New conservative colleges say existing institutions lead students away from the true faith

-- Bill Nelson (bnelson45-nospam@hotmail.com), April 05, 2004

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-- Bill Nelson (bnelson45-nospam@hotmail.com), April 05, 2004.

This is a great article. I know that when my daughter is older, I want her to go to a college that teaches the Truth and not one that is just Catholic by name.

It is sad that some Catholic colleges have leaders who promote false information that could lead a lot of their students astray. In the Godpel of Luke, Jesus says "Obstacles are sure to come, but alas for the one who provides them! It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone put around his neck than that he should lead astray a single one of these little ones. Watch yourselves!." Some of these leaders may have forgotten that or just ignore it.

I am so glad that there are colleges out there that have faithful leaders.

-- Sonya (johnsonya2003@hotmail.com), April 05, 2004.

Very interesting. I wonder if Ave Maria would hire a divorced Catholic if they were still within the boundaries of Catholic morals: after all, being divorced says nothing about whether you've remarried, or even if there was an annulment (or one pending). It may be that the person needed to separate permamently from an abusive spouse for the sake of the children. To simply exclude everyone who is divorced on those grounds alone sounds more like conservativist puffery than orthodoxy. It's the sort of mentality that keeps my sister's husband's mother thinking she's living in sin, because she divorced her abusive husband (and never remarried, living as a widow).

-- anon (ymous@god.bless), April 06, 2004.

Every conservative in the world would tell your sister's husband's mother that being divorced but not remarried is NOT a sin.

Technically (for Catholics) she is merely separated from her husband. The reasons (his abuse) don't particularly matter as far as her spiritual situation goes.

Conservatives are people who both know the definition of terms (like marriage, divorce, etc) and make proper distinctions (the difference between secular divorce and annulment: the first says that a real marriage could be un-done, the second that no true marriage took place, just a wedding.)

What the orthodox (from the greek: ortho=true dox=teaching) were saying by not hiring divorced and remarried faculty is: we won't hire someone who is habitually in a state of sinning against his or her true spouse by divorcing them and having a wedding (but not true marriage) with another person.

Our Lord was clear: anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against his wife. Adultery is one of the worst sins a person can commit because it involves a) breaking one's vow made to God and b) breaking one's vow to one's spouse.

But none of this means that a woman has to live with an abusive husband. Separation is valid and moral and not an ethical problem at all.

If evidence is found that the man wasn't sane at the time of the wedding party - and did not therefore truly exchange vows...then conservatives would conclude that the couple were not in fact married at all, and thus the woman would be free to marry.

I hope your sister's husband's mother would check into this and find peace. No one is condemning her.

-- Joe (joestong@yahoo.com), April 06, 2004.

Joe,

I'm very well aware of that (AAMOF, 'doxa' is more commonly translated 'prayer'), which is why my point is this: why does Ave Maria exclude divorced people from teaching positions? That would be undestandable for divorced-and-remarried-without-anullment people, but just divorced? If that's actually the way it is, it sounds crazy to me. What if my sister's husband's mom wanted to teach there? She's the most devout Catholic I personally know, save my grandmother.

-- anon (ymous@god.bless), April 06, 2004.