Marquette: Poor Attendance at LGBT Mass

From Marquette Wire:

Campus Ministry hosted one of its monthly Masses for the LGBT community and its allies at the St. Joan of Arc Chapel on Nov. 20.

Theology professor the Rev. Bryan Massingale led Mass with the eight students and community members who attended.

“Many of the LGBTQ community members have heard stories that they are not welcome in the church,” Massingale said. “It is important to have a Mass where they feel welcome and that God does love them and no one is excluded.”

Archbishop Brought to Campus by Marquette is Anti-Israel Crackpot

He was part of “Israeli Apartheid Week:” a Greek Orthodox Archbishop named Sebastia Atallah Hanna.

He was featured in two events:  A “Soup With Substance” at noon this past Wednesday, and a  “keynote address” at an evening event on the same day.

Some indication of his opinions can be found in any article on the  Al-Alam website:

A top Palestinian Christian cleric in Israel has likened crimes committed by foreign-backed insurgents in Syria to the Israeli regime’s racist policies and practices in the occupied land, describing them two sides of the same racist coin. Addressing a group of Arab students at Haifa University on Friday, Greek Orthodox Archbishop of Sebastia Atallah Hanna further restated his support for Syria in the face of the foreign-backed war targeting it, SANA reported.

Archbishop Hanna went on to emphasize that it has become clear that the terrorist groups in Syria are an extension of Zionism and serve its racist projects and suspicious agendas in the region.

The Palestinian cleric further vowed to continue defending the causes of his native land, underlining that Muslims and Christians will remain united in defending the holy sites, including the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

He also condemned the Israeli regime’s racist practices against Palestinians.

Hanna then stressed that the targeting of Christians in the Middle East and dividing Arab communities into conflicting sects only serves the Israeli regime and allows it to implement its plots for the region.

The Archbishop also asserted that just as terrorists failed in Syria and elsewhere, they will fail to undermine the Christians’ determination to remain in the Middle East, and that the Israeli regime will also fail to fragment and weaken the Palestinian people.

If Palestinian students want to bring in speaker to bash Israel, we think that is pretty much their prerogative (although it reflects badly on their judgment).

Unfortunately, this incendiary cleric was  supported and sponsored by Marquette officials.

In the first place, the Campus Ministry organizes and schedules Soup with Substance.

In the second place, the Office of International Education paid the Archbishop’s travel expenses to come to Marquette.

We find it odd that the Campus Ministry, which should be working for reconciliation among adversaries everywhere, would sponsor a speaker who demonizes one side in the Arab/Israeli conflict.

And bizarre theories about how “terrorist groups in Syria are an extension of Zionism” and Israeli “plots” are a bit odd coming from an office of Marquette.  Terrorist groups in Syria are Islamic militants, and hate Israel more than Hanna does!

This is yet another example of the insular and parochial political correctness that suffuses the Marquette bureaucracy.  When there is push back, and when Marquette gets wide and negative public attention, top officials will back off (as happened with Femsex).  But the bureaucrats remain in place, with the same politically correct attitudes, and the same culture that thinks calling Israel an “apartheid state” or a “racist state” is something that deserves official Marquette support.

Terence Miller, Director of the Office of International Studies failed to return our phone call asking for comment. Gerry Fischer, who schedules Soup With Substance for the Campus Ministry, was not immediately available for comment.

Latin Mass Tonight

From Adam Ryback, a Marquette alum who struggled (unsuccessfully) to get a Latin mass celebrated on the Marquette campus.

Come celebrate the New Evangelization and experience the beauty and mystery of the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite. A Missa Cantata in the Extraordinary Form will be celebrated by Rev. Canon Benoit Jayr on
December 11, 2013 at 6:30 p.m. at the
National Shrine of Mary, Help of Christians (Upper Church) 1525 Carmel Road Hubertus, WI 53033
This event is sponsored by Franciscum, a lay association of the faithful dedicated to participating in the New Evangelization through the promotion of traditional Catholic liturgical practices.
For more information, call 262-490-3844 or email mnoone77@sbcglobal.net.

