Remember Prof. Dan Maguire, the putatively Catholic theologian teaching at Marquette University who is an open dissenter on the whole range of Catholic teaching? Last June he sent out to every Congressman on Capitol Hill and every US bishop his pamphlet called “A Catholic Defense of Same-Sex Marriage.” (I’ve uploaded a PDF of the booklet.) He also authored another booklet called “The Moderate Roman Catholic Position on Contraception and Abortion.” Both are exemplary examples of heterodoxy and dissent and the defense of evil by calling it good.
In fact, they are so bad that it pushed the US Conference of Catholic Bishops to take action. (Thus you know it has to be bad.) The USCCB’s Committee on Doctrine has issued a Statement Concerning Two Pamphlets taking them apart, point by point, which is laudable. I hope that the USCCB takes the opportunity to follow up by similarly distributing this statement to every office on Capitol Hill.
I’m left wondering, though, what action will be taken next. After all, the USCCB has very clearly demonstrated that Maguire cannot be trusted to express the Church’s teaching on many matters of sexual morality. So will he be allowed to continue to teach theology at a Catholic university “in the Jesuit tradition” such as Marquette? Or is it part of the Jesuit tradition to give a platform to heterodox distorters of the truth?
After all, we can’t expect Maguire to change based on this since he has already dismissed, a priori, the authority of the bishops.
The clock is ticking.
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“Or is it part of the Jesuit tradition to give a platform to heterodox distorters of the truth?”
I don’t know if it’s part of the Jesuit tradition, but it sure seems to be a big part of their present, what with the Pontifical Biblical Institute “hosting” the roll-out of “The Gospel of Judas” the other day. See remarks on the gospel according to judas at CWN’s Off the Record.
This only took 40 years to do.
Can anybody recall when the USCCB last took such action against a dissenting theologian?
Nobody comes to my mind.
I wondered—and still wonder—why this man isn’t fired. The answer I got on my blog is “tenure.” I’m not at all hip on academia and rules but I can’t see how tenure trumps truth. Am I naive?
Tenure makes it harder to get rid of someone, not impossible. They certainly don’t have to give him classes to teach.
Good question Dom!
At the University of Detroit Mercy, it certainly is “part of the Jesuit tradition to give a platform to heterodox distorters of the truth.”
A big protest was planned at the school yesterday morning, just before a annual big men’s conference that typically gets several thousand attendees. The cardinal was sheduled to attend, so the pickets would have been well-timed, since Cardinal Maida and his chancery are strident defenders of dissent at the ujiversity, as well as at his own high schools (not to mention his own chancery).
The picket was called off at the last minute, as organizers were given a promise of a meeting with the presdient of the school, a Jesuit, who has been sitting on his hands in the midst of outrageous pro-abort activity in his Religious Studies Department, and in the nursing program. The latest outrage was over Planned Parenthood’s boast that it recenly hired a University of Detroit nursing school grad to work in one of its clinics. UDM for some time now has had internship programs with Planned Parenthood for its nursing students.
Maida and his staffers have been asked to intervene for a long time specifically on the Planned Parenthood and pro-abortion advocacy at UDM, but such matters don’t concern them, at all.
Many pro-lifers are fed up and … well, the story is “developing,” as they say in blog land.
Matt Abbott has been covering the story on his blot site.
http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/abbott/070324
Hopefully there will be more actions—and stronger actions—by local bishops. It shouldn’t always be Rome having to do what needs to be done to protect orthodox Catholic teachings.
The question for our local Boston Archdiocese is: Will Cardinal O’Malley have the courage to recommend that the USCCB order the openly “gay” Boston College Professor of Theology, John McDargh, off of the staff at Boston College’s Thsology Department? The Boston Archdiocesan newspaper,The Pilot, continues to carry the B.C. ad which includes John McDargh in Session 2,Summer 2007.(Pilot,3/16/07,p.8). B.C.‘s Summer in the City website(http://ce.msppedu) advertises John McDargh as one of the teachers of “Integrating Spirituality into Clinical Practice” scheduled for July 23-27,2007. The B.C. Capstone Program
advertises his course,“Spirituality and Sexuality” which explores “how might our desire for God be intimately related to our sexual desires and longings?” and states that McDargh is “Recognized in his field for his contributions to the study of childhood development and religious formation…John and his partner live up the road at Newton Centre with their son (adopted)Sasha..”.McDargh is also listed as a contact person for the B.C. organization he established: Lesbian & Gay Faculty,Staff,Administration Association(LGFSAA) that “serves as a resource and advocacy group for GLBT employees”,website:http://www.bc.edu/offices/lgfsaa.
Why does The Pilot cooperate in advertising his teaching?
Why is he allowed to teach theology at B.C.?
Speaking of which (and no doubt this is off-topic), Boston College is right up to the mark in doing everthing in its power to offer benefits to “same-sex married couples.”
http://tinyurl.com/2bdajd
Sorry for the mistake in the above comment. It should have been:“off the staff of the Boston College Theology Department”.