Free Republic

The corruption of our great institutions has often been brought about by their location and nearness to the worst influences in our society. Georgetown University’s location in Washington DC, the heart of America’s political cesspool, raises an interesting question about which institution corrupted which. Did Washington corrupt the Jesuit school or was it the school and its disgusting history that helped corrupt the workings of our government? Recently uncovered historical records have revealed that during a financial crisis in its earliest days, Georgetown was forced to sell off one of the Jesuit Order’s most valuable assets to stay afloat. In...

[A] Pennsylvania high school student barred from attending prom at her Catholic high school because she wore a suit rather than a dress has had her prom night — at a different school. Aniya Wolf, a student at Bishop McDevitt High School in Harrisburg, attended William Penn High School's prom Saturday at a banquet hall in York. Wolf says she learned at the last moment that girls were required to wear dresses to Bishop McDevitt's prom. She went anyway but was thrown out. The school says the dress code was sent to parents three months earlier. William Penn principal Brandon...

Georgetown University blocked concerned Catholics and reporters from attending today’s campus lecture by Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards, but tweets from participating students revealed faithful Catholics’ worst fears: Richards spoke to a packed auditorium, flagrantly advocating abortion, deriding pro-lifers and scandalizing students at the nation’s oldest Catholic university. Richards was introduced by the student group H*yas for Choice, according to a tweet from The Hoya’s Twitter page, once again demonstrating the substantial leeway given by Georgetown to this “unofficial” pro-abortion club. “I can’t wait to come back when this [H*yas for Choice] is a recognized campus group,” Richards reportedly stated...

The First Amendment can't protect schools that lose sight of their religious mission. When the Service Employees International Union began to help organize adjunct faculty at Catholic universities, many expected school administrators to bless the effort as a blow for social justice. After all, religious higher education often comes tinged with progressive politics. But some school leaders, including those at Loyola University in Chicago, are bucking the pro-union stereotype. Over the university's objection, some non-tenure-track instructors at Loyola recently voted to join a local SEIU chapter certified by the National Labor Relations Board. During the unionization debate, Michael Sean Winters...

Update: Georgetown defended its decision to allow Cecile Richards to speak on campus in a statement issued on March 3. Read more here.The Lecture Fund at Georgetown University is planning to host Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) President Cecile Richards on campus this April, The Cardinal Newman Society has learned. "This is the latest in a long history of scandal at Georgetown University," said Cardinal Newman Society President Patrick Reilly. "Disguised as an academic event, this is nothing more than a platform for abortion advocacy at a Catholic university and under the nose of the Catholic bishops, featuring a...

A post on Facebook describes the scene: Amazing site from Pennsylvania. Dowling Catholic [High School, in Iowa] students stuck on the Pennsylvania Turnpike meet kids on the bus from Missouri. They have a priest. And create a snow altar for mass in the middle of this stand still. Very proud of all you Dowling Catholic students.WBAY from Green Bay reports on another stranded band of marchers: A group of 150 people from the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay, mostly students, is stranded in their buses by the East Coast blizzard.The group was in Washington, DC, for the "March for...

An all-girls Catholic prep school in Massachusetts violated state anti-discrimination law by rescinding a job offer to a man in a same-sex marriage, a judge ruled. Matthew Barrett was offered a job as Fontbonne Academy's food services director in 2013, but the offer was withdrawn days later after he listed his husband as his emergency contact. Barrett sued, alleging that the Milton school discriminated against him based on sexual orientation and gender. Norfolk Superior Court Judge Douglas Wilkins agreed, rejecting Fontbonne's claim that hiring Barrett would infringe on its constitutional rights because it views his marriage to a man as...

The Catholic Church in Britain now refuses to teach Islam as part of its GCSE religious studies curriculum, disappointing the country's Muslim leaders.  Under the new rules based on last year's reforms to the GCSE exam, only Judaism will be taught in tandem with Catholicism, excluding Islam and every other faith. The decision to drive out Islam stemmed from an incident known as the 'Trojan Horse' plot, in which Muslim schools in Birmingham were known to have teachers pushing fundamentalist Islamic teachings on the students.  Sir Iqbal Sacranie, former secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, has called the decision "very disappointing" and...

As greater acceptance of homosexual relations has spread throughout American society over the past decade, it has presented a conundrum for Catholic schools: What to do about children being reared by two men or by two women?While there are worries about any sort of acceptance of a “gay family” by a Catholic parish or school being construed as approval of a certain lifestyle, or exposing other children to certain family arrangements, parishes are also concerned about alienating anyone from the faith.And the fact still exists that an innocent child, in need of a Catholic education, is not responsible for...

Catholic school on the outskirts of Philadelphia has come under heavy attack in recent days after firing an openly lesbian teacher in a same-sex civil marriage with her partner. Since 2007, Waldron Mercy Academy knew that teacher Margie Winters had been civilly married to her lesbian lover, but they kept her on as Director of Religious Education anyway for a total of eight years, under the advisement that she keep her relationship secret and not discuss it with students or parents. Though she kept the order, parents from the school eventually found out about Winters and complained to the school...

