Law School, according to a report in Fordham magazine. Ferraro’s husband, John Zaccaro Sr., and their son, John Zaccaro Jr., who are pictured in the magazine, recently made a “leadership gift” to Fordham in honor the late Queens congresswoman who rose to national prominence. Ferraro died of multiple myeloma in 2011. The gift, whose amount is not disclosed in the article, reportedly will go to support a new Law School building and undergraduate residence hall, now under construction and scheduled to open in 2014. A floor in the building will be named for Ferraro, a memorial Fordham magazine describes as “a fitting tribute to a woman who spent her career fighting for victims of inequality and abuse.”

Link (here) to The Cardinal Newman Society

Profoundly Unchristian

Jeanne Flavin (source)

With or without support from home, many students will seek out the contraception they need. Still, the ban contributes to a climate of shame and stigma surrounding sexuality that -- as we learned from victims of the widespread priest sex abuse scandal -- can be incredibly harmful. Fear of disclosure and shame, in turn, can lead to difficulty finding information and services, and the avoidance of needed health care and support. If universities are to succeed in the mission of educating and graduating the students they admit, they must fill in the gaps in care left unmet by dysfunctional or struggling families, not deny that such dysfunction exists. To do otherwise is to fail our students.

 The principle of cura personalis (or "care for the whole person"), central to the mission of Catholic schools, does not come with a qualifier that says "unless you are sexually active" or "except if you are a woman." While Catholic social teachings communicate powerful and uplifting messages about the dignity of the human person, the contraceptive coverage ban (not to mention the Vatican's recent rebuke of the American Catholic nuns for not promoting the "Church's biblical view of family life and human sexuality") shouts volumes about women's second-class status in the Catholic Church. 

This disrespect for the women who are here -- in our midst, on our campuses -- being shown by a powerful minority of conservative Catholics in favor of purported concern for the unborn must be called out for what it is: profoundly unchristian.

Link (here) to the full post by Fordham University's Jeanne Flavin

Take The Tradition

Fordham theologian Jeannie Hill Fletcher noted, during PBS Newshour, that the nuns under scrutiny are in colleges and universities, among other places.  Fletcher said that a problem she has with the document issued by the Vatican is that it  

“seems to be trying to tell Women Religious to stop exploring the dynamics of the faith and simply take the tradition as it’s been handed to them.” 

Fletcher said during the interview:  

“Let me just say, as a scholar — as a scholar of religion and a theologian, Church teaching does change.” 

Fortunately, there was a representative of a faithful Catholic college also present on air to stand up for Church teachings.  The chairman of the board of Christendom College, Donna Bethell, went head to head with Fletcher during the segment and defended the Vatican’s decision regarding the LCWR. Bethell was quick to point out that there are some doctrines of the church which are definitely not open to debate. She explained the reason behind the Vatican’s assessment of the nuns.  She pointed out that the document issued by the Church underscores the importance for consecrated persons to be faithful to the teachings of the Church.

Link (here) to read the full post and watch the video at the Cardinal Newman Society

Fordham Student Disses Cardinal Dolan

Joseph Amodeo is a student at Fordham University and states he is a member of the Xavier Mission, Which is a Jesuit ministry of  The Church of St Francis Xavier.

A day before Easter, the head of New York's Roman Catholic archdiocese faced a challenge to his stance on g@y rights: the resignation of a church charity board member who says he's "had enough" of the cardinal's attitude.

Joseph Amodeo told The Associated Press on Saturday that he quit the junior board of the city's Catholic Charities after Cardinal Timothy Dolan failed to respond to a "call for help" for homeless youths who are not heterosexual. 

"As someone who believes in the message of love enshrined in the teachings of Christ, I find it disheartening that a man of God would refuse to extend a pastoral arm" to such youths, Amodeo said in his letter to the charitable organization last Tuesday.

