Posted on 07/04/2015 4:04:32 PM PDT by NYer
The chairman of the theology department at Fordham University has gotten married—to another man.
The New York Times, which up until a few years ago, declined running wedding announcements involving same-sex couples, reported that J. Patrick Hornbeck II “married” Patrick Anthony Bergquist Saturday at St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church in Manhattan. The ceremony took place June 27, just a day after the US Supreme Court legalized same-sex “marriage” nationwide. That would not have been necessary legally, since New York State has allowed gay "marriage" since 2011. But the ceremony was conducted before the Episcopal Church in America voted this week to allow same-sex "marriage" rites in its churches.
When asked whether Fordham was concerned about having a professor of theology whose lifestyle choice is in opposition to the teaching of the Catholic Church about marriage, a spokesman for the university said Hornbeck has the right to get married.
“While Catholic teachings do not support same-sex marriage, we wish Professor Hornbeck and his spouse a rich life filled with many blessings on the occasion of their wedding in the Episcopal Church,” said Bob Howe, Fordham's senior director of communications. “Professor Hornbeck is a member of the Fordham community, and like all University employees, students and alumni, is entitled to human dignity without regard to race, creed, gender, and sexual orientation.”
Howe emphasized that same-sex unions are “now the law of the land, and Professor Hornbeck has the same constitutional right to marriage as all Americans.”
Hornbeck, 33, teaches medieval and reformation history at Fordham. He graduated from Georgetown. His mother is an administrative assistant at Brophy College Preparatory, a Jesuit high school for boys in Phoenix. Bergquist, 35, is director of children, youth and family ministries at St. Bartholomew’s, where the couple "married."
An automated email response from Hornbeck indicated that he would "be away from my email altogether from June 27
until July 5."
In 2014, Hornbeck participated in a symposium at Fordham titled “Who Am I to Judge? How Pope Francis Is Changing the Church.”
“In the last 18 months Pope Francis has taken the Catholic world by storm,” Hornbeck in promotional material for the symposium, which was to focus on “the future of Catholicism as well as examine recent public statements from the pope on subjects that range from the role of LGBT persons in the church, to the restructuring of the Vatican Bank, to unmarried couples and divorce.
“American Catholics and their church have not been on the same page for some time,” said Hornbeck. “But now the pope is opening up space for dialogue.”
Meanwhile, a Catholic school in Macon, Ga., is facing a federal discrimination lawsuit from a former teacher whose employment was terminated in 2014 after the school found that he would be legally marrying his same-sex partner, the Cardinal Newman Society reported.
Oepration = Operation sorry for typo
More importantly, he manifests a void of spiritual intuition. It’s a modern day Emperor’s New Clothes. He walks around thinking he’s spiritual, when instead everybody sees his abomination.
It’s tough enough to find those who have matured in spiritual things by persevering in fellowship with God and His sanctification of our soul. Some institutions have been established by the lives of others so future generations might have the opportunity to more easily grow in the Spirit.
When a leader in such a position manifests such abominable lack of faith, it is obvious he refuses to walk with God so he might be further sanctified.
Vlad,
Martin Luther’s 95 Theses were about problems within the Catholic Church. The Catholic church adopted most all of them, though it took a century, according to a Catholic historian and Deacon friend of mine. I do NOT see Luther doing a list of secular humanist demands on the Catholic Church today. Who knows, today he might be among those who oppose Vatican II.
G-F
“Martin Luther’s 95 Theses were about problems within the Catholic Church.”
No. The Ninety-Five Theses were primarily Luther’s views of things not the problems in themselves.
“The Catholic church adopted most all of them, though it took a century, according to a Catholic historian and Deacon friend of mine.”
No, whatever was adopted - if anything - was done at Trent (1545-1563). Luther posted the theses in 1517. That means no more than 45 years went by in between then and the end of the council. By the way, I’m a Church Historian.
“I do NOT see Luther doing a list of secular humanist demands on the Catholic Church today. Who knows, today he might be among those who oppose Vatican II.”
No. You’re forgetting the 20th CENTURY. Please note I said 20TH CENTURY. If Luther had been a rebel theologian in the 20th CENTURY he probably would be for same-sex marriage.
My criteria for an acceptable higher education would be three: cost, size of endowment (including libraries, laboratories, ability to provide substantial financial aid, etc.), quality of faculty. I would also be concerned about safety.
If your daughter qualifies at a high level, start by looking at the Ivy League schools which have all agreed to look at academic credentials (SATs, ACTs, Achievement tests, transcripts of grades) first and only after they have decided who they want, do they look at financial need (need blind admissions as it is called). They have all agreed that if your daughter qualifies, and your family income is less than a certain amount ($60,000 when last I heard), her education is free. Room board, tuition, etc., all free of charge.
It may seem a strange that I would recommend the notoriously heathen Ivies, but my wife arrived at Yale as effectively an agnostic and a leftist and, by graduation, despite hanging out with right wing atheist libertarians, she had become a Tridentine (verrry traditionalist Latin Mass) Catholic and she was not alone by any means.
For those not as traditional but conservatively Catholic, Opus Dei (the real thing not the movie horror group) makes regular visits to challenge and convert students to the Faith. Fr. John McCloskey who also works DC power types (the late Robert Novak, KS Governor Sam Brownback, NYer Lew Lehrman for three examples) also works the Ivies regularly and, in his spare time, runs retreats on Cape Cod. There is one downtown New Haven parish (St. Stanislaus run by Polish Vincentians) which has at least weekly Tridentine Masses. St. Mary's in downtown New Haven (where the Knights of Columbus was founded) is a conservatively inclined Dominican Order Parish practically on the Yale campus.
