<p>I AM OUTRAGED, OUTRAGED, OUTRAGED!!!</p>
<p>I am so tired of the PC empowered self-righteous. They are the worst people here.</p>
<p>archiemom. AMEN… </p>
<p>There is a core contingency of posters who will loudly proclaim outrage at the actions of the church - when the actions are wholly and completely within church doctrine. Kind of like going to a vegan restaurant and then lamenting the fact that your rights are violated because they refuse to serve you steak.</p>
<p>and as for the
</p>
<p>And defines their civil rights as the right to see a particular ‘artist’ at a particular venue… all one can retort is…</p>
<p>Oh my word…REALLY! We sure are full of ourselves. </p>
<p>DS really liked a school we recently toured. It has a reputation for being a very left wing ideological institution. As a European/hetro/male with a conservative bent DS is concerned he may just be considered the root of all evil at that particular place. So, guess what, radical idea…HE MAY JUST NOT GO THERE! So, rather than bash the Catholic system all over CC…just don’t go there… Geez, there are other options ya know.</p>
<p>Toblin: ME TOOOOO ME TOOOOO ME TOOOO…let’s do outrage together!</p>
<p>“Then why even bother to pay attention to these events much less spend the time posting about them?”</p>
<p>Because protecting civil rights and preventing discrimination is crucial, even in religious settings. Now, I personally don’t have enough insight as to the motivation of the administrators to say that this is an example of such discrimination; however, others seem to believe so. If this action was motivated purely because they did not like the content of his performances/workshops, then that’s fine. It would lead me to wonder why they booked him in the first place, but it’s a legitimate reason. Now if they didn’t cancel him based on the content of his workshops, but instead based upon who he is, that’s where it gets less black and white. If the sole motivating factor was the fact that he is gay, or that he is atheist, then that is discrimination. If it was due to his stances on topics such as the Catholic Church, then there exists a more delicate combination of factors to consider, such as whatever rights a school may have to dictate the activities happening on campus vs. a school’s obligation to provide a forum in which differing views can be expressed vs. whatever rights an individual may have preventing mistreatment on the basis of his beliefs.</p>
<p>“I do believe that posting on this topic is a clear opportunity for catholic-bashing”</p>
<p>I disagree wholeheartedly. For the most part, the posters on this thread have acted civilly and respected others for the most part. In fact, the only mention I can find to bigotry on this thread is referring to the LGBT supporters who protested Prop 8 by boycotting Mormon businesses. I also see people referring to Mr. Miller as an ‘artist’ (used loosely, of course) and a radical. I simply could not find a case in which someone “bashed” Catholicism in this manner. It is difficult to have any well-mannered and logical discussions about the shortcomings of religions when people cry persecution whenever somebody tries to point out an existing problem of established religions.</p>
<p>Edit: Typo</p>
<p>The president of Villanova has explained his decision, and Bryn Mawr, Haverford and Muhlenberg will sponsor the workshop. <a href=“http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20120222_Villanova_president_explains_why_he_canceled_Tim_Miller_show.html[/url]”>http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20120222_Villanova_president_explains_why_he_canceled_Tim_Miller_show.html</a></p>
<p>“Why” is this story…and the divisive rhetoric attached to it…interesting outside of Villanova?</p>
<p>No man is an island. My children and grandchildren will share the world with your children and grandchildren. We should all be vitally interested in how our nation’s leading institutions of higher education are shaping future thought leaders. The Catholic Church is the largest religious group in the US and backs the largest network of private colleges and universities worldwide, including 244 American schools. DePaul, the largest, sponsored Miller’s workshop. Villanova didn’t. Two Quaker schools and a Lutheran college have stepped in to host for the benefit of all, including interested Villanova students.</p>
<p>Our society is divided; schools are divided; our kids are divided. How can you not be interested?</p>
<p>Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk</p>
<p>According to the story linked by TXArtemis, the objections by the Cardinal Newman Society and others caused the University to review videos of Miller’s performances, which led to the cancellation. Here is the President’s statement:</p>
<p>“As an artist and a priest, I find the choices that Mr. Miller makes to be disturbing,” wrote Donohue, former director of Villanova’s theater department. “While some may disagree, as president of Villanova University I can assure you it is the explicit, graphic, and sexual content of his performances that led to this decision.”</p>
<p>And here is Miller’s reaction:</p>
<p>"He objected to Donohue’s characterization of his work.
