The following excerpt comes from a June 10 story in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat.

Lake County officials have struck a deal to turn the landmark Lucerne Hotel into a private college, a project that could change the face of the economically depressed area.

“It’s a game changer for Lake County,” said Supervisor Tony Farrington.

Marymount College on Saturday approved a memorandum of understanding with Lake County, which approved the agreement last week, said Supervisor Rob Brown.

It includes a $1 a year lease for five years, after which time the county would receive 50 percent of the net revenue, or a minimum of $85,000 a year. The college also would have an option to buy the hotel, which the county redevelopment agency purchased in 2010.

The county anticipates making a profit from the sale, but an asking price has yet to be determined, officials said.

Combined with the economic development possibilities a college brings, “we can’t lose,” Brown said.

Marymount College plans to open the hotel, known locally as “the castle,” to a few students beginning this fall. It won’t be operating fully until the summer or fall of next year, said Marymount President Michael Brophy.

Marymount is a Catholic college founded by the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary. It includes two main college campuses in Southern California and satellite schools worldwide.

College officials are still working out the Lake County curriculum, but initially it would focus on social research and public service, which is required of all its students, Brophy said. The school would provide only upper division courses because there already are two community college campuses in the area, he said. Mendocino and Yuba colleges graduate about 800 students a year, Brophy said.

To read entire story, Click here.

 

READER COMMENTS

Posted Thursday, June 14, 2012 5:13 AM By ED
Focusing on more “SOCIAL” and socialism? This is what got the Nuns groups in trouble in the first place. – All socialist and no Religion. Do you think they will use the CCC as a text requirement? The jury is out on this, but it certainly can be used as a dangerous politicial tool.

Posted Thursday, June 14, 2012 8:03 AM By Ed
Bishop Vasa better keep an eye on this college they are hardly champions of orthodoxy

Posted Thursday, June 14, 2012 8:55 AM By John F. Maguire
In reply to Ed: The Catholic social encyclicals afford us the measure — the very measure — of various (diverse) socialisms, also the measure of various (diverse) counter-socialisms, not (I would emphasize) the other way around. Indeed, it is because these papal encyclicals are SOCIAL encyclicals that they constitute a critique of political ideologies of all sorts — left, right, and center. This circumstance is entirely expectable. The triune God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — is perfectly social as: TRINITY. Men and women are essentially social because we are made by God in His own image and likeness as, and just as, triune God.

Posted Thursday, June 14, 2012 10:08 AM By alice
One word to the profs: MANDATUM

Posted Thursday, June 14, 2012 1:33 PM By Kenneth M. Fisher
How soon will it be before the Sanchez sisters or other infamous “Catholic” politicians are invited to give a talk there? It sure is a nice site for teaching more heresy. Ed, we should E-Mail Bishop Vasa about this invasion of the heretics in his Diocese. I intend to do just that. God bless, yours in Their Hearts, Kenneth M. Fisher

Posted Friday, June 15, 2012 11:46 AM By John F. Maguire
Fanciful projections, false-light aspersions, warrantless imputations, a panicked postulation of a lateral invasion of heretics not to say barbarians — such reckless blogging works a grievous injury on the small dedicated undergraduate college known as Marymount College. I say small advisedly: Founded by the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary, Marymount College is a part of an international educational network that includes secondary schools throughout the world, as well as several Marymount Colleges in the United States. At the outset, we should bear in mind that in order to understand an educational movement we need to understand its founding charism. Fr. Jean Gailhac founded the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary in 1849. The heroic and holy women who chose to become professed religious in Fr. Gailhac’s innovative order of women religious heartily subscribed to Fr. Gailhac’s mission statement, viz., “to know and love God, to make God known and loved.” Whence the providential call to these women-religious “to be women of prayer and compassion” and to put themselves and their resources “at the service of those most in need of justice” (quotes from Fr. Jean Gailhac). Source: Heritage and History of Marymount College Rancho Palos Verdes, California.

Posted Friday, June 15, 2012 2:29 PM By John F. Maguire
Appollonie Pelissier (1809 – 1869) was a married woman prior to her becoming the co-foundress and first mother superior to Fr. Gailhac’s Institute of Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary. Appolonie and her husband Eugene Cure were major supporters of Fr. Gailhac’s apostolate. When Eugene Cure died in 1848, “Appollonie offered herself and her [family’s] considerable wealth towards the founding of the religious community already envisioned by Fr. Gailhac for the direction and service of the women’s shelter and the Orphanage of the Good Shepherd which he had begun. On February 24, 1849, Appollonie moved to the Good Shepherd where she and give companions became the first members of the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary. ~ As co-foundress and first superior, Appollonie, now known as Mother St. Jean, worked closely with Fr. Gailhac and governed the Institute until her death.” It was however in the United States of America that the Religious of Sacred Heart of Mary fully initiated their program for the education of young women — and young men.

