Bridgeport, Conn., May 23, 2017 / 12:32 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The leader of the nearly 2 million-member Knights of Columbus recently spoke about the importance of his group’s fidelity to Pope Francis, as well as his hopes for a successful upcoming meeting between the Roman Pontiff and U.S. president Donald Trump.
In a new interview, Supreme Knight Carl Anderson touched on these topics as well as his organization’s commitment to persecuted Christians, problems with how some media treats issues within the Church, and what the Knights make a priority in their charitable giving.
The organization recently celebrated its 135th anniversary at St. Mary’s Church in New Haven, Conn., the church where Fr. McGivney founded the Catholic fraternity that now has 1.9 million members worldwide.
Please read below for CNA’s full interview with Carl Anderson:
The Pope will be meeting the United States president this week; what should people expect from that meeting?
The pope has made clear that he is seeking common ground with the president, and I would assume the president will do the same. Some in the media focus only on the differences between the thinking of these two men, but, there is also much common ground on issues like abortion, religious liberty, persecuted Christians and human trafficking.
In what ways have the Knights worked with Pope Francis over the past few years?
From our earliest days, the Knights of Columbus has always been loyal to the Holy Father. We have a wonderful relationship with Pope Francis and have helped sponsor a number of conferences and projects with the Vatican during his tenure on topics including relief work in Haiti, the Church in America, and the continental Jubilee of Mercy. I’ve had the privilege to meet with Pope Francis privately each year and to review with him our priorities and new initiatives. Each time, I’ve come away deeply inspired by his love for the poor and those on the margins of society.
We see supporting the pope, his ministry and his charitable endeavors as central to who we are as an organization. I have repeatedly told our K of C leaders to take his words to us as our agenda, and I’ve personally assured him he can count on our support.
What are the main causes the Knights support?
We support causes large and small, but our primary focus over the past two years has been helping Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East who were targeted by ISIS. Because these communities are so small, they are too often overlooked by U.S. Government or UN aid programs and risk disappearing. We also have been supporting clean water projects in Africa, inspired by Laudato Si, and we just finished a project to improve the energy efficiency of our headquarters.
Two of the projects I’m very proud of are our work in Africa to educate and support AIDS orphans, many of whom are themselves HIV positive, and our efforts in Haiti to provide artificial limbs to children who lost their legs because of the earthquake there.
Also, at the local level, our members accompany their fellow parishioners and the members of their communities, supporting their needs in ways large and small. From food programs, to housing and clothing programs, to disaster relief, when people need us, we are there.
We also strongly support the right to life. Laudato Si section 120 states that without opposition to abortion, defending the rest of the vulnerable is increasingly difficult: “Since everything is interrelated, concern for the protection of nature is also incompatible with the justification of abortion. How can we genuinely teach the importance of concern for other vulnerable beings, however troublesome or inconvenient they may be, if we fail to protect a human embryo, even when its presence is uncomfortable and creates difficulties? If personal and social sensitivity towards the acceptance of the new life is lost, then other forms of acceptance that are valuable for society also wither away.”
In our country today, abortion takes more lives each year than any other cause of death. But we certainly don’t focus all our charity efforts on beginning-of-life issues. For example, we continued to give away more than 80,000 new winter coats and more than 8,000 wheelchairs in 2015, and we are constantly engaged in tens of thousands of projects around the world to help clothe, feed, shelter and meet other pressing needs of our neighbors. Last year we gave away $175 million and 73.5 million hours to charitable causes. We also support the Vatican and national bishops’ conferences in numerous ways, including in the defense of religious liberty, especially – but not only – when assaults on religious liberty also implicate the lives of the most vulnerable among us.
How dire are things for the Christians in the Middle East and why did you choose that issue?
For the first time in nearly 2,000 years, we are reaching a point where Christians could literally cease to exist in a country like Iraq. The situation is incredibly dire, and in the next few days, we will be announcing a new initiative to help stabilize these communities because there is a real concern that they will not survive. We have been providing assistance with food for thousands of families, we have provided funding for medical clinics, for apartment buildings, rental assistance, clothing, education, etc. But even more is needed. We simply cannot allow Christianity and pluralism to be eliminated from this region by those using terrorism and genocide to achieve their ends.