“I am shocked by President Donohue’s grotesque mischaracterization of my performance work - especially considering he is someone who has never seen me perform,” Miller said. “What shameful disrespect he displays for the faculty who were bringing me to Villanova and to the hundreds of other universities, arts centers, and theaters who present my work.”
He said he also was “in awe of the courage and resilience of the Villanova students who are outraged by Donohue’s actions.” "</p>
<p>Note that Miller does NOT claim, at least in this statement, that his Villanova workshop would have been completely different from his other performances, which is the line that the sponsoring academic department used, but rather takes issue with the “grotesque mischaracterization” of those performances. So, is he claiming that his performances are NOT explicit and sexual? I think I’ll take the word of the priest and theater professor on this, especially as his description is consistent with that of others who have witnessed these performances, including Miller’s admirers and supporters. I just don’t see any “shameful disrespect” on the part of the president here.</p>
<p>I do believe that posting on this topic is a clear opportunity for catholic-bashing, couched in a concern for universities as a place for the open exchange of ideas.</p>
<p>===========</p>
<p>That’s been my point about these Catholic-related threads that are posted under the guise of wanting to discuss a concern, but they’re really just fronts for all the Catholic-haters out there that will always jump on the RCC-Bashing Bandwagon. The Usual Suspects quickly start bringing up everything negative by using untruths to half-truths or taking incidents or beliefs out of context, and then throwing them against the wall hoping it emboldens their posts. And since they really have an incomplete understanding about a 2000+ year old Church and why her Doctrines are what they are…they don’t understand why those doctrines can never be changed. </p>
<p>Some are former Catholics, some have never been Catholic, some are uninformed Catholics…but the underlying problem is always the same…they take things out of context, think think the Church should be run like a democracy (heck no!), and/or they just don’t know the roots of a teaching.</p>
<p>I could defend the Church and her doctrines all day long. I used to do it for AOL when it first launched and contracted me for their Religion forum. I’ve taught Apologetics classes for years. I can explain any teaching, belief, doctrine, tradition (small t and capital T), Dogma, custom, etc. I have brought countless people into the Church…even some who never thought they would become Catholic. These folks would try to “take me on” and then find out how wrong they were…and typically they would convert within a year’s time. </p>
<p>Nothing the Church believes is crazy, contradictory, or won’t withstand the test of time. Nothing requires blind faith…there isn’t any teaching that can’t be fully explained. If anyone wants an explanation to something that the Church teaches, they can PM me. </p>
<p>BTW…the Catholic Church is the most pro-women institution on this planet. For those who think that she’s in your uterus or whatever, you really need to learn what the Church is protecting. She’s protecting WOMEN and children. The Catholic Church knows that men, when left unchecked, will run amok and grossly disrespect women’s sexuality, their needs, and their bodies. The Church knows that when men’s sexuality is left unchecked, women and children are abandoned. The Church’s teachings protect women. That’s not the basis of teachings, but it’s part of the consistency of the teachings. </p>
<p>As a wise old priest once said: “I rather stand with the few on the Rock of Peter, then stand with the many on the shifting sands of public opinion.” Amen.</p>
<p>She’s protecting WOMEN and children.
