Source: Ivory Tower Heretics -- Read Full Story

For those seeking a truly "Catholic" college experience in the New England Region, it can be tough. Boston College, a.k.a. Barely Catholic, long ago succumbed to the secular world-view and is probably best known for dissenting theologians popular with the mainstream media.

Holy Cross College is even worse. It's public promotion of Planned Parenthood at a recent symposium brought the condemnation of the Bishop of Worcester. They openly support abortion and gay causes as well as hosting the pornographic and blatantly anti-Catholic Vagina Monologues.

The smaller colleges of choice for Catholic students likewise suffer an identity crisis and crisis of faithfulness. Tilting leftward, they do all they can to avoid outward expressions of piety while trumpeting so-called :diversity" and "tolerance", code for gay friendliness and hostility to traditional Catholic belief. These colleges include Merrimack College, Stonehill College, Saint Anselm's College and Assumption College.

We previously reported that the new president of Assumption, Francesco C. Cesareo, gave a speech last fall upon his installation that signaled that perhaps he would turn Assumption back into a Catholic school. So we decided to take a look and see how he's fared so far.

First, it's important to note how far the school had to go. In 2002 it was reported that a student manning a booth in support of traditional marriage on campus was openly harassed by pro-gay attackers brought on campus from the outside by a gay campus group in full view of Mark Bilotta, a college administrator. In 2006, Mr. Bilotta was named the head of the Worcester Consortium of colleges and is still employed in a senior position at Assumption.

The campus gay club, AC Allies, still advertises their on campus activities, and as usual disguise their intention to promote homosexuality as some sort of human right and anti-bullying campaign, the same tactic being used nationally to get homosexuality accepted at secular high schools. On a recent post acceptance tour, a student remarked to me that they couldn't even find a pro-life club.

But in an even more in-your-face act, and a good indicator of the resistance the new president is facing, it was reported that the faculty voted to charge President Francesco Cesareo and his cabinet with violating policy when they refused to host a gay activist veteran as a Veterans Day speaker. On Internet postings, some faculty claimed the school was violating their "free speech rights." Given that Assumption College is a private, religious institution, such a claim is juvenile. Hopefully these weren't law professors. More striking is that no one was as vocal when the student was being harassed for supporting traditional marriage.

Turning a Catholic college around may be more difficult than the new president thought but it can be done. One huge obstacle is that most college faculty are tenured and secure enough in their positions to openly defy and secretly undermine any policies they disagree with.

Examples where the turnarounds did occur or are in progress include Franciscan University at Steubenville Ohio, rated as faithful by Cardinal Newman Society and National Catholic Register, and Providence College where similarly a new college president declared the Eucharist and the chapel to be the center of all the college stands for and set about ridding the campus of activities contrary to the Catholic mission. Catholic colleges like Franciscan U have become the transfer destination of choice for devout Catholic students disillusioned with the Catholic-in-name-only colleges.

To truly make the change will require preferential acceptance of practicing Catholics in the student body as well as in hiring of staff. Sadly, Assumption's reputation as a gay-friendly party school (the nickname of the school is "Consumption") is so ingrained that good Catholics are likely to continue to shun the school (as the child of this writer has decided to do). The school president will have to make painful changes that are both decisive and public if he is to change course.

We'll keep an eye on Assumption to see if this occurs.

Source: My Way News -- Read Full Story

Next up for Pope Benedict XVI, a welcoming nation that wants to get to know him. Benedict's first trip to the United States as pope begins Tuesday - a five-day visit to Washington and New York, including a speech at the United Nations. Anyone expecting strident speeches from the man once called "God's rottweiler" for his role defending Roman Catholic doctrine will be disappointed. Benedict will deliver an unwavering message that society needs religious values, but this intellectual pontiff will do it in the most positive way possible. After making relatively little headway in his efforts to re-ignite the faith in Europe, America's roughly 65 million Catholics seem anxious to hear him. "He has a way of helping us see what the Gospel and what the Catholic faith tradition asks of us that is challenging and not frightening," Washington Archbishop Donald Wuerl, Benedict's host in the first leg of the five-day trip, told The Associated Press.

Source: Reuters -- Read Full Story

Pope Benedict will pray for the conversion to love "of those whose hearts and minds are consumed with hatred" when he visits New York's Ground Zero, the site of the World Trade towers destroyed on September 11, 2001. A prayer he will read also commemorates those who died or were injured in the other September 11 attack at the Pentagon and on United Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers fought off hijackers. Nearly 3,000 people died in the September 11 attacks, including the 19 hijackers. The pope will visit Ground Zero in lower Manhattan on April 20, the last day of his six-day visit to Washington and New York. Last month, al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden accused Benedict of being part of a "new crusade" against Islam. The Vatican rejected the accusation. The visit to Ground Zero, now a gaping crater where new buildings and a memorial will be built, is expected to be the emotional high point of the trip.