 Link (here) to The Church Report

The Church's teaching on the subject:   

Aquinas (here) , Catechism of the Catholic Chruch (here), (here) and (here)   Overview (here)

I Quickly Switched From Johns Hopkins To Fordham

Dr. Rhonda Chevrin

The guests were Dietrich Von Hildebrand and Alice Jourdain, soon to become Von Hildebrand. They were talking about truth and love. Spontaneously I wrote a letter to them c/o of the station telling them of my unsuccessful search for truth. It turned out they both live on the West Side of NYC: Alice 2 blocks from me and Dietrich 10 blocks from me. Alice invited me for a visit. Her roommate, Madeleine (later to become the wife of Lyman Stebbins founder of Catholics United for the Faith) met me at the door and ushered me into a small room. There was this very European looking woman (she came from Belgium during World War II) who looked at me with such intense interest I was immediately drawn into her heart. She suggested I sit in on classes of Dietrich Von Hildebrand and Balduin Schwarz, his disciple, at Fordham University. Balduin's son, Stephen, a philosophy graduate student, now a philosophy professor and pro-life apologist, could bring me up to the Bronx and show me around. I sat in on a few classes. What impressed me most was not the ideas of these Catholic philosophers which I didn't understand very well, but their personal vitality and joy. The skepticism, relativism, and historicism, that characterized most secular universities at that time left many of the professors sad and dessicated. Drawn to this joy, as well as the loving friendliness with which everyone in this circle of Catholics moved out to greet a newcomer, I quickly switched from Johns Hopkins to Fordham to continue my studies. That the wife of Balduin Schwarz was a Jewish woman converted from an atheistic background certainly also made my entry into this new phase of my life easier. After a few months at Fordham, I could not help but wonder how come the brilliant lay Catholics and the brilliant Jesuits in the philosophy department could believe those ideas such as the existence of God, the divinity of Christ, the reality of objective truth, moral absolutes, and the need for Church-going. Obviously it was not only stupid and weak people who thought this way. What is more they could prove that the mind could know truth and that there were universal ethical truths in a few sentences.

Link (here) to Why I'am a Catholic, the article is entitled, Atheist Convert: Dr. Ronda Chervin

Fordham Theology Department "Under Fire"

Terrence Tilley is the theology department chair at Fordham University and past president of the Catholic Theological Society of America.  He has been a critic of Ex corde Ecclesiae and in 2009 drew some criticism of his own from Fr. Thomas Weinandy, executive director of the U.S. bishops’ Secretariat of Doctrine, who said Tilley had been guilty of “doctrinal ambiguity and error”:

“If the bishops continue along this path of censuring or making statements without engaging in dialogue with the theologians,” Terrence Tilley said, “theology may be laughed out of the university as mere propaganda.”

Last year, the U.S. bishops’ doctrine committee released a statement condemning the 2007 book by Fordham University theologian Sr. Elizabeth Johnson for “misrepresentations, ambiguities and errors” that do “not accord with authentic Catholic teaching on essential points.” The U.S. bishops wrote that Quest for the Living God “completely undermines the Gospel and the faith of those who believe in the Gospel” when it addresses doctrine of the Trinity.  They criticized the book for “misrepresentations, ambiguities and errors” that do “not accord with authentic Catholic teaching on essential points.”

Link (here) to the Cardinal Newman Society

1,250,000 Reasons Fordham University's Andrew Chapin Is Wrong

In 2006, Planned Parenthood did 289,750 abortions; in 2007, it did 305,310; in 2009, it did 331,796; and, in 2010, it did 329,445--a small decrease from the previous year.

Link (here) to CNS

An email obtained by the Cardinal Newman Society shows that Fordham University Law School’s Public Interest Resource Center circulated an email advertising a job opening at the Center for Reproductive Rights, a militant abortion-rights organization which has battled against sonogram laws, secured government funding for abortion, and advances its mission of ensuring abortion is “a fundamental right that all governments are legally obligated to protect, respect and fulfill.” The email, which seems to have been circulated by Andrew  Chapin, Director of Counseling and Public Interest Scholars, was forwarded to the Cardinal Newman Society from a disturbed alumnus. “It’s horrible, scandalous, and typical of Fordham Law school,” said William D. Broderick who graduated from Fordham Law in 1995 and practices law in New York City.

Read the original Cardinal Newman Society report (here)