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The author who turned Georgetown University into a horror scene in “The Exorcist” plans to sue the school in church court, charging that his alma mater has strayed so far from church doctrine that it should no longer call itself Catholic. William Peter Blatty, who graduated from Georgetown in 1950, says the “last straw” was the university’s speaking invitation to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Sebelius, who addressed graduating public policy students on Friday (May 18), has been criticized by conservative Catholics for approving a mandate that requires many religious institutions to cover employees’ birth control costs. The...

Today’s Roman Catholic calendar lists May 21st as the feast day of St. Christopher Magallanes, a martyr killed for celebrating Mass during the Cristero War in Mexico. Perhaps Catholics today may want to recall St. Thomas More — the patron saint of lawyers, who was executed for refusing to agree to a mandate that gave Henry VIII the prerogative of defining religious expression in England. Dozens of Catholic institutions filed lawsuits today against the Department of Health and Human Services over its mandate and its narrow definition of religious practice: Catholic archdioceses and institutions filed suit in federal district courts...

In 2009, President Obama delivered the commencement address at the University of Notre Dame. Now, Notre Dame is suing his administration over its insistence that Catholic schools and other institutions provide insurance coverage for sterilizations, contraceptives, and other abortifacient drugs without any meaningful opt-out for conscientious objectors. Rev. John Jenkins, the university's president, was given much grief over his commencement invitation to President Obama in 2009. Today, he sent the following email to Notre Dame employees, announcing and explaining the lawsuit.

May 17, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Professors at four Jesuit-run Catholic universities have recently stepped into the media to voice their disagreement with Catholic bishops on church teachings, including on contraception and the nature of marriage, and condemning the prelates for promoting an “idiosyncratic minority view” as Catholic dogma. The professors’ statements come at the same time that Pope Benedict has emphasized to U.S. bishops that reform of Catholic universities in the United States is the “most urgent challenge” facing the Church in the country. The pope told U.S. bishops who were visiting Rome recently that a lack of progress towards...

“Lavender graduation” events for homosexual students are sadly becoming common on Catholic campuses across the country. Georgetown University president John DeGioia is scheduled to deliver remarks at this evening’s “Lavender Graduation” ceremony. The Jesuit university’s website describes the event as “a special ceremony for LGBTQ and Ally undergraduate and graduate students to acknowledge their achievements, contributions, and unique experiences at Georgetown University.” (For readers unfamiliar with today’s campus jargon, “LGBTQ” means “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer,” and “ally” means any “heterosexual” person who is accepting of those who claim such other sexual “identities.” An “ally” is also commonly expected...

Georgetown University has rejected attempts by liberal pro-abortion activists and Sandra Fluke to reject attempts by her to get the Catholic college to change its birth control coverage policy. Today, Georgetown University President John J. DeGioia released a public letter saying Georgetown will not change its policy unless legally forced to do so. The letter doesn’t take Fluke to task or even mention her directly, but it rebuts many of the claims she made as she gained national notoriety and attempted to use it to force the college to do her bidding. One of Fluke’s biggest points of contention is...

At a hearing of the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee yesterday, a single witness — Georgetown law student and “reproductive rights activist” Sandra Fluke — told sympathetic policy-makers that the administration’s so-called contraception mandate should stand … because her peers are going broke buying birth control. “Forty percent of the female students at Georgetown Law reported to us that they struggled financially as a result of this policy (Georgetown student insurance not covering contraception),” Fluke reported. It costs a female student $3,000 to have protected sex over the course of her three-year stint in law school, according to her...

VILLANOVA, Pa. — Villanova University has canceled a workshop by a controversial gay performance artist, saying his shows aren't in keeping with the school's Catholic values. Tim Miller tells The Philadelphia Inquirer (http://bit.ly/zjK9s9 ) he was told about the cancellation of next month's planned workshop on Sunday. Miller gained notoriety in 1990 when he and three others had grants vetoed by the National Endowment for the Arts. Miller's work is frequently provocative and he's been arrested in the past for demonstrating for AIDS research funding.

