Replies

Please provide examples... If you can't, please refrain from making such comments.

I've written about this topic many times here on FR. Perhaps you should read some of the relevant threads before you challenge other Freepers.

All I've read is that Ave Maria College in Michigan and Ave Maria University in Florida are about as orthodox Catholic as one will find.

I'm not sure where you have read that, perhaps in their fund-raising literature, but that is not the case. Ave Maria is not nearly as "orthodox Catholic" as Christendom or Thomas Aquinas College or some other small places such as Thomas More and Magdalen in New Hampshire. And since they plan to accept federal student funding, they will soon lose whatever veneer of Catholicism they have had.

Schools that wish to remain Catholic cannot accept money from the federal government. Christendom, for example, refuses all student aid, including loans. Doing so has meant that it has taken them 25 years to reach a student population of only 200 or so. Ave Maria wants to have 6,000 overnight.

Again, click here to check out New Catholic University in San Diego. I'm keeping my eye on this one!

This is a new university with "Uncompromising Catholicity." It will start out slowly in leased buildings and grow eventually to a 2,500 undergrad student body with 500 grad students. It is a Technology, Business and Media university. The curriculum is on the website and they plan to open in 2005.

I've heard that their buildings will be in the California mission style. They will NOT have a green house for a chapel!!

I was at the very first mass on the site of this university which is a giant farm field. We recited the Rosary where the altar will be located.

While it was a surreal service (imagine the Vatican choir singing in the middle of a windy tomato field) I had very mixed feelings. The priest most definitely a new-ager who during the homily starting talking about our universe was created by the big-bang theory.

I didn't know the big-bang theory was accepted by the church, being that it hasn't even been accepted by much of the scientific community yet.

The "Crystal Cathedral" architecture doesn't exactly speak to tradition. Neither does the fact that from what I've heard, the Latin rite won't be performed at all. Federal funds are nothing but poison in the long run.

I'd be happy to be wrong about all of this, as I live nearby and would love a traditional or orthodox influence. Doesn't look that way though.

"I'm not sure where you have read that, perhaps in their fund-raising literature, but that is not the case. Ave Maria is not nearly as "orthodox Catholic" as Christendom or Thomas Aquinas College or some other small places such as Thomas More and Magdalen in New Hampshire. And since they plan to accept federal student funding, they will soon lose whatever veneer of Catholicism they have had."

My son will be spending two weeks this summer at Christendom's 'Summer Institute' for high schoolers. Christendom is one of four or five colleges we've been considering, though, right now, Christendom is his likely choice. One of the things which sold him on it was that Christendom proudly proclaims on its website that it is one of only a handful of Catholic colleges left which accepts no federal funding. Interestingly, last winter, his second choice was Ave. He dropped it down a bit right after seeing the new Crystal Cathedral designs.