The following comes from an Apr. 23 story on the website of the Cardinal Newman Society.
Loyola Marymount University has named Dr. Robbin Crabtree dean of its Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts, despite her past consultancy work with a Planned Parenthood-sponsored clinic and her involvement with a pro-abortion rights organization.
Crabtree, according to her CV available online, worked on the Advisory Board and Media Relations Committee of Planned Parenthood of Putnam County, Indiana, from 1991 to 1993.
The Jesuit University’s vice president for Mission and Ministry Father Robert Caro, S.J., defended the hiring in an email obtained by The Cardinal Newman Society, describing Crabtree’s consultant work with the abortion giant and her work with a pro-abortion political action committee as “brief association with two small community organizations from as far back as 20-plus years ago.”
He said they “do not reflect her recent involvements or reputation.” He even called the details “misleading.”
The email to “LMU Alumni, parents, and friends” states:
The concerns raised about Dr. Crabtree include inaccurate and misleading assertions that she “worked for Planned Parenthood” and aligned herself with a pro-choice women’s political action committee. For the record, more than 20 years ago, Dr. Crabtree consulted with a small woman’s health clinic in rural Indiana that was sponsored by Planned Parenthood and was one of the few healthcare resources for the poor and disadvantaged women in the area.
She was not an employee of the clinic but served only as an outside communications consultant.
LMU professor Jim Hanink responded to the email by asking if “the small Planned Parenthood affiliate she assisted only [carried] out, shall we say, small abortions?”
He added, “Planned Parenthood boasts of its public health services while year by year functioning as the U.S.’s leading abortionist.”
Fr. Caro also defended Crabtree’s work with a pro-choice PAC called Las Adelitas. He wrote:
…while in New Mexico over 15 years ago, Dr. Crabtree was briefly involved with a budding political organization, whose primary purpose was to find and support women candidates to run for state office. The organization has grown substantially and changed significantly since she left New Mexico. Associating Dr. Crabtree’s brief involvement with the group’s subsequent makeup and evolving political agenda is misleading.
But the PAC’s former president was quoted in the Santa Fe Reporter, indicating that the group’s pro-abortion goals were clear from the organization’s first days in the early 1990s:
Samantha L. Johnson, president of Las Adelitas Women in Politics, worries about the lack of pro-choice female legislators in New Mexico. When Adelitas began in 1993, Johnson says there were no pro-choice female legislators. Now, she says, there are eight, but that number is still too few for Johnson’s comfort. During the most recent legislative session, a bill that would have required minors seeking abortions to obtain parental notification almost passed.
“It made it onto the Senate floor with a 13-39 vote,” Johnson says. “Luckily it didn’t end up passing the House of Representatives.” Another bill that concerned Johnson would have allowed women who suffered miscarriages to obtain death certificates for fetuses. “Once you define what life and death are it’s easier to outlaw abortion,” Johnson says of her concern with the bill.
In 2004, the Albuquerque Journal explicitly stated that the group was “a political action committee which endorses and financially supports pro-choice, Democratic women candidates for state-level offices.”
Fr. Caro acknowledged in his letter that Crabtree “does not share our Catholic faith.” But Joseph Hellige, executive vice president and provost of LMU, in a release, cited Crabtree’s “strong commitment to the values that flow from Catholic education in the Jesuit and Marymount traditions” as a reason to support her.
RenewLMU, an organization committed to promoting Loyola Marymount University’s Catholic identity, released a petition urging the University to reconsider its selection.
“The departments of Theology, Philosophy, and Pastoral Studies are ‘mission critical’ to the University, and should not be overseen by someone whose views are incongruous with the Catholic Faith,” states the petition. “The failure of this selection process demonstrates the urgent need to reform the method of qualifying candidates for academic and administrative positions. If Loyola Marymount University is ‘institutionally committed to Roman Catholicism,’ and if the University ‘takes philosophical and theological disciplines seriously,’ then it is time, starting now, to hire for mission.”
To read the original story, click here.
” Fr. Caro acknowledged in his letter that Crabtree “does not share our Catholic faith.” ”
REQUIREMENTS for CATHOLIC UNIVERSITIES – Apostolic Constitution.
https://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_jp-ii_apc_15081990_ex-corde-ecclesiae_en.html
General Norms, Part 2
Article 2 Ҥ 2. A Catholic University, as Catholic, informs and carries out its research, teaching, and all other activities with Catholic ideals, principles and attitudes.
It is linked with the Church either by a formal, constitutive and statutory bond or by reason of an institutional commitment made by those responsible for it.”
and
“§ 4. Catholic teaching and discipline are to influence all university activities, while the freedom of conscience of each person is to be fully respected(46). Any official action or commitment of the University is to be in accord with its Catholic identity.”
and
” Article 4 § 2. All teachers and all administrators, at the time of their appointment, are to be informed about the Catholic identity of the Institution and its implications, and about their responsibility to promote, or at least to respect, that identity.
and
§ 4. ” Those university teachers and administrators who belong to other Churches, ecclesial communities, or religions, as well as those who profess no religious belief, and also all students, are to recognize and respect the distinctive Catholic identity of the University.
1) Did Crabtree acknowledge as part of her contract that she read understood and agrees to the “Requirements for Catholic Universities” in the Apostolic Constitution ?
2) As part of her contract was she provided and required to read the “Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition” – so she will know and understand exactly what she is required to uphold ?
