The following comes from a Feb. 25 story on LifeSiteNews.com.
Santa Clara University, a Catholic university, has announced its insurance plan will stop paying for its employees’ elective abortions in January 2015.
Board of Trustees Chairman Robert Finocchio Jr. said the decision “flows from the university’s identity and mission as a Jesuit, Catholic university.”
The policy had been announced last fall by university president Fr. Michael E. Engh, S.J., only to meet a backlash from faculty members.
“Our core commitments as a Catholic university are incompatible with the inclusion of elective abortion coverage in the university’s health plans,” he wrote in a letter to faculty and staff last October. He hoped the university would further Jesuit ethics by “modeling an ethics of dialogue.”
Juliana Chang, Faculty Senate president, asked that the board declare the decision “invalid” due to “our shared governance structure.”
“The trustees’ statement bluntly reminds professors that they don’t have final control over the university,” Patrick J. Reilly, president of The Cardinal Newman Society, told LifeSiteNews.com. “Apparently some professors thought they could bully Father Engh to keep their abortion coverage, but the trustees have a legal responsibility to uphold Santa Clara’s mission and Catholic identity, and they did the right thing.”
Fr. Engh announced the university would explore other options by which faculty and staff could obtain abortion coverage on their own.
Despite the step to separate the religious institution from formal participation in abortion, Reilly says troubling questions persist.
“Amid all the excitement about dropping the coverage, the university has not offered a clear explanation for why abortion was covered in the first place,” he told LifeSiteNews. “How many babies died? Who’s taking responsibility? It’s a grave scandal that the trustees ought to investigate.”
To read the entire story, click here.
Santa Clara University president, Father Engh, and Board Chairman Finocchio announced that the University’s employees’ health insurance plan would no longer cover abortions. They shouldn’t have covered it prior to this time, but should be praised for making a good moral decision at this time. What surprises me is the protest made by the faculty. How often does a faculty member need an abortion? Is this a regular need by many women faculty members? If so, why? Is the need for an abortion similar to the frequent need for dental care (teeth cleaning, filling a cavity, a crown, a root canal, etc.)? Abortion shouldn’t an on-going health expense. How often does a woman need an abortion? It causes me to wonder about the lifestyles of the faculty. Does the faculty’s attitude about abortion taint their teaching of Catholic principles?
So Jesuits are Catholics after all. I was not convinced, having read The Jesuits by fr. Malachi Martin.
Well, it’s about time, Santa Clara. Now, if only Fr. Engh would take similar action regarding the sketchy endorsement of the homosexual lifestyle. He could back out slowly, saving face with the, ‘We need to find out how this was ever ‘allowed’ to happen,’ tack, but get back to being Catholic already. Stop the hate and embrace what you are called to be, Santa Clara University – Catholic. It’s okay. But heads up, the world will hate you.
I can only imagine that this development has been encouraged by the exclusively TLM Chapel just off campus. Sounds like a few of the students might just have been exposed to the divisive Orthodoxy eschewed on campus and are even now spreading the disease. God be praised!
This should have been done in the very beginning. Any faculty member who disagrees with the Catholic Church’s teaching should have been fired many years ago, when Pope John Paul II issued his statements on Catholic institutions. As I wrote before, how long would a professor last at a Jewish university if he denied the holocaust? NOT VERY LONG! And so, it is about time the Church take the bull by its horns, and expel these traitors who are destroying the faith by poisoning the minds of the young students.
What are the cost consequences under Obamacare for the university for this decision?
Good for Fr. Engh. Now if he will only get rid of that horribly decadent play that is sometimes shown there — The Vagina Monologues