Have you seen what the church charities is threatening to do in Colorado?*They want to end foster care & adoption services,</p>
<p>Emerald – cite please. Do you mean that Catholic Churches is prioritizing certain efforts? Don’t all charities have the right to focus on what they want? Are you saying that they want the state to end these services?</p>
<p>She’s protecting WOMEN and children.</p>
<p>=======
Have you seen what the church charities is threatening to do in Colorado?*They want to end foster care & adoption services,</p>
<p>=========</p>
<p>I’m not aware of this situation, but if I were to take a stab at what that’s about, I’d guess that the Church is refusing to allow gay families to adopt or foster children…so it’s not going to go continue services. If that’s the case, it’s about consistency.</p>
<p>This is a forum about colleges, and an action by a college, in my opinion, is fair game for comment. As to this:
Just saying this isn’t enough. Why should a non-Catholic simply accept this statement? The point, I think, is that Catholics want to refer to the actions of their leaders (like the folks who run Villanova) as representing moral authority, while those of us who aren’t Catholics can’t help feeling that the moral authority of Catholic leaders has been seriously damaged by the molestation scandals. Those of us on the outside have not seen the kind of “cleaning house” that you would expect from an institution that wanted to restore its credibility.</p>
<p>Of course, Villanova can do as it pleases. But this is a forum to which people refer when thinking about what colleges to attend, or to send their kids. How Villanova deals with a situation like this is a data point that may matter to some people.</p>
<p>good for them for canceling this kind of crap</p>
<p>I’d guess that the Church is refusing to allow gay families to adopt or foster children…so it’s not going to go continue services. If that’s the case, it’s about consistency.</p>
<p>No, they want to cancel services for * everyone*.</p>
<p>
I’ve asked this before and have never received an explanation: Adam and Eve had three sons. Then what?</p>
<p>I am pretty miffed at consistent pattern of willful distortion and misrepresentation of which claremarie’s last post forms part. No one in a position to know, ever, including Rev. Dohohoe in his statement, has suggested that Miller’s activities at Villanova were to include the kinds of sexually explicit performances to which Donohue objected. The Inquirer story does not purport to include any full explanation from Miller, just a reaction to how Donohue characterized his body of work. Previous stories, and the statements of the chair of the Communications Department which was sponsoring the workshop and had invited Miller in the first place, made clear that his student-focused workshops and his individual performance pieces were entirely different things. I also posted yesterday something I had heard from an acquaintance who had participated in one of those workshops, which confirmed: no sex, no nudity, no attacks on anything, indeed no performance by Miller.</p>
<p>As I have said from the outset, I don’t think anyone seriously disputes Rev. Donohue’s right to make this judgment, on his own or bowing to pressure from the Newman Society, Archbishop Chaput, or whoever. And it is clear that at least a substantial minority of posters here agree with him that Miller’s record as an artist disqualifies him from having any role at an event sponsored at a Catholic university. But it is fraudulent to cast this as an action to prevent a sexually explicit, hostile performance at the university. Justified or not, it is blacklisting, pure and simple, and honest people who support it should defend it as such, as I think Rev. Donohue did, not as something far simpler to defend.</p>
<p>As for why I started this thread:</p>
<p>As I acknowledged from the outset, I am skeptical that a high-quality university can maintain allegiance to a conservative religious mission. The attitudes of people around me, however, constantly force me to question that. A cousin whom I love went to Pepperdine himself, sent both of his children there, and is active in the Pepperdine community. A nephew of mine spent a year at Catholic University (which turned out to be a bad idea, not through any fault of CU). One of my best friends had two of her children go to Georgetown. And Villanova is a very popular and important institution where I live. I have friends who teach at Catholic universities. On CC, universities like Georgetown, Notre Dame, and BC are extremely well-regarded, and we recently had a long thread that was largely about how great Baylor is.</p>
<p>Especially with respect to the great Catholic universities run by monastic orders, people often make the claim that their religious orientation does not affect students significantly. Of course, it can be a positive for students who WANT that, and even for students who are not part of the affiliated religious community but who may benefit from its values. I know that the people involved in administration at these universities are strongly motivated by values of service, compassion, and intellectual rigor – values I share – as well as by religious faith that I respect but do not share. These Catholic universities are very different from places like Bob Jones or Liberty U, institutions that really don’t claim to provide a mainstream educational experience or to produce mainstream scholarship, and that cater to a much narrower population of students, so thus are of little interest to me.</p>