I don’t see anything about Dr. Robbin Crabtree denouncing her past pro-abortion activities. What other sins does Father Robert Caro S.J. advocate?
” But Joseph Hellige, executive vice president and provost of LMU, in a release, cited Crabtree’s “strong commitment to the values that flow from Catholic education in the Jesuit and Marymount traditions” as a reason to support her. Jesuit and Marymount traditions are not Catholic and, it seems, even their spokesmen know it.
In my opinion, everything in this article is ‘anti’ Dr. Crabtree.
I did not see a single sentence speaking to other facets of her background or skills that may speak to her qualifications. Apparently, the standard is: She did X; therefore, she is not qualified.
And what constitutes X, mike? X is not an unknown factor but constitutes condoning the murder of innocent babies. X + Y (repentence) =
Z ( forgiveness) ( X – Z) = O
And Hitler made the trains run on time.
They only need to redact the word “Catholic” from every piece of paper, signs, plaques, or any other place where it can be found on the LMU campus. They should at least be THAT honest, don’t you think ?
Ted,
Right On!
May God have mercy on an amoral Amerika!
Viva Cristo Rey!
Yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher, Founding Director
Concerned Roman Catholics of America, Inc
“John Feeney” is correct in his observation: what does Dr. Crabtree say about her prior working relationships, and present beliefs, regarding abortion and abortion providers. It is one thing to sin, and sin gravely, as we all do from time to time. It is another thing entirely to continue the belief system that lead to the sin(s) without full repentance and reformation. Dr. Crabtree needs to “come out” — catchy phrase, that — and say what she believes. Father Caro seems very anxious to attack, in effect, the questioner, instead of providing a full response so that scandal is avoided. And, we all know what that almost always means; the “smoke-fire” thing. Dear Father Caro, if you want to be an “Episcopalian Catholic” (love that Michael Voris) go ahead, but tell the real Catholics, and those attending LMU, what you are about, so that practicing Catholics (and practicing Catholic LMU alums) can chose where to put their money. Oh, is that it? Use the Obama-Pelosi bum’s rush to get something done and then worry about what it means at a later time? Yes, sir, no getting around demonic intelligence; beats Mankind every time, except when Man is faithful and trusting in Jesus and His True Church.
Did Fr. Caro and other LMU officials search all over the U.S. and find no other person qualified for the position of Dean of Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts? Or did they want a person who will not be constrained by Catholic doctrine so that they can take LMU even farther from Church doctrine?
I’m trying to think of some things I did twenty or forty years ago that would make goof fodder for someone if I applied for a job this year. Let’s see, I was an Eagle scout in an organization that now discriminates against gays. I was on a college business advisory board for a school that is now considered too liberal for some people. And, of course the list goes on. Folks, it was twenty years ago. Give her a little slack.
Nope….
“I was an Eagle scout in an organization that now discriminates against gays” So you think openly gay men should be around young boys … ????
Canisius, Gay men are already around young boys. And always have been. As have straight men been around women.And most of the time, it turns out ok.
But in every barrel, there are bad apples. It becomes a particularly sinister situation when there is a conspiracy to hide indiscretions that there is a problem, whether the man is with any young person of either sex that we run into trouble. The Church officials ran this conspiracy for decades, which looked the other way whether the victim was male or female.
If we destroy the conspiracy, and remove offending priests regardless of whether they victimized boys or girls, then we get somewhere. If we pretend that all offenders went after boys, or if we pretend there was no conspiracy, then we have problems.
Solution=remove all gay clerics without exception.
There is no rational reason to remove gay clerics.
It has always been that way. No one asked and no one told.
Hey Bob One, You don’t have to go back twenty or forty years. Just go back to the many heterodox comments you make on this web site. Hopefully, you as the you have not led others into grave error.
We will soon be reading more horror stories from this dean of its Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts! Stay tuned.
May God have mercy on an amoral Amerika!
Viva Cristo Rey!
Yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher, Founding Director
Concerned Roman Catholics of America, Inc
The several that raise homosexual sex as a topic in the discussion of this article is not surprising. The reason that homosexuals, general, must be limited in their access to certain professions has to do with the centrality of their sexuality to their identity. That is, a homosexual priest is unqualified in that his thought (and prayer) process in that it is first colored by belief in the morality of his sexual identity (and possibly, activities). Put another way, the Catholic Church does not need any Judge Walker (the CA judge who decided the Proposition 8 challenge), and his corrupted view of the judicial process to achieve the goal of his sexuality. One very limited exception might be a homosexual that “comes out” in the correct way, like St. Augustine did, completely identifying his years of overt sinfulness, confessing the errors of what he did, and then embracing the Faith as the only path to salvation. Are there any examples of any Catholic homosexual clergy that publicly identify their sexuality as evil and sinful, that proclaim what they did in the past as wrong, as immoral, and then vigorously proclaim the Faith and seek to teach others about the unacceptability of homosexual behavior? Any? Instead, Catholics are treated to an avalanche of demands to accept homosexual behavior, in all its perversions, including the corruption of virtually all sacraments to accommodate that kind of lifestyle. Further, you need to keep homosexuals away from young boys; the facts underlying this observation are overwhelming, as well as the shameful decades, mostly since Vatican II, when thousands of mostly boys were violated by homosexual priests. The ranks of Catholic clergy should not have any homosexual clergy — with the very rare St. Augustine’s Confession exception.