Catholic Education in Peril

He's not gone - he's in Canada!

Many of you are aware of the situation in Philadelphia's Archdiocese regarding the closure of schools.  Surprisingly, this post won't be about them (though you can add that as yet another symptom of our increasingly-ill system of education).  This is about Canada's battle with the homosexual agenda and how it's poised to affect their Catholic schools.

Parliament member Glen Murray (a homosexual himself), said in a public comment to Canadian bishops, "You can't teach that anymore" (meaning Catholic doctrine regarding homosexuality). 

He then went on to say "...can you imagine me describing a husband-and-wife relationship as inherently depraved?"

Sure I could imagine you saying it, Mr. Murray... same as I could imagine me telling you that the sky is yellow with pink polka-dots and that I cured 30 types of cancer while blindfolded with both hands tied behind my back.

All are ridiculous statements, and you're free to believe or not believe them to your heart's content.

Catholic teaching is one of those things you kinda KNOW you're getting when you enroll in a Catholic school.  Parents who send their children to Catholic schools WANT the education that goes with it.  They should all be very aware by now of what the Church teaches regarding abortion, contraception, the death penalty, and yes, even homosexuality. 

Thus, your attempt to stick your nose into Catholic lesson plans is a gross injustice.  How dare you attempt to stifle the religious liberty of your people?  How dare you attempt to tell Catholics what they can and cannot teach? 

I wonder if there'd be any confusion as to how wrong this is if the government were attempting to force Catholic schools to allow pro-abortion or pro-slavery clubs?

You can't force a religious institution (regardless of government funds received) to do something that goes directly against a well-documented set of beliefs, even if you find those beliefs to be contrary to your opinion on the matter.

That's the whole point of religious freedom - something folks tend to forget, especially when dealing with homosexuality.

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Anyway, as this thread (which is on Facebook) stretched out a bit, I was reminded of a professor I had back in college.  She was one of the most brilliant literature professors I've ever had, and I always walked away from her class feeling as though I'd learned something.
I took this professor twice.  That first, basic Literature class was wonderful.  I learned a lot, read a lot, and contributed a lot.  I was very excited when I saw this same professor was offering a Women's Literature class.  I thought, Wow!  This is gonna be great!

Turns out she was a die-hard, ultra-liberal feminist who fully supported utilizing her required reading lists to advance an agenda in-line with her belief system, and Women's Literature was the perfect place to do that.  Woe to anyone who sought to speak out against what she felt to be gospel.

It all kinda went downhill after she had us read The Vagina Monologues. 

Now at this point, I was nowhere near my reversion to the faith.  I was dating a bisexual man, my two close friends were in a lesbian relationship, I rarely went to Mass, and I was railing against what I decried as an inept, morally suspect government.

However, even being that far from identifying myself as a proper "Catholic," I cringed while reading the garbage that is TVM.  Seriously - I'm not even going to bother linking that trash here.  Suffice to say it actually sets the women's movement back about 20 years as the women portrayed routinely rely solely on sex and men to validate who they are as individuals.  Bleck.

Anyway, the intro really irritated me.  I forget who wrote the forward, but she attempted to compare a woman's vagina to a Catholic church.  I tore apart her incredibly offensive (and shallow) analogy through the online discussion forum we were obliged to utilize.  I thus found myself on the front line of a "The Catholic Church is evil" war in which I was the only soldier. 

Several students responded, one who dragged Our Lady through the mud.  I was so taken aback that I fired off a pointed response, effectively proving their misleading statements to be incorrect representations of Catholic teaching.  This went on for about a week.  Through it all, our professor remained absolutely silent. 

Now for each class, she'd print off the responses and grade us on them.  I'd get mine back with a check and no commentary.  I honestly assumed that's how everyone got theirs back.  Foolish, naive little Gina.  I got mine back blank because she had nothing to say to me.  Others in the class (two being friends of mine) showed me they would get responses all the time.  Their responses typically fell in line with her opinions in class, so they were given all sorts of praise for their intelligence.

Me, on the other hand... probably the only person to actually quote from the prime source, the only one to seek outside support for my discussions, the only one to dissent from that which she set forth... I was met with silence.

And what's worse, I found out from one of my friends that she was reading my entries aloud to the class to mock me before I arrived.  (I had to come from the South side of campus, so it took me the entire 10 minutes to walk from one end to the other.)  It was then she confided to me that she understood through that mockery not to contradict this professor.  She'd much rather regurgitate lies than speak the truth and be treated like me. 

While I understood her sentiments, I really felt very alone and unsupported. 

Yet I was undeterred.  I continued to speak out against the vicious rhetoric directed against Catholicism (because no one could let up on beating the Church down).  After all, much of what she chose as reading specifically brought up the Church as an example of all that's wrong in society, so it was a little hard to steer clear from the discussion.  Finally I was called into her office.  She basically told me to stop talking about Catholicism because it was offensive to other students.

?!?!?!

I pointed at the Crucifix which hung in her office (why it was there, I honestly don't know because she had stated several times that she finds the Catholic Church to be full of deceit and hypocrisy).  I said, "You do realize you teach in a Catholic University, right?"

I walked away absolutely disgusted. 

I went to seek out the student with whom I'd had the bulk of my discussions with regarding Catholicism.  She's the one who had attacked the Blessed Mother.  I wanted to know if this professor had contacted her in regards to how often she brought up religion (since I only ever spoke about it to defend it - never to just start a Catholic conversation in the middle of a Literature class - ESPECIALLY considering I was always the odd man out). 

Imagine my complete surprise when I learned that she had no idea what I was talking about.

Of COURSE the professor didn't contact her.  Why would she?  This student was not only falling in perfect step with her belief system, she was actively advocating them.  Me, on the other hand... my Catholic viewpoint was creating trouble and took precious time away from decrying how unfair it was for the patriarchal Church to ordain women priests or allow them administrative duties, or to utilize birth control / abortion.

The surprise was short-lived.  It was my first taste of anti-Catholicism.  I honestly didn't understand it well at the time, but I DID understand that what had happened to me was not only unjust; it was unconscionable.  A respected professor at a Catholic institution was reprimanding a student for speaking out in defense of Catholic doctrine...

Incredible.  Absolutely incredible.

And we wonder why Catholic education is suffering?  We wonder why the government thinks it can dictate what we teach?

We've made quite the mess of things, haven't we, Lord? 

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