I am among the many who hope that the meeting between the pope and the president this week in Rome may include breakthrough solutions and closer cooperation between the American government and its aid programs and the Church to help ensure that these people survive, and that ISIS’ goal of eliminating religious minorities is not realized. As at least one commentator has also pointed out, no two organizations are more critical to surivival of these people than the U.S. government and the Vatican.
In terms of how we chose this issue, it came naturally to us, since the Knights of Columbus has been concerned about religious persecution throughout our history. We spoke up for Catholics being persecuted in Mexico in the 1920s, for Jews being persecuted in Germany in the 1930s, for people of faith being persecuted in the Cold War, and now, for these victims of ISIS.
You also mentioned your pro-life work. There have been some real advances in that area recently – what trends do you see?
We have seen some great strides in this area over the past months including moves to stop the taxpayer funding of abortion including via the Mexico City Policy. Appointments to the court and several cabinet positions are also very pro-life and this is very heartening as well.
As our polling shows, support for abortion restrictions is bi-partisan. For example, 70 percent of Democrats and 94 percent of Republicans support banning taxpayer funding of abortion abroad. In addition, about 6 in 10 Democrats, 7 in 10 Independents and 9 in 10 Republicans support substantial restrictions on abortion, and would limit it – at most – to the first three months of pregnancy.
Practicing Catholics are united in support for abortion restrictions in overwhelming numbers as well.
Some may see abortion as a political or divisive issue, but that does not mean that it is. And we do not see or intend our opposition to it as political. For us it is a matter of morality and values.
In fact, it is my fondest hope that both of our country’s major parties would embrace a pro-life platform. If that were to happen, the issue could cease to be seen as partisan, and voters could move on to other issues. We’ve been working on this for more than four decades, with nearly 60 million abortions since Roe v Wade. The scandal is that too many Catholics in public office have refused to take action to protect unborn children. As Catholics we are called to build a culture of life and that certainly includes more than abortion. But I do not see how it is possible to build a culture of life with public officials who insist on maintaining a legal regime that results in a million abortions a year.
I have personally voted for pro-life candidates of both parties. Those who criticize our pro-life work as partisan miss the fact that far from being partisan, it is consistent with our help of the defenseless and marginalized. It exactly fits with Pope Francis’ statements in Laudato Si and also in Evangelii Gaudium, where he stated in section 213: “Among the vulnerable for whom the Church wishes to care with particular love and concern are unborn children, the most defenseless and innocent among us. Nowadays efforts are made to deny them their human dignity and to do with them whatever one pleases, taking their lives and passing laws preventing anyone from standing in the way of this. Frequently, as a way of ridiculing the Church’s effort to defend their lives, attempts are made to present her position as ideological, obscurantist and conservative. Yet this defense of unborn life is closely linked to the defense of each and every other human right. It involves the conviction that a human being is always sacred and inviolable, in any situation and at every stage of development.”
How can we help poor individuals and families, the intellectually disabled, and refugees from ISIS and ignore the unborn? It’s not possible. We are talking about a million lives each year that are lost, and that demands our attention.
The same outlook applies to our work in defense of religious freedom – in which we have been supported by Pope Francis. This isn’t a new – or political – endeavor for us. It is the defense of a fundamental right that we have engaged in for more than a century.
What is your opinion of how the news media covers the Church today?
Pope Francis, in his book, On Heaven and Earth, was very hard on the media. He pointed out that too often the media tries to generate conflict and misinforms. He said: “Today, there is misinformation because only part of the truth is said, only what interests them is taken for their convenience, and that does a lot of damage because it is a way of favoring conflict.”
We see this with some reports leading up to his meeting with the president. Some push what they see as points of conflict, ignoring the points of common ground.