Twenty-five Notre Dame faculty members--led by the university’s top ethics expert, and including some of the school’s most eminent scholars--have signed a statement declaring that President Barack Obama’s latest version of his administration’s mandate that all health insurance plans in the United States must cover sterilizations and all FDA-approved contraceptives, including those that cause abortions, is “a grave violation of religious freedom and cannot stand." The statement—put out on the letterhead of the University of Notre Dame Law School--is also signed by leading scholars from other major American colleges and universities, including Princeton, Harvard, Stanford, Georgetown, Brigham Young, Yeshiva and...

319 of the nation’s postsecondary schools, 16 of them Catholic, have failed the US Department of Education’s fiscal responsibility test for 2008-09. Four of the schools-- Ave Maria School of Law, Belmont Abbey College, Thomas More College of Liberal Arts, and the University of St. Thomas in Houston-- have been praised by the Cardinal Newman Society for their efforts to promote a strong Catholic identity. (Ave Maria University, unlike Ave Maria School of Law, passed the test with the highest possible rating.) The other Catholic colleges that failed the test are the College of Our Lady of the Elms, Brescia...

Why would any Catholic college welcome a radical pro-abortionist?

Marielena Stuart stood in the middle of a quiet street, 120 miles across the swamp from Miami, and stared down the black plastic barrel of a news camera. Behind her loomed a monstrous church, its 100-foot orange-brick façade shimmering like scales in the nighttime spotlights. Stuart glanced up at its one round window — a Cyclops's unblinking eye gazing out over the strange, tiny town of Ave Maria — and shuddered. Her dream town had turned against her, she explained. Stuart, a conservative Catholic writer and blogger who resembles an aging Elizabeth Taylor, explained she felt like she was being...

One Catholic college made the U. S. News & World Report lists of “most popular” among applicants and “most loved” by alumni and it is none of the ones the media like to cover—those institutions that could be called Catholic in Name Only (CINO). “For several years, Thomas Aquinas College has ranked near the top of U. S. News & World Report’s annual measure of ‘yield’—the percentage of applicants who, upon being admitted to a college, choose to enroll there,” TAC proudly announced in its Spring 2011 newsletter. “Although heartening, these findings have told only half of the story.” Additionally,...

Report: 150 Catholic Colleges Have Ties to Planned Parenthood Washington, DC -- A Catholic educational watchdog group released a new report today detailing the connections more than 150 Catholic colleges and universities have with the Planned Parenthood abortion business. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/04/11/report-150-catholic-colleges-have-ties-to-planned-parenthood/

Students Protest at Planned Parenthood Clinic to Conclude 40 Days for LifeNovember 3, 2009 Christendom College's pro-life student group, Shield of Roses, held its biggest protest in over 30 years of existence. On October 31, over 200 students, faculty, staff, and visitors traveled to Washington, D.C., to peacefully protest their opposition to abortion at the Planned Parenthood clinic, located just north of the White House, on 16th Street. The group protests at this same clinic each Saturday morning during the academic year, but normally only around 20-30 students make the trek into D.C. on a weekly basis. Once a semester,...

On a quick break between classes last week, Reef Al-Shabnan slipped into an empty room at Catholic University to start her daily prayers to Allah. In one corner was a life-size painting of Jesus carrying the cross. In another, the portrait of a late priest and theologian looked on. And high above the room hung a small wooden crucifix. This was not, Shabnan acknowledged, the ideal space for a Muslim to pray in. After her more than two years on campus, though, it has become routine and sacred in its own way. You can find Allah anywhere, the 19-year-old from...

A disheartening report from the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property better know as TFP reveals that 101 (41%) of putative Catholic Colleges carry pro-homosexual organizations among their sponsored student activities. Worse still was the news that every single Jesuit university and college was on the pro homosexual school list. These student “clubs” sponsor events presenting and promoting homosexual conduct and culture as well as the redefining of marriage in direct contradiction to the teachings of the Catholic Church. Georgetown University, America’s first Catholic college, promotes such anti Catholic activities as “weeks” for National Coming Out,...