Ryback adds more information in an e-mail:

The mass will have Advent music in preparation for Christmas. This means: Ave Maria by Schubert, O Sanctissima, Alma Redemptoris Mater, Panis Angelicus and more! The mass will be sung using Missa de Angelis (Mass of the Angels), whose style is Gregorian Chant, which the Second Vatican Council said should take “pride of place” in liturgical music.

Being Protestant, we have no special affinity for the Latin Mass, but unlike some of the more liberal and secular-leaning Catholics, we have no hostility to it either. Our view of worship is (within reason) “whatever floats your boat.” If some traditionalist Catholics feel moved and inspired by the traditional form of the mass, good for them.

But Marquette’s Campus Ministry, which has impeded attempts to celebrate the Latin Mass on campus at every turn, doesn’t seem to feel that way.

It doesn’t seem to be about any theological principle, or coherent philosophy of worship. It seems to be about cultural antipathy.

Marquette’s Very Gay Campus Ministry

With a hat tip to Badger Catholic:

Don’t try to find it on Twitter now. It’s been taken down.

The Campus Ministry has long been on board with the gay political agenda. This is just one of many cases.

It would be one thing if the Campus Ministry wanted to minister to gay people on the basis of their facing particular temptations and particular challenges in leading a chaste life. But in fact these university bureaucrats believe that the only problem is that many people disapprove of homosexuality.

[Update]

We just called the Campus Ministry, asking to speak to the person who handles the Twitter feed. The person who answered offered to forward our call to that person, but refused to give us the person’s name. The call forward did not go through, which happens all too frequently with the new phone system.

[Further Update]

We just got a call from Mary Sue Callan-Farley, Director of the Campus ministry, who explained that the Twitter post was put up by a student “who did not have full permission.” It was then taken down by Thomas Anderson, S.J., who handles social media for the office, on the basis of the judgment that it was inappropriate. Callan-Farley said the student in question was “just trying to help her fellow students.”

But of course, we wonder, is endorsing homosexuality a way to “help” anybody?

Vatican Expands Opportunities for Latin Mass

From Christian Century:

VATICAN CITY (RNS) The Vatican on Friday (May 13) broadened access to the old Latin Mass with a new rule that gives the Vatican the power to overrule bishops who fail to make the rite available in their dioceses.

The Vatican also said that Catholics who request celebrations of the old Latin Mass must not support or belong to groups that challenge either the pope’s authority or the “validity or legitimacy” of the newer Mass.

The announcement comes nearly four years after Pope Benedict XVI lifted most restrictions on the old Latin liturgy, also known as the Tridentine Mass, which had largely fallen out of use in favor of worship in local languages.

Celebrations of the older liturgy remain relatively rare. Few priests are qualified to celebrate its rites, and many bishops view the Latin Mass as a symbol of resistance to the church’s liberalizing reforms of the 1960s.

The Vatican on Friday said bishops should permit use of the old Mass for even small groups that request it, and said pastors should receive such requests in a “spirit of generous welcome.”

Bishops are also asked to offer instruction in the old liturgy to priests and seminarians, thus expanding the ranks of qualified celebrants.

“That really is basic to the pope’s thinking,” said the Rev. Joseph Kramer, a member of one such group, the Fraternal Society of Saint Peter, an order dedicated to celebrating the old Latin Mass. “He would like the old rite to take its place alongside the new rite in the mainstream of the church.”

Kramer called it an “important step,” that Catholics may now contest bishops’ decisions regarding the old rite before a Vatican commission, with the possibility of appealing to the Apostolic Signatura, the Vatican’s supreme court.

On the Marquette campus, the St. Robert Bellarmine Society has fought for more than a year to get the Latin Mass celebrated on a regular basis on campus, to little avail.