Unfortunately, in this country too, we frequently see reporting focused on advancing a political agenda instead of getting the facts right.
We ourselves have even sometimes had partisan reporters or commentators complain about a donation or two that we made that they don’t agree with. In such cases, they typically ignore the majority, totality and context of what we do – in other words, the literally hundreds of donations we make that they probably would support as well.
As Pope Francis said, those in the media can tell a half truth and do damage by generating conflict, and let me give you one example that really illustrates the point. A commentator recently intimated that a $1.5 million dollar donation we gave to the Archdiocese of Philadelphia a couple of years ago somehow showed sympathy to opposition to Pope Francis. Leaving aside the many ways in which that assertion is problematic on its face, in fact, exactly the opposite of what was asserted was true.
The money donated was actually in support of Pope Francis’ trip to the United States as part of the Vatican’s World Meeting of Families in that city. At best what can be said about this kind of thing is that it reflects what lawyers might call a reckless disregard of the truth.
What makes such episodes of misleading or untruthful reporting particularly sad is that it seems that often what drives this reporting is dissent or disagreement with Church teaching, not just disagreement with us. But the media should not stoop to politicizing the pope or trying to drive wedges between him and faithful Catholics who love him.
The pope is pro-life, he is in favor of religious liberty. He visited the Little Sisters of the Poor and has spoken about “polite persecution” in Western countries to underscore the importance of religious freedom. These aren’t political positions for him – or for us. They are values positions based on our Catholic faith.
It is worth noting that we support a number of Catholic media outlets – large and small – because we see the importance of quality Catholic journalism.
The Knights of Columbus is unique as a business entity. Can you talk a little about that?
Unlike non-profits that are charities with fundraising operations, the Knights of Columbus is also one of the nation’s largest – and best rated – life insurers. We have an arm that takes donations, but many of the dollars we donate come from the business side.
We were founded by the Venerable Father Michael McGivney to help provide Catholic families with support for their faith and in their financial future. The faith side is obvious, and the financial future side has grown into a Fortune 1000 insurance operation exclusively focused on our members and their families. Many people are surprised by the size of the Knights of Columbus insurance program. We sell more than $8 billion of insurance each year. We have over $106 billion of insurance in force and we have over $23 billion of assets under management. Our members have entrusted us with their hard earned cash, and they count on us to be there to provide for the future of their families.
We have a responsibility to their future, and we take this responsibility seriously on both fronts. One way that we do this is to seek to invest in ways that are sustainable, and to use Catholic screens on our investments so that we are not putting our members’ money into enterprises that run counter to our faith.
To do that, we hire top professionals to manage our business and our investments. We have about 900 employees at our headquarters in New Haven and we are one of the city’s largest private employers. Given that we are operating at such a high level in the financial services industry, while we pay our executives less than the market average, we also understand that we have to pay competitively enough to attract the caliber of talent needed to run a Fortune 1000 company and to successfully manage the financial futures of our members and their families. People’s livelihoods depend on us hiring and retaining the highly competent people able to deliver at the highest level, and our members deserve nothing less than the best professionals we can hire.
This has been our approach to the business side of the Knights of Columbus for decades. And it has worked. We have consistently received top ratings for our financial strength.
[…]
Not at all surprising.
As best I understand the faith, Jesus was the most inclusive person in all of history. Anything that attempts to minimize his presence is exclusionary, not inclusionary.
Jim : I don’t believe you understand the Faith. Simply read any of the Gospels –I’m reading John right now –I’m halfway through. Jesus is without doubt not inclusive! On the contrary he is exclusive. Read for yourself. Read just one Gospel through. he is very hard on the Jews particularly. He calls them liars and refers to their Father as the Father of lies ( Satan , the devil ). he also refers to their synagogue as the “synagogue of Satan”. Does that sound exclusive to you ? Hear what He and the apostles have to say about Sin and False Religions. –It’s not pretty !