NAPLES — Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich spoke of the importance Ave Maria School of Law will have in replacing the current liberal, secular legal system during the law school’s 10th Anniversary celebration held at the Naples Ritz Carlton Beach Resort on Friday night. The potential 2012 presidential hopeful converted to Roman Catholicism in 2009, which is the same year the law school relocated from Ann Arbor, Mich., to Naples. The law school’s students would be prepared to write the laws, defend the laws and defeat the left, Gingrich said. The modern, secular law, he said, can be...

Unbelievable. Southern Catholic College, the new Catholic college just outside Atlanta, Georgia, is suddenly shutting its doors because it's broke. The school was just taken over by the Legion of Christ this year, and the fact that the order is under investigation by the Vatican may have something to do with donors' reluctance to keep the school going. But to not even have money in the bank to finish out the school year? Wow. A sad day for the students, staff and faculty, I'm sure. Below is the email from the president of SCC announcing the closure. From: Fr. Shawn...

Tuesday March 23, 2010 Catholic Georgetown Students Vote to Fund Abortion Rights Panel March 23, 2010 (CNews) – In early March, the Student Activities Commission (SAC) of Georgetown University, a Jesuit, Catholic university, voted in favor of funding an abortion “rights” panel on campus, according to The Hoya. Earlier the university partially funded "Sex Positive Week" and held performances of "The Vagina Monologues."“While Catholics the world over are engaged in penance, prayer and alms giving during this Lenten season, students at America's oldest Catholic university have participated in a perverse series of events that vividly reminds us why our...

This is bad news for those who have hope for Notre Dame University. Dr. Charles Rice has been writing a column for the Notre Dame Observer for many years. But this week, the editors refused to run his column on the Church's teaching on homosexuality. Joe from Defend Us In Battle writes: Notre Dame... fails again. This is hitting just now in a few well respected Catholic News outlets: Dr. Charles Rice (Notre Dame Law School - Bio) recently wrote a column/piece for the Notre Dame Observer, as he does every few weeks. The topic this week is: The Church's...

Here is an exchange between Dr. Rice and the Editor-in-Chief of The Observer respecting the latter's refusal to publish Dr. Rice's essay, the latest in his regular series, in which he describes the Church's teaching on homosexuality. We will issue a bulletin shortly on the current student campaign to include sexual orientation in the University's anti-discrimination clause, which was triggered by a crude and offensive cartoon in The Observer. While apologizing for the cartoon, The Observer promptly published an editorial in support of the campaign. The current issue of The Irish Rover points to factors suggesting The Observer's publication of...

Father Dennis Cooney, pastor of St. Raphael's Parish in Lehigh Acres, is delighted that two students from his parish will be attending Ave Maria University this fall. He's even more delighted that each of them will receive a minimum of $5,000 in financial aid through a new program started by the university called Priests for Ave Maria. The PFAM program, as it is known, is part of an effort to involve more priests in the mission of Ave Maria University, and to help recruit students for the university, according to AMU Chancellor Tom Monaghan, who came up with the initial...

Almost 400 students will participate in this year’s national March for Life Friday in Washington, D.C. — doubling last year’s participation. The Notre Dame Right to Life Club sends students to the nation’s capital every year to march in the annual pro-life rally, the group’s co-vice president Mary Daly, a senior, said. But this year, for the first time, University President Fr. John Jenkins will join the marchers. Jenkins created a pro-life task force in September to “broaden and deepen the pro-life culture” at Notre Dame to help “strengthen the Notre Dame community’s witness to Catholic teaching on life.” One...

