The following comes from an April 5 story in the National Catholic Register.
Officials at Loyola Marymount University will soon select a new director of the university’s Bioethics Institute, but the search process has some alumni and donors concerned that officials could settle for a candidate whose views conflict with Catholic teaching on abortion.
The LMU search committee is seeking to fill the vacancy in the bioethics director position left by Jeffrey Wilson. According to information obtained by the National Catholic Register, at least two out of three candidates under active consideration by the LMU search committee have views favorable to abortion that conflict with Church teaching. Loyola Marymount is one of 28 institutions of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities.
Denise Dudzinski, associate professor and director of graduate studies in the Department of Bioethics and Humanities at the University of Washington, has written about ethical scenarios that presuppose the moral permissibility of abortion. In an article in the March-April 2006 edition of The American Journal of Bioethics, Dudzinski writes that “predominant ethical framework for addressing reproductive decisions in the maternal-fetal relationship is respect for the woman’s autonomy.”
Ann Mongoven, an assistant professor at Michigan State University’s Center for Ethics and Humanities in the Life Sciences, has indicated that abortion and contraception are legitimate moral viewpoints in the Catholic tradition. In 2007, Mongoven wrote a book review of Sacred Rights: The Case for Abortion and Contraception in World Religions, describing the work in the Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics as providing a “welcome and erudite corrective” to the “erroneous but prevalent assumption that world religions [including Roman Catholicism] oppose contraception and abortion.”
Neither Mongoven nor Dudzinski provided information about their views in response to emails and telephone calls from the Register seeking their comments.
A third candidate, E. Christian Brugger, an associate professor of moral theology at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver, has writings delineating a pro-life position consistent with Church teaching. In an article for Public Discourse, Brugger wrote about the “intrinsic immorality of direct abortion — and euthanasia, embryo-destructive research, suicide and other offenses against the good of human life.” He is a senior fellow and director of fellows at the Culture of Life Institute in Washington.
A fourth candidate with writings supporting abortion in cases of severe fetal abnormality was also under consideration by LMU. However, he told the Register that he did not believe the university was a fit and had dropped out of consideration to accept a position elsewhere.
“This is disconcerting. Why would even one candidate with pro-abortion views be considered for hiring?” said David Luke, one of the organizers of Renew LMU, a group of LMU alumni concerned with maintaining the institution’s Catholic identity.
Luke said the Bioethics Institute advises local Catholic hospitals on life issues, and the next director would have enormous influence on policy and practice in hospitals. He said LMU’s president, David Burcham, has given the alumni group no confidence that he will hire a candidate consistent with Catholic teaching….
To read the entire story, click here.
“Loyola Marymount is one of 28 institutions of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities.” Nothing else needs to be said….
Much more needs to be said and done.
Write to Abp Gomez. He is responsible for everything “Catholic” within his own LA Diocese.
(Include a copy to the US Papal Nuncio in Washington, DC.)
” respect for the woman’s autonomy”: OK, so by what authority do these people define “respect” and “woman’s autonomy”? Do they ever say by what authority? Or do they get beligerant when pressed to answer this question? Or when pressed for an answer, do they simply withdraw from the confrontation? The reader may be able to see here that any professor arguing such a point can be readily defeated … They can only resort to holding their grading authority over the student; in the public domain, they can only enchant those who fail or refuse to challenge their authority in such an issue.
I’m with you Skai. Both women stand on the shifting sand of relativism–not the truth of Catholic teaching on abortion and the right to life of the unborn. Neither is morally fit to be director of bioethics in a Catholic institution.
Important addition: Their typical safe box is the law of the land; this position pits them well enough against any natural law argument. Why? Because they can claim that natural law includes the concept of evolution. Once this is conceded, then they come out with an audience entranced and mezmerized with fable and deception. This is the sad state of the Church natural law apologists, meaning most bishops, who cannot bring themselves to argue from revealed truth, and like the Man from La Mancha with his sidekick Sancho Panza they go about jousting at windmills. But the pro abortion forces love this ineffective side show of bishops deploying natural law. Why? Because they cannot prove to their opponents that natural law does not include the concept of evolution; thus, the pro-abortion forces twist natural law all over the place. Without the bishops entering devinely revealed truth (aka Jesus Christ) into the fray, there simply is no way they can persuade their argument. So, what happens if the bishops would argue from divinely revealed knowledge instead of natural law? Media would ignore them. One great advantage of divinely revealed truth is that it is simple and concise and anyone at any level of normal intellect can comprehend it easily. Natural law is too sophisticated for a large portion of society, and this fact limits it to coffee tables in the Ivy covered halls of academe’. Proof? When is the last time a bishop arguing from natural law stopped abortion? Never???