Dennis–Jim is right, although your point is not irreconcilable with his. Jesus was the most inclusive person in the sense that he calls everybody- and the most exclusive in that he calls them to ONE truth. A Catholic school can accept members of all faiths, but with goal of evangelization in mind!!!
Dennis: Jesus was a Jew. He,his mother Mary and father Joseph were also Jews and lived Jewish lives. Jesus was not referring to Jews in general but to the Pharisees and Sadducees who did not love their brothers and sisters. Jesus taught love for everyone. He preached to the gentiles, not just Jews. He wanted everyone to “love God with all their heart, mind, and soul, and to love their neighbor as themselves.”
This is just nutty. Jesus never condemned the Jews at all. He was a Jew, and he said not a jot of their law would be changed. You apparently failed biblical interpretation 101
Jesus most certainly condemned the leaders of the Jews. Calling them children not of Abraham as they claimed but the Devil – which is why they pushed Pilate to crucify him.
You miss the point, Dennis. Jim was just hoisting them with their own petard.
Jim, it is not “either or” but “both and”. I teach at a Catholic school in the Bay Area and we are proud to have a strong Catholic identity and we are inclusive and respect all people of different faiths. That’s how we can evangelize others, by witnessing to our inclusivity but without compromising who we are; just like Jesus did.
you will 0% identifying as Catholic if you keep this up. Chase the almighty dollar and you will pay the price in souls.
I would imagine that non Catholics are sending their children thee BECAUSE it is supposed to be a Catholic School and all that represents in this crazy world. Why ruin it for THEM?
GREAT POINT!!!
To be more welcoming to the growing number of non-Catholic students? Or a sell out to the world and a turning away from Christ? More likely the latter.
Yes.
Your thinking matches mine.
Very likely the later and it is nothing other than the later.
An Enemy, (abet widespread contraception/abortifacients), has done this..
1. Loss of Faith.
2. Few children.
3. Non existent religious teachers.
4. Rise in costs.
5. Private school sought for worldly gain.
Are we supposed to be surprised?
I agree. This is, to me, anti-Catholic behavior, masking as ” all-inclusive’ rhetoric. This is very sad, that people are allowing them to remove the statues. Where will it end?
A few points – there is no mention here of which saints were removed. Second, it seems a bit silly to speak of Dominican values when the school has clearly forgotten its Dominican “mission” which is to have classes that evangelize the faith. It is more likely that the school has fewer Catholic students because it cares less about promoting Catholicism and hence can make the poor excuse that no one is interested in certain classes about what the school itself seems to have lost interest in long before. Third: just some friendly advice – can the director of marketing and hire a Latin teacher.
Your thinking matches mine.
“‘The Dominican values are still being taught (at the school) every minute, but there are lots of other families that have been coming to the school. How do we reach out and embrace everybody who wants this Dominican education?…how do we continue Catholic education and have lots of different families of different backgrounds?’ she said.” The answer is a no-brainer for anyone possessing an apostolic spirit and normal Christian discernment. Those who do not possess this spirit and whose identity is less than Christocentric have no business running a Catholic school–indeed, no right under Heaven, human mandates notwithstanding. If a group of Cathar or Waldensian parents had approached St. Dominic and the nuns at Notre Dame de Prouille about educating their children response despite reservations, the response would have been clear: Unambivalent joy with loving effort to win their hearts over to the Catholic faith. Fundamental Dominican values are the same as they were 800+ years ago. … Purpose?: LAUDARE-BENEDICERE-PRAEDICARE. By what means?: CONTEMPLARE ET CONTEMPLATA ALIIS TRADERE. Centering on and handing on what?: VERITAS In what manner?: VERITATEM FACIENTES IN CARITATE.
Thank you, father. The state of Catholic Schools is very painful. If they indeed would have the spirit of St. Dominic they do welcome all students but not to keep them in darkness and under the yoke of falsehoods and heresies but to the Truth and Life of Christ Our Lord.
I totally agree.
Amen ! Alleluia! May Jesus Christ be praised!