Notre Dame uproar over anti-gay cartoon in student newspaper By DARA KELLY IrishCentral.com Staff Writer The University of Notre Dame is being rocked by a controversy over an anti-gay cartoon printed in the student-run newspaper, The Observer. The cartoon depicts a conversation between two figures that reads: “What’s the easiest way to turn a fruit into a vegetable?" “No idea.” “A baseball bat.” Earlier, the cartoonist, who has not yet been named, posted the original version of the cartoon on his blog. In this version, it shows the punch line as “AIDS” instead of “a baseball bat.” The paper, he...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Polling data form 2009 shows opinion on abortion moving in the pro-life indication and if the attendance at the upcoming Students for Life convention is any indication, the numbers are right on track. Students for Life of America will host a record number of students at their annual pro-life conference. The event, on Saturday, January 23rd at the Catholic University of America in Washington, has been sold out for the last two years.But SFLA is expecting a record number of registrants this year from nearly two dozen states and three countries.Kristan Hawkins, executive director of Students...

Is Abortion Allowed In Monaghan’s Ave Maria? By MARIELENA MONTESINO de STUART“Now a lie is directly opposed to truth. Therefore dissimulation or hypocrisy is also” — St. Thomas Aquinas.Appearances Are DeceivingAppearances are deceiving — and such is the case in the Town of Ave Maria — a town named after the moment of conception of Our Lord and after the Blessed Virgin Mary.On November 5, 2009, during a press conference at Ave Maria University, the administration, various faculty members, and selected students proudly honored and gave a standing ovation to Tom Golisano, a billionaire with a long history of supporting...

The Notre Dame commencement scandal was of such crucial significance to the Church and the renewal of Catholic higher education that it dominated much of the summer. But as students complete their first full month of studies and my colleagues at the Cardinal Newman Society wrap up the second edition of our Catholic college guide, it's a relief to focus attention on the very best of Catholic higher education. But the reality is that the crisis in Catholic higher education is far from over. Generally, but certainly not always, families seeking a Catholic education outside the colleges identified in The...

Tell Belmont Abbey College: "I'm proud of you!" Help this faithful college resist the culture of death by signing an instant e-card:"I’m proud of you!" Notre Dame betrayed its Catholic identity, but Belmont Abbey College stayed faithful and now needs our urgent prayers and encouragement. Please let me explain:  This small liberal arts college in North Carolina with 1,600 students is holding firm to its Catholic identity by refusing to pay for abortion, contraception and sterilization in its healthcare plan. As a result, this brave college is now facing persecution.  In fact, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)...

SOUTH BEND -- In the aftermath of the controversial commencement visit by President Barack Obama, the University of Notre Dame's president plans to participate in the March for Life in January in Washington, D.C. The Rev. John I. Jenkins, the university president, announced Wednesday in an e-mail to the campus community that he will participate in the Jan. 22 march. He encouraged others to join him. A March for Life is held each January in the nation's capital on the anniversary of the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion. "I plan to participate in that march. I...

Students at John Paul the Great Catholic University (www.jpcatholic) put this hilarious video together. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofM3nnh5xGk&feature=channel_page

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities could have started a rift with the nation's Catholic bishops but appears to have avoided it. In it's last newsletter, the association called for the bishops to withdraw their guidelines saying Catholic colleges should not allow pro-abortion speakers. Now, ACCU officials have deleted that language from its Summer 2009 newsletter. The language originally had the group saying, "ACCU's directors informally concluded that it would be desirable for the USCCB to withdraw 'Catholics in Political Life.'" "A successor document, if any, should distinguish between 'honors' and 'platforms' and should acknowledge...

At a recent meeting, the board of directors of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities announced that they would like to see a reexamination of the 2004 “Catholics in Political Life” statement. The 2004 statement was released by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and prohibits Catholic institutions from giving awards, honors or platforms to “those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles.” It is often cited by those who disapprove of Catholic schools hosting pro-choice politicians (most notably during the Obama/Notre Dame controversy, but also during the Joe Biden/Georgetown Law incident). According to the Catholic News...

June 17, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A national Catholic higher education organization has identified 10 Catholic colleges and universities that are promoting student internships with organizations whose missions or activities are directly opposed to the moral teachings of the Catholic Church, including on fundamental issues such as abortion and marriage.  “This discovery validates the concerns of so many thousands of faithful Catholic parents and students, that public scandals at Catholic colleges are just the tip of the iceberg,” said Patrick J. Reilly, President of The Cardinal Newman Society (CNS).  “Under what definition of ‘Catholic education’ do students receive academic credit to work...