In other words, those who believe in the theory of evolution will not give natural law the time of day … They can’t.
The Jesuits may not still be Catholic, but the Archbishop can intervene if he chooses. Someone needs to point the facts in this article to him so he at least knows about it. Then of course it’s his choice. He could demand they quit calling themselves Catholic if they go against Church teaching in a public manner like this choice would be.
Remember last month when the pro-abortion politician teaching a social justice class at Verbum Dei (a Jesuit HS, of course) was also found to be on their school board? A member of the archdiocesan education department (and LMU, of course) are on their board too and nothing was done either. Nothing has been done for years about LMU’s lavender graduations, gay club and scholarships for LGBT students, no mandatums, etc, etc, so why would the archbishop do anything now?
You are correct, Ted. The Archbishop has the right to unilaterally force them to stop calling themselves Catholic. There are no hearings, no discussion, no appeal.
All it takes is a Bishop with the desire to protecting the Faith. Bishop Olmstead or bishop Vasa would do it in a second… but do not hold your breath for Abp Gomez.
If however we could convince the Archbishop that LMU was hurting
“undocumented workers” somehow, then we would get some action…. but protecting the unborn….unlikely.
Where is the AB of San Francisco – Very quiet the last few weeks!!
It is assumed that the bishop of a diocese or an archdiocese can exercise his authority with due response by the individual at issue. But this is only an assumption. It may well be that many bishops have attempted to throttle the renegades but have failed to get the response assumed in the “rule book”. Moses was instructed to command water issue forth from the rock, but it didn’t and so he got heavy handed and smote that rock with his cudgel … that is when God took him to the wood pile for a lesson in obedience. It also cost Moses a journey into the Promised Land. These bishops may be up against rock walls that are not forthcoming with the water of life. Do they then wield their cudgels and beat the heck out of it, or do they wait upon the Lord?
Skai – read the “Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition” and the ‘Code of Canon Law’ – both of which are available on the Vatican web site.
Each Bishop is responsible for his own DIOCESE, and for everything “Catholic” within that Diocese. He has great authority.
And yes he even has the power to excommunicate per several Canon laws – including #1399 if public scandal is involved.
Let us also not forget 1 Cor 5:11-13 per St. Paul.
Getting individual Bishops to do their jobs is another matter.
Ted,
Do you actually still believe that Arch. Gomez does not know about these things?
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
Maybe they need to look for someone without a PHD. Most women with PHD’s are pro-aborts. They consider themselves to be above all this ethical “stuff”.
“Most women with PHDs are pro aborts”: Ok, why?
You wouldn’t want someone with a Ph.D., like a pope or such? Francis and Benedict both earned Ph.D.s.
We can hope and pray that our new Pope can correct his brother Jesuits…
Pray that Pope Francis will finally adhere to Our Lady’s demands and consecrate Russia by name to Her Immaculate Hearts!
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
” In a ground breaking move the Associated Press the largest new gathering outlet in the world will no longer use the term “illegal immigrant.” That term is out. They will now use the phrase “undocumented Democrat”….Jay Leno
hahaha. Thanks, Catherine. We needed that!
Our own Pope is a Jesuit– so, what plans does he have, to reform the “fallen” Jesuit Order, with its corrupt schoolsr? Perhaps none! It seems that since Vatican II, our Church leaders just do not care any longer, to run our Church according to Christ’s teachings! They are frauds, aren’t they! Just what does it take, to run our Church according to God’s Will, not human error, and all its excuses?? Cardinals wear their red vestments to signify a willingness to die for Christ, if called by Him to do so. But what sacrifices are they willing to make– to run Christ’s holy Church, on a day-to-day basis, according to God’s will?? How much do they love the “fallen world,” and how much do they love God??
It will be a miracle if Catholic E. Christian Brugger is chosen by the modernist LMU!
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
I pick Brugger. He will be the best one.