As a Dominican Friar I am deeply distressed that a Catholic institution has chosen to succumb to the pressures of our secular society, which wants to deny the objective truth, Veritas, that God is present among us. Statues are a constant reminder that God is with us. Centuries ago stained glass windows were erected to tell the story of Christ when an agrarian-peasant community could not read. In this moment in our history when we are living in a post-Christian culture these statues represent a continuity with our past, in other words our TRADITION. The beauty of these statues are meant to lift our minds and hearts to God and the things of heaven. We need these sacramentals to inspire us to things above rather than what is on earth when our culture is slipping into depravity. In my opinion, those who have made this decision on behalf of inclusivity are seeking to promote a private school focused merely on placement in secondary schools of higher education. This is totally inconsistent with their desire to promote inclusivity. Inclusivity has nothing to do with test scores, advancement, and the cost of private education. I was a pastor with a school of 800 children. Not every child was Catholic but they were not offended by the Christian symbols, theology classes and celebration of mass. They and their parents knew what to expect when they enrolled them in a Catholic school. This is true inclusivity when children of different faiths can appreciate the similarities and differences among them while searching for the truth about themselves and God and what God desires for them. In the four years that I was there a number of the children along with their families converted to the Catholic faith. A little child shall lead them. Please pray for the conversion of these school administrators and for our country.
Amen.
And the non-Catholic families continue to enroll their children because…? The cafeteria’s menu is superior? The Friday Seafood selection is to die for? Are the 80%-ers unappreciative of the connection between Catholicism and a superior education, assuming that still exists at San Domenico?
The Great Apostasy …anyone???
When the basin of Man comes, will he still find faith on earth?
The Catholic parents will do nothing. They will roll over and accept this betrayal and pay 30K/yr anyway.
The Catholic parents will whine and cry but will not remove their children from this secular school.
So, they get what they deserve and their priests and bishop will remain silent with a variety of excuses for doing so.
I hope I am very wrong here. But I doubt it.
Unfortunately, this type of watering down of the Faith and Catholic environment has been going on for decades. The only major reason that I can see for parents of means, in sending their children to one of these in-name-only-Catholic-schools, is that a diploma from there still appears reputable and a way in to elite colleges and a comfortable life. If a student went into the school as a Catholic, it is highly unlikely that he or she would leave it Catholic. The world is all about feelings and inclusiveness these days. This is more important that gaining Heaven by the Cross.
A look behind the scenes of the lives and background of the major donors of the school would probably reveal a lot in the reasons behind these actions.
$30K per year? I looked up tuition at the school, you’re right.
Aren’t Catholic schools, especially high schools, becoming “private schools for the wealthy with 1 or 2 children?”
Are they really catholic anyway?
Experience taught me Catholic Medical Centers turned over to secular management that eventually the only semblance remaining of Catholicity is nominal. The name of the med center. Dominican Fr Seid is correct. I studied at the Angelicum [Pont U of St Thomas Aquinas] in Rome that had beautiful statues scattered about campus. And there were non Catholic students including a Turkish Muslim or two. No complaints whatsoever. What better way to unobtrusively convey the faith. San Domenico School is example of secular sellout of Christian values for secular values and increased cash. The Dominican Sisters nonetheless are at fault as were the Franciscan Sisters at the Catholic medical that turned management over to seculars. Shirking their responsibilities for greater comfort. The thirty pieces of silver has wide currency.
Fr Morello, thank you for your observations and your frequent appearances online in favor of the faith. I hope that your negative experience at the Angelicum was not within the past 10 years. If so, I will speak my confreres there at the next opportunity. I can attest that at least the American Dominicans presently assigned there to teach are zealous, spiritual friars who know and love God and are not the least bit PC. I am of the view that it is fine to have some Muslims studying at a Catholic school as long as (1) we are evangelizing them–which, sadly, has to be very discreet for reasons that we all well know; and (2) we are challenging them strongly in the classroom if their true motive is to obtain knowledge and credentials to undermine the universal Faith. We should be greedy for the souls (‘ salvation), not their tuition money.
