We
are blessed to have Cardinal Burke as
now part of the College of Cardinals
and also the prefect of the Vatican's
highest court. Aside from the Holy Father
himself, we have a strong and aggressive
pro-life voice. Now he has made a pronouncement
about Catholic educational institutions
that should stir some action.
Indeed, Catholic educational institutions,
supposedly the formators (in assisting
the parents) of the youth in solid Catholic
values, have not been living up to the
task. In fact, many, especially in the
western world, have in effect moved
over to the other side, that of the
anti-life, anti-family, homosexualist
forces. They have become the enemy within.
Such is the case already in the Philippines,
though not yet quite as blatant as the
west. Ateneo, La Salle and other Catholic
schools have many dissidents, including
professors and theologians. Many are
pro-choice. Some have welcomed homosexualist
groups in the campuses.
When will our own bishops speak out?
When will the Church take back its Catholic
schools? The pro-life fight depends
a lot on how the young are educated.
As it is, our fight is harder because
of their long-term exposure to pro-choice,
diversity, and even sexual permissiveness.
It is time for "a revival of Catholic
orthodoxy in academia." The Pope
shows the way, Cardinal Burke has fired
a resounding salvo, now let the bishops
follow their lead.
Catholic
education should combat anti-life secularism,
not succumb to it: Cardinal Burke
Hilary White | Tue Dec 21 18:11 EST
| Faith
MERRIMACK,
NH, December 21, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com)
– The ideal
Catholic university, said Cardinal Raymond
Burke last week, is one that creates
a bulwark against the aggressive secularism
of our times and its persistent attacks
on human life, the dignity of the person
and of natural marriage.
The
former archbishop of St. Louis, and
current head of the Vatican’s
highest tribunal, laid out his blueprint
for Catholic higher education in a lecture
to students and faculty at St.
Thomas More College December
13th. Thomas More is one of a handful
of U.S. Catholic colleges that have
deliberately aligned themselves with
a revival of Catholic
orthodoxy in academia.
In
laying out his ideal, Cardinal Burke,
who serves as the Prefect of the Apostolic
Signatura in Rome, decried the fact
that the same
aggressive secularism that Catholic
education should be ideally suited to
combat has all but overwhelmed most
of the world’s Catholic post-secondary
institutions.
Catholic
colleges and universities, he said,
“which once gave pride of place
to their Catholic identity and the Catholic
life of the campus” are now
“Catholic in name only.”
Many have illustrated the Latin expression,
“corruptio optimi pessima est
… the corruption of the best is
the worst.”
He
called it a “tragedy”
that Catholic educational institutions
have fallen prey to the “prevalent
and utterly destructive error of our
time that somehow faith is contradicted
by reason.”
“This
error has hindered and even prevented
the essential and irreplaceable contribution
of the Church to the life of society
… to the common good.”
The
Catholic college that fits the description
is one that resists “the secularist
dictatorship which would exclude all
religious discourse from the professions
and from public life in general.”
Modern
society is marked by “a virulent
secularism which threatens the integrity
of every aspect of human endeavor and
service” that true Catholic education
must counter.
The
“manner of study” at a truly
Catholic university, should show up
the “bankruptcy of the abuse of
human life and human sexuality, which
has come to be standard on many university
campuses.”
This
includes the “bankruptcy of the
violation of the inviolable dignity
of human life, of the integrity of marriage,
and of the right order of our relationship
to one another and to the world, in
general, which is the trademark of our
culture, a culture of violence and death.”
Read
the full text of the cardinal’s
address here.
"For
to me to live is Christ, and to die
is gain." (Phil 1:21)