The Campus Ministry, which would have to approve any such masses, has stonewalled, invoking a rather narrow reading of guidelines from the Milwaukee Archdiocese.

In reality, the Campus Ministry has been in the forefront of political correctness on campus, actively pushing a gay political agenda and even sponsoring demonstrations at the School of the Americas in Georgia.

So the problem seems to be the cultural ambiance of the Latin Mass, firmly at odds with the trendy and liberal outlook of the campus clerical bureaucrats.

This action of the Vatican straightens the hand of the Bellarmine Society, but resisting what the Pope wants and has clearly endorsed is an old tradition among liberal Catholics.

The On-Again/Off-Again French/Latin Mass

We have heard for several days that the French Honor Society would be sponsoring a mass tomorrow night. It would be the “Latin Mass” we were told, but with parts in French.

It was to be led by Rev. Canon Olivier Meney, who is the “go to” guy for the Latin Mass in southeastern Wisconsin.

Indeed, just a few minutes ago we got the flyer for the event.

But now it has been cancelled. We confirmed that with Rev. Meney’s secretary, and with Emily Schumacher-Novak in Campus Ministry.

According to Schumacher-Novak, “the student organization wasn’t able to get the proper confirmations on the event in time to do it.” They were unable to get the proper information from Fr. Meney, and they didn’t have confirmation from the Office of Student Development. Further, “we thought let’s push it back a little bit so they can get the publicity out in time and do it correctly rather than haphazardly.”

More critically, Schumacher-Novak explained “I needed to check with Fr. Meney as to which form of the mass he was doing.” She explained that “we don’t have permission on the campus to do the Extraordinary Form [Latin Mass] at this point in time.”

But Meney’s secretary confirmed that part of the mass would indeed have been in Latin.

A student organization, the Robert Bellarmine Society, has been trying to get the Latin mass established on campus for most of this academic year, and has faced the resistance of the Campus Ministry.

No doubt, a narrow reading of the guidelines put forth by the Archdiocese of Milwaukee supports their refusal. But of course, if they really wanted too allow the Latin Mass, permission would not be hard to obtain.

What we appear to have from the Campus Ministry is a cultural aversion to the Extraordinary Form.

A University in Wisconsin With a Vital Catholic Ministry (not Marquette)

A few days ago with blogged about the very vital Catholic campus ministry at Texas A & M University. A commenter on that post pointed out yet another public university with an active and successful Catholic presence.

The St. Paul’s center in Madison has daily Masses, some of them in Latin, daily Rosary, long lines for confessions, uses Gregorian chant in some of the liturgies, etc. The homilies are frank and address topics like moral relativism, salvation, etc.

Most kids coming to college never got any of this in their Catholic childhoods at home, they are having an encounter with stuff they had only heard about (and were often told was bad, old-fashioned, backward, rigid, judgmental etc.) Sure this may turn some people off, but it attracts others, at St. Paul’s they are experiencing growth.

Kids don’t want to be patronized, they want to learn something.

We wondered whether this was in fact all true, and e-mailed Scott Hacki of St. Paul’s and asked him to comment. His response:

The campus ministry at St. Paul’s is indeed thriving. I wouldn’t necessarily say there are long lines for confession. We have two daily Masses and four Sunday Masses with confession heard thirty minutes before Mass every day. There is a line everyday but it depends on what you call long. Usually it’s about 5-10 people waiting in line before each Mass. On Ash Wed and Good Friday we have priests in the confessional the entire day and students coming in and out the entire day as well.

On a better note we also have about 300 students involved weekly in our bible studies all over campus and a Thursday night weekly program that usually brings in another 200 or so. St. Paul’s is truly a very exciting Catholic place that has experienced a tremendous amount of growth. Ten years ago we had one Bible study with ten students, now we have 72 weekly studies with 300+ involved. I would say the rest of this persons comments are accurate.