Thanks Fr Seid. I was at the Angelicum from 99 to 02 and there were no issues whatsoever regarding the Faith, statues and so forth. In fact they had a daily Mass that many students attended and a beautiful liturgy. As said in Swahili [following my doctorate I taught at a seminary in Tanzania] Asante Sana.
Re-reading your comment Fr. Morello, I see that your intention can be read in two different ways. I apologize for the mistake if you were actually conveying the idea that non-Christians, including Muslims, receive a positive and helpful witness through the presence of vibrant Catholic art and that non-Christian students don’t necessarily have the problem that a certain kind of misguided “progressive” Catholic assumes.
Correct. It was positive.
“Cecily Stock, Head of School, told the Marin Independent Journal that the removal of sacraments from the curriculum was on account of a lack of interest from families, not an attempt to erase the school’s Catholic identity.”
But it will still do so quite handily thank you.
It seems to me that no one need bother in an attempt to “murder” Christianity in the West, its already committing suicide by slow strangulation.
Why do we even bother any more? Just wrap it all up and close it all down and put a for sale sign in front. Catholic church – had a good run, closed due to poor management.
What a way of thinking worth the deepest Garbage can!
“…the head of San Domenico School, Cecily Stock, claimed the decision was made “to make sure that prospective families are aware that we are an independent school.””…I trust that the Archdiocese will terminate any and all financial support so the school may be truly “independent”
So these parents who chose to send their children to a catholic school did not take that into account when making their decision whether or not to attend? I am thankful parents are speaking up against this creeping policy to remove all catholic references.
They have slowly over the years removed statues and now when it has gotten to the point of threatening catholic identity people have spoken up. I have yet to hear from the sisters who are still involved although less so than in years past.
I think there needs to be a full replacement of the administration as well as the board of directors if they believe being catholic means not being inclusive.
The first words of the article tell you what the problem is: “Over the last few years we’ve had fewer Catholic students as part of the community and a larger number of students of various faith traditions. Right now about 80 percent of our families do not IDENTIFY as Catholic.” Where else do we see this language? You can change your “identification” for gender, religion, whatever, as you wish. “Now I’m a ‘Catholic,’ now, I’m not! Presto-chango! It’s magic! I can ‘identify’ as anything I want, just by calling myself that! I’m a man! I’m a woman! I’m a ‘Catholic!’ I’m a pagan!” More grotesque confusion in the Bay Area.
“Take away the supernatural and what remains is the unnatural.” – G.K. Chesterton
“Tolerance is the virtue of man without convictions.” – G.K. Chesterton
“It is not that when men cease to believe in God they will believe in nothing, they will believe in anything” – G.K. Chesterton
“Take away the supernatural and what remains is the unnatural.” – G.K. Chesterton
“Tolerance is the virtue of man without convictions.” – G.K. Chesterton
“It is not that when men cease to believe in God they will believe in nothing, they will believe in anything” – G.K. Chesterton
“Do not be afraid. Open wide the doors to Christ.”
-Venerable John Paul II
Saint Thomas More said, “I do not care very much what men say of me, provided that God approves of me.”
“God does not require that we be successful only that we be faithful.” – Mother Teresa
Excellent.
“Deny Me before men and I will deny you before My Father.”
Imagine suggesting to the owner of a Kosher Deli that he serve ham sandwiches because many of his customers aren’t Jewish. How do you suppose he’d respond? “What, you can’t get ham at the Subway down the block?” The job of a Catholic School is to provide a Catholic education to its students. If they object to the “Catholic” part of that education (which embraces more than simply course material, but environment as well), there’s certainly another place those students can go that will not offend their religious sensibilities or those of their parents. Are none of those responsible for the operation of San Domenico School invested in CATHOLIC education? Unless they are, perhaps they should consider opening a Charter School that disassociates itself from the Dominican tradition, which is clearly about communicating the mysteries of the Catholic faith to its students.