Posted Friday, June 15, 2012 8:50 PM By Kenneth M. Fisher
John F. Maguire they “educate” all right! Why are you trying to defend the indefensible, a University that has completely lost touch with its Founder’s Religious philosophy. Did you read at all my above statement, or are you assuming that your book learning is greater than the experiences of many, including myself, who have taken part in demonstrations because Marymount was honoring pro-abortion, pro-active homosexual, pro-Obama politicians. God bless, yours in Their Hearts, Kenneth M. Fisher

Posted Saturday, June 16, 2012 9:50 AM By max
ken, you sure do get around! protesting at your local religious education congress, and protesting at catholic colleges. keeps you young!

Posted Saturday, June 16, 2012 2:13 PM By John F. Maguire
Ken Fisher: One cannot properly judge the state of a religious institute’s educational apostolate — I’d say, any given religious institute’s educational apostolate — until one takes into account what you refer to as that institute’s Founders’ religious philosophy. That is why, in this thread, I’ve begun to identify and adumbrate the basic intention of the Co-Founders of the Institute of Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary (RSHM) — I mean Fr. Jean Gailhac and Appollonie Pelissier-Cure. In this same connection, emblematic of the religious philosophy of today’s worldwide RSHM is Fr. Gailhac and Mother St. Jean’s (Appollonie Pellisier-Cure’s) cruciform inscription UT VITAM HABEANT (“That They May Have Life” [John 10:10]). These select words inform the rule of life of the women Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary, and have done so from the Diocesan-level approval of this rule in 1850 to this rule’s canonical-level approval in 1880, to its revision in 1983. What is stressed educationally then is inclusivity: “Led by Mother St. Jean, first superior, [the Religious of the the Sacred Heart of Mary] sought to be the followers of Jesus who came that ALL may have life (cf. John 10:10) and grow in knowledge and love of God.” Source: RSHM, “Our beginnings,” online.

Posted Saturday, June 16, 2012 3:48 PM By John F. Maguire
ISSUE: Is Marymount College’s transformation of Lake County’s Lucerne Hotel into a learning resource for educationally isolated students, a salutary development in keeping with the distincitve charism of the RSHM/Marymount tradition? YES — we need only recall that Fr. Gailhac’s orphanage for young women who had been abandoned or ousted from their parents’ households, was, by 1849, “transformed and supplemented by a boarding school and a small dispensary in which both the children at the Motherhouse and the poor and outcast of Beziers were treated. ~ The orphanage, the preservation (successor to the shelter) and the boarding school were three distinct institutions, the first two being considered social welfare works. The same spirit animated them, but each had a specific educational aims according to the place each group would hold in society.” RSHM’s original educational outreach in France, in situ, soon became missionary all ’round: “In 1870, ten religious, with Mother St. Thomas Hennesey superior, left Beziers for Lisburne, a suburb of Belfast, which became the first foundation of the RSHM Institute outside of France.” Expansion to Portugal came a year later; expansion to England, the next year, 1872. Then the United States of America, 1877; Ferrybank, 1879; Spain; 1911; Brazil, also 1911; Italy, 1930; Wales, 1939; Canada, 1943; Colombia, 1947; Mozambique, 1952; Mexico, 1954; Zimbabwe, 1956; Zambia, 1966; Scotland, 1971; and Mali, 1971. Source: RSHM, “Our beginnings,” online. That the legatee of this worldwide RSHM tradition, namely, Southern California’s Marymount College Rancho Palos Verdes should extend its educational mission northward, to Lake County, constitutes, perfectly expectably, another realization of the well-nigh global educational tradition known as Marymount.

Posted Saturday, June 16, 2012 7:48 PM By Kenneth M. Fisher
John F. Maguire, 2:13 PM. The truth is in few words that there is no connection anymore between what the holy founders of that Order represented and what these hippie nuns represent, and you know it! God bless, yours in Their Hearts, Kenneth M. Fisher

Posted Sunday, June 17, 2012 12:09 PM By Abeca Christian
Mr Fisher God bless you for standing up for morals and for what is right. I know it takes backbone and great conviction to do so.