So why is it that public universities can have a more vital and active Catholic campus ministry than the nominally Catholic Marquette?

We would suggest it’s the “established religion syndrome.” The bland assumption is that since Marquette is “Catholic” evangelism is really out of place. Somehow not needed. And besides, who would want students to be the sort of traditional Catholics who might want to celebrate a Latin Mass, or might actually believe church teaching on sexuality?

But it follows from this that a job at Marquette is a rather bland sinecure. It is not the sort of place where people with any missionary zeal would particularly want to be.

But places like Marquette are attractive to people whose agenda is more political than spiritual. Thus Marquette’s campus ministry seems more interested in opposing Church teaching on homosexuality and demonstrating at the School of the Americas than in gaining converts. Or deepening the faith of merely nominal Catholic students (unless “deepening” is interpreted in terms of leftist political activism).

But ironically, the percentage of entering Marquette Freshmen who call themselves “Catholic” has declined to the point that (among the class entering in the fall of 2010) only 44% will claim to be Catholic.

Ironically, for parents who want a Catholic college experience for their children, Marquette and similar institutions may be about the worst places to send them, inferior not only to newer, smaller schools that take their Catholicism seriously, but to public universities.

A Campus Where Catholicism Thrives (not Marquette)

From First Things, an article by George Weigel:

Aggie Catholic Renaissance

Feb 2, 2011
George Weigel

Where can you find a Catholic chaplaincy at an institution of higher learning that’s looking to expand its church to seat 1,400, because the current 850 just isn’t enough?

South Bend, Indiana, perhaps? Well, no, actually: College Station, Texas, where the Catholic chaplaincy at Texas A&M, St. Mary’s Catholic Center, is setting a new national standard for Catholic campus ministry.

Aggie Catholicism is something to behold. Daily Mass attendance averages 175; there were closer to 300 Catholic Aggies at Mass on a weekday afternoon when I visited a few years back. Sunday Masses draw between 4,000 and 5,000 worshippers. There are 10 weekly time-slots for confessions, which are also heard all day long on Mondays. Eucharistic adoration, rosary groups, the Liturgy of the Hours, and the traditional First Friday devotion are staples of Aggie Catholicism’s devotional life.

A rich retreat program is available, and each year some 1,250 students make or staff a retreat sponsored by St. Mary’s. “Aggie Awakening,” an adaptation of Cursillo for students, is one of the cornerstones of the campus ministry; other, specially designed programs include a silent retreat and a retreat titled “Genius of Women.” In 2009-10, 200 students participated in bi-weekly spiritual direction programs, and another 70 took part in the “Samuel Group,” an exercise in Ignatian discernment that includes a commitment to curb what one campus minister describes as “unnecessary TV and Internet use.” Two thousand A&M students, not all of them Catholics, have participated in introductory sessions exploring the theology of the body, and many have continued that exploration in follow-on study groups.

Then there is service. Aggie Catholics participate in domestic and international missions, work with Habitat for Humanity, take part in a ministry to prisoners, and are involved in various pro-life activities. In fact, the 40 Days for Life program is an outgrowth of the Catholic campus ministry at Texas A&M; the national office of 40 Days is staffed by Aggie grads. The campus ministry also works with a local Life Center that helps mothers and families in difficult situations.

All this energy has had a discernible effect on vocational formation and discernment. Since 2000, the campus ministry has averaged some nine students per year entering the seminary or religious novitiates; 132 Catholic Aggies have been ordained priests or made final religious vows in the past two decades. And then there is the vocation to marriage and family, which the campus ministry takes very seriously. Aggie Catholics are also a powerful witness to the rest of Aggieland; 175 new Catholics have entered the Church the past two years through St. Mary’s RCIA program.