<p>When something like this happens – when a mainstream Catholic university does something that I don’t think its secular counterparts would do – I think it is interesting, and worth discussing. It’s not just about Villanova; it’s not just about students there now or students who might go there or apply there next year. I am interested in what people have to say – including, of course, people like claremarie who applaud the action. I don’t think that’s inappropriate at all.</p>
<p>My Quote:</p>
<h2>What certain members of the Church did or didn’t do right during that time has NOTHING to do with the truths that the Church holds dear.</h2>
<p>Hunt quote:
Just saying this isn’t enough. Why should a non-Catholic simply accept this statement? The point, I think, is that Catholics want to refer to the actions of their leaders (like the folks who run Villanova) as representing moral authority, while those of us who aren’t Catholics can’t help feeling that the moral authority of Catholic leaders has been seriously damaged by the molestation scandals. </p>
<p>===============</p>
<p>The Church is not a house of saints…no group with humans in it can be. When a Jewish Rabbi does something awful, it doesn’t change the fact that Jews are the Chosen People. The facts don’t change because of the sins of humans. </p>
<p>Yes, moral authority is always hurt when authority figures sometimes do bad things. It’s the same in families…when it’s revealed that a parent has done something very wrong (infidelity, drug use, whatever), it becomes hard for the kids to respect that parent later when that parent “lays down the law” on another matter. </p>
<p>That said, do you have any evidence that this Villanova President has lost his right to “moral authority”? What has he done/not done to destroy his authority? If you’re saying that he’s lost his right because OTHER clergy lost theirs, that’s not fair. I don’t lose my moral authority because another parent may have lost his.</p>
<p>My point is just that it’s not persuasive to a non-Catholic to point to the decisions of a Catholic leader as evidence that the decisions is morally correct (whatever that means in the first place). If you want us to agree that the decision was correct, you have to defend it on the facts and principles, not on the fact that a church leader made it. The scandals just make it even less likely that anybody outside the church will uncritically accept a decision like this. Again, this has nothing to do with whether the leader had the right to make the decision–but whether it was the right decision to make.</p>
<h1>I’d guess that the Church is refusing to allow gay families to adopt or foster children…so it’s not going to go continue services. If that’s the case, it’s about consistency.</h1>
<h2>No, they want to cancel services for everyone.</h2>
<p>Emk…again, I’m not familiar with this case…my guess is that they are cancelling services for everyone because they’ve been told that they can’t discrimate against gay families who want to adopt/foster.</p>
<p>It would be the same if Catholic hospitals were ordered to perform abortions…they would have to shut down completely…and then there would be no services for anyone. …lol…unless they opened a proctology hospital.</p>
<p>I’ve asked this before and have never received an explanation: Adam and Eve had three sons. Then what?</p>
<p>=======</p>
<p>We have no idea if A&E only had 3 sons. They could have had 20 kids. they could have had 17 Ds and 3 sons for all we know. The story is about 3 of their children. Scriptures do not say that they only had 3 children…and never any others…</p>
<p>Yes, Mom2, I suspect what is happening is that the Church is being told it can not discriminate against gays, and so is getting out of the adoption/foster businss. Which will likely result in more gray market adoptions. So the state will have to take up the slack.</p>
<p>kayf: That was my understanding of the situation. I would think for those posters who find the RCC such an oppressive, thought killing, prejudicial, women/LBGT hating, dogmatically constrained institution this would be cause for a hugh sigh of relief. Heck - I’d think these posters would be throwing a party - with the artist in question being the main event. I am sure the state of Colorado can do a much better, much more even handed and cost effective job with all these services than the RCC ever could. After all, the state is not hamstringed by moral rules and codes. And if they are, they can just change them!</p>
<p>I’m a big proponent of going where you are invited and appreciated - and would bet a double shot, shade grown, organic sustainably farmed cup of coffee from a company which provides employees with health insurance from a non- catholic provider that there are other areas/countries which would lay out the welcome mat.</p>
<p>The whole world is not Burger King - you can’t always have it your way.</p>