You should be telling your students ALL of them this is a CATHOLIC institution. We will be teaching CATHOLIC religious education, be aware that ALL your children no matter what religion they are– will be learning the Catholic principles including sacraments. If you want to be a private secular school go for it– the Dominican Nuns should then have no part in it. They should be ashamed.
It ought to offend the non-Catholics to have the school think that removing statues that are part of the catholic identity of the school will help increase their sense of being welcomed. If I were to have my children attend a school with a different tradition I would respect that they value that tradition and wouldn’t expect or want them to diminish it for my sake. Perhaps it is the non-Catholic parents that need to step up and educate the school leaders!
It’s sick to remove the saints from the school. In our local area we had a problem with the local “Catholic school ” when they removed Latin for Chinese and had a art teacher come who draws profane and blasphemous images of our Lord that would be far too horrible to mention on this blog. When the art teacher’s profane art was brought up to the local Catholic authorities from a concerned parishioner, the parishioner was verbally yelled at in turn and rebuffed. The Catholic school wanted the money and didn’t give a care about that “art teacher” and their profane drawings of our Lord because the art teacher had a connection to big bucks for the school…
I think we need to be very Catholic at our schools, if someone takes offense at our saints then they can take themselves onto some other school.
Pray a rosary…. make a difference.
It seems as if Francis’ warnings against prioritizing money and a business mindset in the running of churches is falling on deaf ears in some quarters. Though that was inevitable ; surely, some parish administrators will ‘take it on board’.
Georgetown Univ. Jesuit of course did the same thing. It happened about the same time students in Poland were protesting to have crucifixes brought BACK into their classroom. When the Son of man returns will he find any faith on earth?
When I was a freshman at Dominican University (then Dominican Cllege of San Rafael) and in the process of coming back to Jesus and into the Catholic Church after getting involved in Buddhism and Hinduism with not so good results, I found great comfort in finding crucifixes in every classroom. I would often focus on the cricifix when anxious or afraid. That was in 1994. A year later, as I understand it, the Domenican Sisters of San Rafael who still had some say in the administration of the school, authorized the removal of all crucifixes across the campus. The reason given? To be inclusive and sensitive to those not of the Catholic faith. At the time a former Catholic turned Buddhist was the head of the School of Religion. I was reprimanded for removing posters promoting Planned Parenthood “services” from the stalls of a student restroom. I elected not to attend my graduation ceremony as they invited a widely known pro- abortion woman to be the commencement speaker. Pray for us all to remain faithful to Christ and to share faithfully the truth He came, suffered and was crucified for so that all might live.
An astonishing story. You really have my sympathy, and my admiration.
Surely, the low Catholic attendance at the school is all the more reason for the statue to remain there. It’s not exactly in your face proseltyzing, ina ny case. Just a subtle background presence, which is more than merited on any account.
No. This is not a result of complaints froom other religious groups, but the work of the Usual Suspects : the militant atheists.
Am I the only person left with the impression that these nuns seem to have no conception of the meaning of the word, ‘mission’, or ‘witness to a religious faith’. Christians have never done either by joining agnostics and atheists in their absence of faith.
Most of the Apostles were crucified, rather than ‘cave in’ to the status quo. That they are Domincan sisters seems all the more incomprehensible. It’s not as if the pupils are being actively proselitysed, either.
They seem to little understanding of the long-term effects of all manner of witnesses to the faith. In adolescence many devout children will lose their faith, but return to it later, often being able to reassess what they had learnt, when older and more mature in their understanding.
‘proselytized’ ! Sorry.
People need to stand up against this tyranny before we completely lose our free speech rights.
This “removing of statues” because of the many religions present is also the reason statues, bibles, pictures of christ, 10 commandments, and all the other religious displays are removed from public schools. They can’t favor one religion.
Yeah, but I’m reasonably sure a Catholic school is allowed to favor Catholicism.
Which statues were removed? This is a fundamental fact that has been omitted.
Sadly the millions of murdered Native Californians wont ‘t see the irony of how wealthy jews took over this school.
Oy Vey!