The Catholic renaissance at Texas A&M is staffed by two full-time priests, three part-time and semi-retired deacons, one part-time priest, three full-time lay campus ministers, three sisters from the Apostles of the Interior Life, three part-time campus ministers, and four part-time student interns. That probably strikes many campus ministers as a rather large staff. In fact, the people who lead St. Mary’s are stretched—and they began where many others are today.

Catholic campus ministry at Texas A&M is a striking example of “If you build it, they will come.” The program is unapologetically orthodox. There is no fudging the demands of the faith. And yet they come, and come, and come, because Aggie Catholicism shows the campus a dynamic orthodoxy that is not a retreat into the past but a way of seizing the future and bending it in a more humane direction. The premise that informed John Paul II’s approach to students his entire life—that young people want to be challenged to lead lives of heroic virtue, in which the search for love is the search for a pure and noble love—is the premise that guides Catholic campus ministry at College Station.

Texas A&M is a special place, culturally; in many respects, it seems to have skipped the ‘60s, such that its 21st-century life is in palpable continuity with its past. That’s a deeply Catholic cultural instinct, which St. Mary’s has seized to build a program that is a model for the entire country.

A commenter notes, sourly:

Prediction: in 50 years the American Catholic Church will be dumbfounded by the amount of time, resources and energy it spent building a system of higher education that produced....almost nothing. I exaggerate only slightly.

The fundamental virtue at A & M is that the Catholic Campus Ministry there is actually Catholic, while the Campus Ministry at Marquette is liberal/left and politically correct. At Marquette, promoting the gay agenda and demonstrating against the School of the Americas seem to be the first two priorities.

But an authentic Catholicism is attractive to young people, who may have fallen away a bit from the religion views of their parents (which might be Protestant, secular, or bland, nominal Catholicism) but are looking for meaning in their lives.

But to attract people, a Catholic ministry has to actually be Catholic. Nominally Catholic political correctness won’t hack it.

Campus Ministry, Gay Group Trash Bible, Church Teachings on Homosexuality

An event last week, as announced on the Marquette web site:

Exploring the Bible, Faith, and Homosexuality

Campus Ministry and the Gay/Straight Alliance are co-sponsoring two screenings of the film, “For the Bible Tells Me So,” along with a panel discussion. “For the Bible Tells Me So” explores how scriptural interpretation has informed Christian beliefs on and responses to homosexuality. The movie also chronicles real life stories of Christian families and their responses to family members who identify as being gay or lesbian. Screenings will take place on Monday, April 19th and Tuesday, April 20th. Both will take place at 7 p.m. in Marquette Hall, room 200.

The video in question basically trashes Christian teaching on homosexuality. The review of the movie in the New York Times outlines the arguments it makes.

The movie’s ensemble portrait of parents (many of them ministers) with adult gay or lesbian children strives to demonstrate that homosexuality is a genetic predisposition, not a lifestyle choice, and that those who quote Leviticus to justify their animosity are guilty not just of intolerance but also of selective piety, an inability to understand historical context and poor reading comprehension. (Abomination, for example, does not mean against God, but against a civilization’s cultural norms.)

There are all sorts of problems with arguments like this.

The statement that “abomination” doesn’t mean an abomination in the eyes of God ignores the fact that the text of Leviticus at this point is plainly speaking for God. The text says:

Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying,

“You shall also say to the sons of Israel . . . .

It then goes on to give several injunctions to the sons of Israel, including a prohibition on having sex with close relatives, against sacrificing infants to Molech and against consulting mediums and spiritists. And also “If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act.” (NASB)

Nothing here about “homosexuality is against cultural norms, but God doesn’t mind it.”

Of course, those who reject this teaching could say “the Bible is just a bunch of stuff written by ignorant homophobes, and I don’t believe it.” That, at least, would be honest on their part. But instead they lie about what the text says and means.