Forty years ago the major Catholic universities in the U.S. decided that the Catholic Church needed to reform her teachings, especially that of sexual morality, to conform to the times, and that they should lead that reform. In 1967, at Land O'Lakes, Wisconsin, they declared their independence from the Church, exchanged the faith of their founders for an evolutionary heresy, proclaimed themselves to be an alternate magis­terium, and transferred control from their founding religious orders to secular boards of trustees. Not coincidentally, by these actions they qualified themselves for lucrative financial grants from foundations controlled by leaders of the Culture...

Via Gateway Pundit, a stemwinder from last night’s Factor that’s most remarkable for her assumption that it was a viable Catholic institution until this past weekend. William McGurn begs to differ: We’ve been here before. In his response to an inquiry from this reporter, Dennis Brown, the university’s spokesman, wisely ignored a question asking whether “ambiguity” would be the word to describe a similar decision in 1984 to give Mario Cuomo, then governor of New York, the Notre Dame platform he so famously used to advance his personally-opposed-but argument. Or the decision a few years later to bestow its highest...

Commentary The Notre Dame Brand BY Patrick LencioniMay 17-23, 2009 Issue | Posted 5/8/09 at 10:57 AM   Lest anyone think that the current graduation speaker controversy at the University of Notre Dame is merely a matter of partisan politics and media hype, it is worth a closer look. What is happening right now in South Bend, Ind., is not simply a critical moment of truth for a vaunted institution; it is also one of the greatest case studies ever about organizational identity and core principles.When Jerry Porras and Jim Collins published their classic book Built to Last almost...

At the rate things are going, Pope Benedict XVI may find his next trip to the U.S. dogged by airplanes overhead trailing banners with images of aborted fetuses. O.K., that's a bit of hyperbole. But while several prominent conservative Catholics in this country are apoplectic over the University of Notre Dame's invitation of the pro-choice Barack Obama to give the school's commencement address on May 17, the Vatican has stayed completely silent on the matter. The two very different reactions to the question of whether a Catholic institution should honor anyone who disagrees with the Church's teaching on abortion are...

Today, to the disgust and apparent surprise of many Catholic bishops and laity, the University of Notre Dame, once the pride of Catholic intellectual life in America, will behave in a very un-Catholic way by honoring, as commencement speaker and honorary degree recipient, POTUS Barack Obama, one of America's most extreme advocates of abortion. This surprise is hard to understand. The old Latin proverb nemo repente turpissimus can be translated as "nobody becomes very evil overnight." Even Judas served a lengthy apprenticeship as an embezzler before moving on to greater betrayals. In a similar manner, I contend that the invitation...

Each year, the University videotapes the Notre Dame Commencement exercises. This year, you can see the following ceremonies live via streaming video.

Contact: Catherine Rouse, Vision America, 936-560-3900, Catherine@visionamerica.usSOUTH BEND, Ind., May 15 /Christian Newswire/ -- Vision America President Pastor Rick Scarborough said he was sickened by what he saw when those protesting Obama's speech at Notre Dame were arrested on the campus. "I wept when I saw my friends arrested and taken to jail," Scarborough disclosed. "They almost broke the arm of a priest who appeared to be in his 80s, by dragging him on the ground." Scarborough, who's a Southern Baptist preacher, said he was in South Bend in solidarity with Catholics who are protesting the upcoming commencement speech at...

South Bend, IN (LifeNews.com) -- Notre Dame students who don't want to attend a graduation ceremony involving pro-abortion President Barack Obama put together alternate plans. Today, they announced that Father Frank Pavone, the director of Priests for Life, will lead prayer at a pro-life prayer vigil.The Class of 2009 Vigil for Life will be celebrated at Sunday's commencement ceremony at the same time as the graduation event.“In standing with these students, I am standing with the true spirit of Notre Dame: a pro-life spirit, in harmony with human reason and Catholic Faith," Father Pavone told LifeNews.com on Monday."The scandal...