Posted Sunday, June 17, 2012 4:24 PM By John F. Maguire
Holy founders versus “hippies nuns”? To the contrary, Mr. Fisher, the connection between Marymount College Rancho Palos Verdes is just as I stated it. This College’s Board of Trustees remains committed to sustaining the RSHM charism of the two renowned founders of the Insitutute of the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary — and here I would add, as far as I can tell no less intensively than the East Coast Marymount Manhattan’s Board of Trustees. The fact that these two respective Boards of Trustees directly tend their Marymount Colleges rather than the RBHM Institute itself does not mean that there is “no connection anymore” between these Marymount Colleges and the original Gailhac/Appollonie charism; quite the contrary. For example, this same Marymount charism, today as yesterday, informs Los Angeles’s Loyola Marymount University (post the 1973 merger). We are already familiar with the Ignatian tradition in education. So a word on the Marymount tradition: “The Marymount tradition [for its part] emphasizes a rigorous liberal arts education, taking seriously philosophy and theology, while also developing each student’s creative abilities in the fine, performing, and communicative arts, in order to form students committed to living ethical lives as spiritual beings. The tradition promotes the dignity of all human beings, especially of women and girls, by allowing each person to develop his or her own talents and gifts for the service of others. Inspired by Gailhac’s call that the sisters adapt themselves to their [in situ] culture, it inherently embraces internationality and develops in its students a respect for all cultures. The Marymount educations tradition cares for and forms the total person — culturally, intellectually, spiritually, and physically — SO THAT ALL MAY HAVE LIFE AND HAVE IT TO THE FULL (emphasis in the original). “The Jesuit and Marymount educational traditions are the bedrock of LMU’s mission.” Source: LMU/LA Factulty Hall of Fame.

Posted Monday, June 18, 2012 1:53 PM By Kenneth M. Fisher
John Maguire, Please try to explain in as few words or necessary (I still believe in miracles) how Marymount college can justify honoring so many pro-abortion, pro-sodomite politicians. God bless, yours in Their Hearts, Kenneth M. Fisher

Posted Monday, June 18, 2012 5:58 PM By John F. Maguire
It is woefully typical of your House Committee on Un-American Activities style-of-rhetoric to advance a broad-barreled attack, an attack stated however without any factual predicate whatsoever. You did this a while ago with your Sacred-Heart-of-Mary nuns-as-hippies false-aspersion. Now you come back and claim, inter alia, that Marymount College “honors” abortocrats — again, no factual predicate supplied. ~ Mr. Fisher: Last year, when Virginia State Senate candidate Barbara Favola declared herself a convinced abortocrat, Marymount University — this is a Marymount institution of higher learning in Arlington, Virginia — made it clear that Barbara Favola’s views did not represent Marymount University. Reporting on this incident, Scott McCaffrey and Brian Trompeter wrote: “Favola works part-time as a senior development officer at Marymount University, which was founded in 1950 by the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Jesus order of nuns.” More: McCaffrey and Trompeter underscored what all fair-minded observers would take as the dispositive point, to wit: “In a 2007 pronouncement, Pope Benedict XVI reiterated the church’s opposition to abortion, calling it ‘a deep wound to society.’ ~ ‘The fundamental human right, the presupposition of every other right, is the right to life itself. Abortion, consequently, cannot be a human right — it is the very opposite,’ the pontiff said.” See Scott McCaffrey and Brian Trompeter, “Candidate, Employer Agree: Favola Speaks for Herself,” _The Sun Gazette_, October 14, 2011. Mr. Fisher, Arlington’s Marymount University back east subscribes to the same pro-life position as does Rancho Palos Verdes’ Marymount College out west — I mean as, and precisely as, a Catholic institution. Which is why, in fine, my conclusions is that your false-light aspersion against the latter college exemplifies scandal-mongering rather than a fact-based assessment.

Posted Wednesday, June 20, 2012 6:57 PM By Kenneth M. Fisher
Maguire, When are you going to straightforwardly reply to my challenge that you justify what is going on at this “University” now, not 40 or more years ago? Could you do it in 50 words or less? I still believe in miracles! God bless, yours in Their Hearts, Kenneth M. Fisher

Posted Wednesday, June 20, 2012 8:37 PM By JLS
Finally I figure out what Maguire’s religion is called: The Rose-Colored Glasses religion.

Posted Wednesday, June 20, 2012 9:02 PM By John F. Maguire
It is the Marymount educational tradition as it is now, and this tradition just as it is now, that I’m saying abides in the Gailhacian-Appollonien esprit. Ken, as I mentioned at the outset, in order to understand both the place and the distinctive character of an educational movement within the context of Christian life it is necessary to understand that movement’s founding charism.

Posted Thursday, June 21, 2012 10:45 AM By John F. Maguire
In reply to JLS: I know (I hope) that the many and various distinctive traditions in the field of Catholic education — under discussion here: the well-known Ignation tradition and the sometimes occluded Gailhacian-Appollonien tradition — I know (I hope) that the collective daily practice of those hearty souls who are committed to these traditions, nonetheless ONLY PROXIMATE the unique charism that constitutes these traditions’ respective Founding inspirations. At the same time, we must not lose contact with the evangelical truth that love looks not with the eyes only but with the heart. In short, one has first to love the religious women who are committed to the Marymount tradition to begin to understand the daily dialectic of their accomplishments and set-backs.