The claim of “selective piety” is only a little better. It’s true that Christians don’t observe the dietary restrictions laid out in the Old Testament. But unfortunately the condemnation of homosexuality is reiterated in the New Testament (which explicitly abrogates the dietary restrictions), and in Catholic social teaching (which for loyal Catholics is authoritative). So no amount of “historical context” can do away with the teaching.

The claim that homosexuality is “a genetic predisposition, not a lifestyle choice” doesn’t help much either. People have all sorts of genetic predispositions. Straight people have a “a genetic predisposition” to engage in sexual promiscuity and adultery. Tendencies toward schizophrenia, alcoholism and compulsive gambling all have strong genetic components. People both gay and straight may have “a genetic predisposition” to molest young children.

There are all sorts of “genetic predispositions” that people are supposed to overcome.

And this leaves aside the fact that people who want to, say, own a gun or dive an SUV are roundly condemned by the same politically correct people who would never condemn anybody for homosexual acts.

Some of the video is a play to cheap sentimentality.

Mary Lou Wallner, one of the staunchest advocates of gay rights in the movie, became a political activist after her daughter, Anna, committed suicide — the result, Ms. Wallner believes, of the letter she wrote to Anna rejecting her after she came out.

Of course, all sons and daughters may do things that parents refuse to accept. Mrs. Wallner might have had a straight daughter who took up with a guy who was a complete bum. Some sons might engage in drug dealing or join a neo-Nazi cult.

How to handle such situations can be a tough call indeed, and Mrs. Wallner may have been much too harsh on her daughter. But just because a kid does something doesn’t make it ok.

Panel Discussion

Again, from the University website:

Thursday, April 22nd, university community members are invited to attend a panel discussion on the movie at 7 p.m. in Marquette Hall, room 200. Join panelists Dr. Ed de St. Aubin, Associate Professor of Psychology, Fr. Bryan Massingale, Associate Professor of Theology, Dr. John Schmitt, Associate Professor of Theology, and Rev. Jessica Short, Pastor of Lutheran Campus Ministry, in an engaging conversation on faith, scripture, and homosexuality. For more information, please contact Steve Blaha.

What stands out about this panel? The simple fact that all of the presenters are liberals, and none could be expected to present the Catholic view of homosexuality in any sort of sympathetic way.

And that’s typical of Marquette.

The issue is not whether, at a Catholic university people are allowed to present views at odds with Catholic teaching. Here, it’s whether anybody is allowed to support Catholic teaching.

The Campus Ministry clearly has a “thing” about homosexuality, and it seems to go beyond merely being liberal and politically correct. If asked, they doubtless would say that they just want to protect gays from harassment and discrimination. But their actions clearly suggest that they simply don’t accept Church teaching on homosexuality, and are doing all they can to undermine it at Marquette.

Some final comments from the New York Times show the corruption associated with this project. The Times reviewer pans the video on the basis of aesthetics, and labels it “condescending,” explaining that this word is:

. . . embodied by this movie’s most unfortunate sequence, a smart-alecky animated short in which a gay man, a lesbian and a booming Voice of God (Don LaFontaine) disabuse a homophobe of his ignorance. The dummy’s name? Christian.

When conservative Protestant ministers claim to speak for God, they get roundly condemned. But apparently the gay lobby gets to speak for God.

The Times reviewer claims that “the movie is mainly intended as a feature-length primer that can be deployed in arguments with homophobes.” And further:

The inevitable DVD should be packaged in a plain cardboard sleeve, so that viewers can carry it in their pockets and, if confronted by a homophobe, hand it over and say, “Watch this, then get back to me.”

Calling people “homophobes” and “bigots” because they disagree about homosexuality shows who the real bigots are. Intolerant of dissent and disagreement, the politically correct lash out, projecting their hostility upon those who disagree with them. Thus those who hate most are most likely to call other people “haters.”

No university should be implicated in nasty invective directed against people who disagree with the prevailing orthodoxy. And any Catholic university should have at least some voices who side with the Church against the prevailing orthodoxy.