“Bill Donahue of the Catholic League was invited onto the Smerconish show on CNN in order to defend a decision by a private Catholic school to fire a teacher who had revealed herself to be gay and in a gay marriage. Halfway through the interview, Michael Smerconish affirms the lesbians’ view that they are the ‘real embodiment’ of Catholic teaching. Cuz that makes a lot of sense. Of course, people who get their understanding of Christian doctrine from making fun of televangelists while smoking pot in college and from snarky criticisms on the Daily Show aren’t the best scholars when...

The head of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia is weighing in on the firing of teacher from a Montgomery County Catholic school, who allegedly lost her job because of her same-sex marriage. Margie Winters says she lost her job as the religious education director at Waldron Mercy Academy because of her marriage to Andrea Vittori. More than 100 people gathered together in support Winters at General Wayne Park in Lower Merion Township on Sunday afternoon. "I'm here to support Margie and let her know what was done to her was unjust, discriminatory and unfair," said Anthony Arechavale, parent. "I think it's...

All children deserve to be safe at school. Yet it turns out that New York City does not provide kids who attend private schools with the same level of protection as those at public schools. That’s not only unfair, it’s unsafe. And it ought to change. As matters stand, only public schools in the city are eligible for NYPD school-safety agents. Private schools must provide security officers on their own dime. And while child-safety is an issue no decent school would ignore, the fact is many private schools struggle to cover the costs of adequate security — and sometimes the...

WASHINGTON (CNS) — Wyoming Catholic College, a Catholic university founded in 2005 in Lander, announced in late February that it “shall not participate in federal student loan programs.”The decision came after months of analysis and deliberations by the college and its board of directors.“While the financial benefits are undeniable,” said a news release, “the increasingly burdensome regulatory requirements are clearly troubling for faith-based institutions.” The decision to forego federal student loan and grant programs was reached in a unanimous vote by the college’s board of directors.“While respecting that some of our peer institutions have reached a different conclusion on this...

Even Mother Teresa might have been tempted by this kind of property bonanza. A group of nuns wants to boot 55 tots from one of the city’s oldest preschools so they can cash in on the facility’s $20 million Chelsea real estate, according to a lawsuit by fuming parents. More than 50 moms and dads of kids at Nazareth Nursery Montessori claim the Sisters of St. Francis — who bought the West 15th Street facility for $5,000 in 1901 — want to sell the school’s two brick brownstones and hoard the money. “It's clear that the defendants plan to close...

A salute to Archbishop Cordileone for defending it in San Francisco.California is always a great state to watch, as things that happen there tend to be harbingers for the other 49. In San Francisco, we have the spectacle of an archbishop under attack from several state senators. His offense? Trying to ensure that high-school students in Catholic schools get the Catholic education their parents have freely chosen to give them. Archbishop Cordileone has had the good sense to ask high-school faculty to affirm that they will impart the Church’s social teachings. He’s trying to guarantee that students will receive the...

Catholic universities in America have lost sight of their institutional identities. Only direct intervention from the Vatican can reverse their decline.Catholic universities in America are typically regarded as offering a well-rounded education combined with one of the premier intellectual forces of the West: the Catholic Church, and its vast well of knowledge in almost every discipline. Unlike state-sponsored institutions, which can offer a quality education, Catholic universities have the advantage of a grounded and time-tested moral foundation. This foundation, and the discoveries, advances, and progress it has produced, is unrivaled in any other Western tradition. Secular universities, good though they...

Author Robert Reilly’s latest book, “Making Gay Okay: How Rationalizing Homosexual Behavior is Changing Everything,” dissects the homosexual movement’s strategy of indoctrinating Americans on the pros (but not cons) of LGBT behavior. robert reilly book The new norm of sexual behavior is “if you rationalize my sexual misbehavior, I’ll rationalize yours” as well. This goes against the natural law of man, which were recognized by ancient Greeks. Even the Greeks believed that a mentor-mentee relationship should be platonic between a wiser, older man and a younger man seeking wisdom, which iscontrary to the modernmedia’s perception of Greek culture. Those who...

James B. Sellinger, a former vice president for IBM’s North American operations, will serve as chancellor of education for the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s Department of Catholic Schools and Frank Bramble Sr., a member of the Board of Directors for Bank of America Corp., will serve as chairman of the archdiocesan school board, the archdiocese announced July 28. In the newly created position, Sellinger will promote the enrollment and fiscal health of the archdiocese’s nearly 50 Catholic schools. Bramble previously served as interim president of Calvert Hall College High School in Towson and as chairman of the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s Blue...

In 1540, Hernando de Soto marched through Middle Georgia not far from where this column originates. Just down river from where I am in Macon, Georgia, de Soto performed the first baptism in North America on the banks of the Ocmulgee River. That river cuts a lazy path through Macon and Middle Georgia. The Ocmulgee Indian natives, over time, migrated out of the area under force from the new natives, the Americans. Those new natives lived a quiet existence where rarely, like de Soto marching through, the outside world pierced in. When Sherman marched through in the Civil War,...