An ironic practical advantage of the Ivies is that you learn to fight. Anne Coulter (Cornell), Laura Ingraham (Dartmouth), Dinesh D'Souza (Dartmouth), and many people less famous but just as important to the conservative movement. Yale also features a permanent sixty year old Party of the Right of the Yale Political Union and a William F. Buckley Memorial Speakers' program with its own nearby but off campus headquarters. Dartmouth has the Dartmouth Review. I am not as familiar with the other Ivies' conservative groups but I know they have them.
There are other worthy venues for higher education. My middle daughter graduated from Hillsdale College, It is not Catholic but it is not hostile either, It is the single best conservative education available in our country. A steady stream of major conservative speakers and others with unique insights who are not yet as well known. Very high quality faculty. Very well endowed. Southern Michigan may be a bit out of the way but you will never regret checking out Hillsdale or sending your youngest daughter there.
My youngest enrolled at Texas A and M and it appears to be quite challenging academically with a verrrry conservative campus culture. Check out a program there called "The Corps" which gives military training, military discipline and an esprit de corps found nowhere else. The main campus is at College Station. My daughter is spending time working in Texas to qualify for substantial cost reduction as a state resident. She and my eldest daughter will never leave Texas.
As to specifically "Catholic" colleges to AVOID at all costs: Notre Shame University, any and all Jesuit Colleges and Universities but, most of all, Boston College, Georgetown University, Fordham University, University of San Francisco and anything named Loyola, no matter where. Non Jesuit schools: Ave Maria in Florida means well but hasn't gotten there yet. Christendom College: meagerly endowed but great faculty. There is just not a lot out there.
The last great Jesuit Superior General (1915-1942) was Wlodomir Ledochowski of Austria. Great Catholic, great Jesuit and magnificent example to the entire Church and a great witness to the world. His successors, Jean Baptiste Janssens, Pedro Arrupe, Pieter Hans Kolvenbach and Adolfo Nicolas are quite the opposite of Fr. Ledochowski and the results show in the degeneracy of the Order into an amoral anti-Catholic "social justice" collection of heretics, near heretics, liberation theologians," and other Marxist revolutionaries.
May God bless you and yours and guide you and your daughter in the challenging search for an appropriate higher education venue.
Fordham? Not a shock. If this happens at Dallas Theological Seminary, I’m giving all my stuff to those I feel will need it following The Rapture.
I think this may be a ‘test’. Fordham University is in NY where “gay marriage” was legalized before the SCOTUS decision. The ‘couple’ were ‘married’ in an Episcopal Church. The University cannot fire him for this action which is ‘legal’ in NYS, nor can they switch him to a different department. We are judging the situation; has anyone looked into the Theology curriculum at Fordham to see if it complies with Catholic Church teaching? Expect to see more of these cases.
Thank you, I will definitely do this. We also have a close family friend who is a Jesuit who is definitely conservative, but although he would never say it, we sense that he feels somewhat alone among his fellow liberal Jesuits and as he is elderly this can’t be easy.
“...NOT see Luther doing a secular list...”
I just read a book about Luther and I would see him doing such a list. Luther became very eccentric as his life progressed; especially in the areas of chastity and marriage. This included urging his brother Augustinian monks to abandon their vows, and vilifying chastity. He really got weird about sexual matters.
Two years ago, I was in the same position as you are now — looking for a Catholic college that was actually Catholic.
As others have mentioned, there’s not much out there. Hell would literally have tor freeze over before I sent my kid to Fordham or ANY Jesuit college. Notre Dame was out, too.
We applied to several schools that appeared in The Newman Guide (Ave Maria, Steubenville, Belmont Abbey, Mount St. Mary, and Christendom), as well as several other secular schools. Our boy got in everywhere, and everybody offered scholarships, except for Christendom. They don’t have a bunch of money to hand out, but the academics are solid, and there is NO QUESTION that they uphold authentic Catholic teaching. In addition, their tuition is much lower than most colleges, so the fact that we did not qualify for aid didn’t hurt that much. (We wouldn’t have gotten aid from anywhere, anyway.)
So even though Billy won merit $$$ from the larger schools, their starting tuitions were higher and it all worked out the same in the end. We went with Christendom.
Good luck to you and your daughter. It’s tough finding somewhere that doesn’t actively work against all the teachings you’ve tried to impart to your children. Look carefully. Don’t forget to look for information in odd places: If you want to see what the social (party) life is like at a school, check out what the students are posting on YouTube, for example. A little stroll through that website can be quite the eye-opener.
Again, good luck.
Regards,
Thank you for taking the time to reply in detail and all the advice is excellent and will be taken seriously on our daughter’s search.
If I recall Joseph Campbell's book, A Hero with a Thousand Faces, the sacrifice of a virgin was common in pagan religions.
Woodward actually played the Christian martyr.
Weird because in Breaker Morant, another film by Woodward, his death at the end of the film was as a atheist.
Both films shocking in their ending.
I recall they arranged to have religious services for their students and opened it up for those attending CPAC.
I didn’t see “Breaker Morant.” “The Wicker Man” sure is a movie that stays with you.
I didn’t remember that Christopher Lee was in it until I read the obituary.
In the same obituary, Lee is quoted as saying that Tolkien told him that Tolkien wanted him to play Gandalf, and that Ian Fleming told him the same about James Bond.
Yes, Steubenville was high on the list. Christendom seemed like a better fit, personality-wise, for our Billy.
Regards,
My pleasure. Let us know how it goes.
Best,
Just who you 'need' teaching the young minds of Fordham./s
Will wait and see what the Roman Catholic church does with this knowledge. Of course we will be told that Catholic universites have nothing to do with the Catholic church.
Fordham is a Catholic university founded by Jesuits. It USED to be very conservative morally and with regards to the Catholic church, conservative theologically.
Source please.
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