Source: Reuters -- Read Full Story

The few dozen people attending Mass on a Tuesday morning at St. Michael Catholic Church in a Dallas suburb are in some ways a microcosm of the broader faith in the United States. They are mostly but far from exclusively white. Several are Vietnamese and there is a sprinkling of Hispanics among them. "The church is very important for me, it's my life. And this is a very accommodating community," said Margaret Balogun, a Nigerian immigrant, as she emerged from the church. She and other immigrants represent the new face of the Catholic Church in America which will greet Pope Benedict on his visit to the country April 15 to 20th. Once solidly Irish, Italian and Polish, U.S. Catholicism is turning Hispanic and even a bit Vietnamese and African -- and immigration is keeping the church from losing its "market share" in the highly competitive field of faith in America. Some analysts also say Catholic immigrants, especially Hispanics, may even be more in tune with official Vatican stances than native-born American members of the flock. They are conservative on issues of conscience like abortion and gay marriage, which the Church opposes, and prefer the more traditional devotions favored by Pope Benedict. At the same time, they take a more left-leaning outlook on social affairs such as helping the sick and the poor.

Source: Monsters and Critics -- Read Full Story

The week before Pope Benedict XVI is to head to the United States, questions remain about how he will address the priest abuse scandal that has shaken the world's third-largest Catholic community. Reporters have pressed the Vatican's spokesman on whether Cardinal Bernard Law, who has resided in Rome since resigning as Archbishop of Boston in the wake of the scandal, would accompany the pontiff on the trip. During his pastoral visit, Benedict is to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the founding of five US dioceses including Boston, where Law's tenure as archbishop lasted for 18 years. Father Federico Lombardi confirmed that several Rome-based American cardinals would travel with the pope. He had 'no information' on whether Law would be one of them. Law stepped down in 2002 in the wake of a sexual abuse scandal that shook the US Roman Catholic Church. Since then it has paid out hundreds of millions of dollars to the victims who were children when the violations occurred.

Source: Minneapolis Star Tribune -- Read Full Story

The auxiliary bishop for the Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis for the past seven years will be the next bishop in Des Moines, the Vatican announced today. Pope Benedict XVI has appointed Richard E. Pates, 65, to succeed Joseph Charron, who has retired. Pates will assume his new duties next month and be installed at a mass in Des Moines on May 29. "It is a welcome privilege to be called to serve such a vibrant, spirited community in America's heartland," Pates, a St. Paul native, said in a news release issued for the Twin Cities archdiocese. "It is a particular honor to succeed Bishop Charron, a good friend and a conscientious shepherd and effective leader."

Source: Reuters -- Read Full Story

Pope Benedict may find a particularly receptive audience during his U.S. visit next week among some younger Catholics who have come of age seeking a stronger and perhaps more conservative religious identity. Many want something other than the Roman Catholic Church of their parents, who lived through the period after the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) when Latin was dropped for English and Gregorian chant swapped for guitar Masses, experts say. Their ranks are swelled by immigrants from Latin America, Africa and elsewhere who brought with them a more traditional piety that highlights some prayers and processions that seem somewhat out-of-date to Catholic baby boomers. The pope's visit to a country whose 67 million Catholics represent its largest religious denomination runs from April 15 to 20, with about a dozen events in Washington and New York.

Source: Christian Post -- Read Full Story

In his history of World War II, Winston Churchill tells the story of a pre-war meeting between French premier Laval and Josef Stalin. When Laval asked Stalin if he could not “do something to encourage religion and the Catholics in Russia,” Stalin replied, “The Pope! How many divisions has he got?” The joke was ultimately on Stalin. Fifty years later a Pope helped bring down communism without firing a single shot. Now another Pope is preparing to do the same to another intractable foe of the West. At the most recent Easter Vigil, Pope Benedict XVI baptized Italian journalist Magdi Cristiano Allam. Throughout his career, Allam, who was born in Egypt, had been associated with “progressive” causes. He wrote for leftist newspapers, championed the rights of North African immigrants, and supported the Palestinian cause. A leftist journalist asking to be baptized as an adult would be noteworthy enough, but the story does not end there. As you probably inferred from his last name and place of birth, Allam was a Muslim. That, as they said in the Wizard of Oz, is a horse of a different color. Islam does not take kindly to Muslims, even non-practicing ones like Allam, converting to other religions, especially Christianity.

Source: Catholic World News -- Read Full Story

Pope Benedict XVI has released a message to the people of the United States, in preparation for his trip to America next week. In his message the Holy Father says that he is coming to the US to proclaim that "Jesus Christ is hope for men and women of every language, race, culture, and social condition." The Pontiff also confirms that in his address to the UN he will emphasize the importance of natural law, "the law written on the human heart." The papal message, released by the Vatican press office on April 8, came in the form of a video. The message was released one week before the Pope is scheduled to arrive in the US. The Pope spoke mostly in English, with a brief portion in Spanish. The full text of the Pope's message follows:

Source: Catholic World News -- Read Full Story

April 8 should be a festival day for Catholic Americans. But America's oldest Catholic communities aren't really in a mood for celebration. On this date in 1808, the Vatican established three new dioceses to serve the growing Catholic communities of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. The Baltimore diocese, already in existence, was elevated to the rank of archdiocese on the same date; and a fourth new diocese was set up in Bardstown (now Louisville), Kentucky, for Catholics on the western frontier. Throughout the 19th century and well into the 20th, those young Catholic communities prospered. Immigrant families poured into the East Coast cities, gained a foothold, and quickly began the massive project of building parishes, parochial schools, convents, and seminaries. Once viewed with suspicion by nativists as an alien presence, Catholics won grudging acceptance into the American mainstream. The grandchildren of illiterate immigrants who had huddled on Ellis Island now sat in corporate board rooms and city-council chambers. Soon the Catholic presence was indelibly stamped on the culture of each city.