All across campus, the flowers have begun to bloom, their dull Indiana roots stirred by the spring rain, and the grass is almost green again at Notre Dame. Beneath a 16-foot statue of the Blessed Virgin, the main administration building sits, as always, its gold dome sparkling in the warm spring sun. Meanwhile, in the offices of the college chapel--some chapel: the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, with a 230-foot spire and the world's largest collection of 19th-century French stained glass--young couples are meeting with deacons to plan the alumni weddings that run nonstop through the spring and summer. The...

SOUTH BEND — As soon as it was announced March 20 that President Barack Obama would be the University of Notre Dame's commencement speaker and receive an honorary degree, the reaction started. Online petitions by some Catholic groups were launched that day, denouncing the decision by the Rev. John I. Jenkins, Notre Dame's president, to honor Obama, who is pro-choice and who on March 9 had given approval for expanded fetal stem-cell research. Pro-life activists have flooded into town, conducting rallies and petition drives, standing at Notre Dame's main gate holding large photos of aborted babies. Airplanes have been flying...

Reading from the Book of Matthew, the Rev. Robert Garrity welcomed students, family and friends to Ave Maria University’s fifth annual commencement exercises. “You are the salt of the earth … you are the light of the world,” he told them Saturday in the school’s ornate Oratory. The 114 students who received degrees Saturday marked the largest graduating class in the school’s short history in Collier County. Commencement speaker Dr. Thomas Hilgers, an obstetrician from Omaha who Ave Maria President Nicholas Healy described as a pioneer in “gynecological practices that are line with the teachings of the Catholic Church,” used...

All across campus, the flowers have begun to bloom, their dull Indiana roots stirred by the spring rain, and the grass is almost green again at Notre Dame. Beneath a 16-foot statue of the Blessed Virgin, the main administration building sits, as always, its gold dome sparkling in the warm spring sun. Meanwhile, in the offices of the college chapel--some chapel: the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, with a 230-foot spire and the world's largest collection of 19th-century French stained glass--young couples are meeting with deacons to plan the alumni weddings that run nonstop through the spring and summer. The...

Bishop Joseph Martino is a Bishop who has stood out for his deep, continual and unflinching pastoral oversight of the Diocese and all of the Catholic institutions under his care. He has also shown genuine pastoral care for Senator Robert Casey, the son of the late Governor Bob Casey who was a courageous and uncompromising champion of the Right to Life. His son, Senator Robert Casey has a decidedly mixed record concerning the fundamental Right to Life. His Bishop is engaging him regularly to remind him of his obligations to be what Pope Benedict has called "morally coherent" in discharging...

Bishop Joseph F. Martino said today that the decision by King’s College to have Sen. Robert Casey serve as commencement speaker on May 17 is, in view of his affirmative vote for Kathleen Sebelius as Secretary of Health and Human Services, an affront to all who value the sanctity of life. Previously, the Bishop had asked Sen. Casey to reflect on his oft-stated pro-life beliefs and oppose the nomination of Gov. Sebelius who as a Catholic has been a committed advocate of abortion while she served as governor of Kansas. It is the Bishop’s position that his vote on April...

Providence College has blocked a campus speech by former Colorado congressman Tom Tancredo, a vocal opponent of illegal immigration. It also said Tancredo's stance on illegal immigration "directly contrasts" with Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin of Providence, a member of the college's Board of Trustees.

THE LATEST flare-up on the Obama Watch (we have trouble keeping up with all of them) was sparked by Georgetown University's covering up its Christian symbols, or trying to, when the president visited the campus to deliver a speech. The cover-up didn't entirely work. The university's (and the Jesuits') abbreviation for Jesus' name-IHS-was still visible elsewhere in the hall. Along with the cross above the university's seal. Was it sloppy planning or divine will? And why not both? He works in mysterious ways. We vote for this scandalette's having been the product of just another bad idea from some lower-down...