I am not surprised at all. Many of our once holy, institutions of higher learning have been thoroughly corrupted with modernism. quite some year’s ago I attended a workshop at LMU, and it was directed by a “sister” from one of the religious communities in the archdiocese. This “wayward” sister, was not wearing a religious habit at all…quite the opposite…she was wearing a pair of high-heeled mules and a dress that was just above the knees without any hose. If her scandalous attire wasn’t enough, she was actually flirting with a person, I attended the workshop with! Very little surprises me anymore. It is very easy for a person to become habituated to these types of sinful and paradoxical excesses in our Church today…we must still pray and spiritually struggle against this “secular ideation”, that is has become the norm in so many of our parishes, secondary schools and especially our Catholic institutions of higher learning. As PPXI stated so prophetically in a sermon he gave in 1972…”The smoke of satan has entered the Church”. Time to open the windows, and let the stench and brimstone out the window…and return to the sacrament of regular confession, frequent holy communion and daily praying of the rosary…
Bio-ethics is also some ridiculous graduate degree major that is now being offered at LMU…it’s almost laughable really…what next, a degree program in “under-water basket weaving”?…LOL!
The study of bioethics is critical to the development of new technologies. Without bioethics, how will researchers and policy makers work out what kinds of research to support, what diseases to cure, how to ethically fund research, etc.?
If you happen to have a disease, and there’s debate about the ethics of research to find a cure, there’s nothing laughable about it.
It is laughable when you devote an entire degree program to this discipline…it can be covered in a course or two…within the framework of hospital administration or a graduate degree in business law, with an emphasis in ethics…it’s called “overkill”, with a capital “O”…and I’m still LOL!
Jean-Baptiste:
So you want a hospital administrator or a business lawyer to decide whether your grandmother gets life-saving therapy, or whether a research institute investigates a cure for one of your critically ill children?
And you think it’s funny. I hope nobody every has to rely on someone like you to make a life-critical decision; I wouldn’t trust you.
…crickets…
The Vatican document on bioethics is Instruction Dignitas Personae on Cerain Bioethical Questions.
Just because this college calls itself Catholic it doesn’t mean it is. It’s deceiving many…
“And the Lord said: Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips glorify me, but their heart is far from me, and they have feared me with the commandment and doctrines of men” Isaiah 29:13
Matthew 15:9 They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.'”
Quick everyone if you have the emails from our Bishops or priests send them the link to the YouTube Video titled 3801 Lancaster “A documentary film about Kermit Gosnell, the Philadelphia Women’s Medical Society disaster, and the cover-up by state and local oversight agencies.” If this evidence doesn’t get them to take action and stop this nonsense by not accepting these dissenters into our school, parishes etc, then I don’t know what else.
Those poor innocent babies, they snipped their spine to kill them, some didn’t die right away, so they suffered great pain…these evil woman who are for murdering the unborn are going to have to answer to God. This country is truly poor in morals, poor in acknowledgment that there is a God and His consequences….it does not care for the innocent and most vulnerable.
We’ve been dealing with the college issue. We want a good Catholic college. What we’ve found is that they are really expensive. There is one we were looking at in San Diego. It will cost $120,000 for 4 years. If we cover half of it, my kid will have to get student loans for the rest. $60,000 paid at 6.9% interest over 10 years will add up to $83, 000. So you are paying really $143, 000. Here’s the kick-the school offers only 2 degrees: BS in Communications (which was the one we were looking at) and a BS in business. Neither of these have good employability outcomes. Less than 50% of Communication grads get full time jobs in their fields. If they do, 25% of those are not permanent positions. The income is less than $30,000. I know some people send their kids to these schools for the ambiance. The field my kid wanted to be in, we have found out, most quit in 2 years because the hours are so long, the pay is so small and the work is extremely high stress. I feel for people, especially those whose kid is the first generation to go to college, if they don’t realize the long term consequences, financially, before they enter these schools.
What college are you talking about? Because there is only one good Catholic College in San Diego and it costs less than what you mentioned. Unless there is something that I am not aware of.
John Paul the Great. I am using the tuition and room costs on the internet.
Anonymous, you addressed two entirely separate valid issues.
1) Cost;
2) Degrees offered, and desired field of work.
To save $$$ sometimes living at home and attending a community college for the first two years is helpful.
When leaving home, always make certain that the Catholic Newman Society organization is available at the College and that your student is encouraged to attend their meetings, etc.
In the meantime it is the parents responsibility to teach their children the Faith (CCC). Insure that high school seniors read the Bible and the “Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition”.