Pope Leo XIV appoints Bishop Ramón Bejarano to lead Monterey Diocese

Washington D.C., Apr 2, 2019 / 02:07 pm (CNA).- A new scientific study has found significant differences in the ways that the brains of male and female fetuses function prior to birth.

Researchers conducted MRI scans on human fetuses in the womb, studying the functional connectivity (FC), or the neurological connections between different areas of the brain, for both males and females. They found connections between parts of the female brains that were almost nonexistent in the male brains.

“The present study demonstrates for the first time that development of fetal brain FC varies with sex,” the researchers wrote, concluding that the fetal brain networks they observed likely lay the “building blocks” for brain development throughout rest of the baby’s life.

Dr. Leonard Sax, a family physician and author of the 2005 book “Why Gender Matters,” told CNA that the fact that there is a difference in brain function at all— at a stage of development when a baby has not yet been exposed to any societal influences— is significant in itself.

“I think the importance of this research is that it shows that the brain of a baby girl in her mother’s womb prior to birth is significantly different than the brain of a baby boy in the mother’s womb at the same stage prior to birth,” Sax told CNA.

“Exactly what those differences signify is controversial,” he noted.

Sax wrote a March 27 article for Psychology Today summarizing the study’s findings, in which he asked why the study had received relatively little media coverage. In some parts of the brain, the differences between males and females were “truly amazing,” he wrote.

“The human brain is gendered prior to birth. That may be politically incorrect, but it is an empirical reality,” Sax stated.

“Male and female are of God. The are hardwired, they are innate.”

He cautioned that it is not yet clear to neuroscientists what exactly the gender differences in brain function might mean, in terms of how activity in the brain relates to human emotion and experience.

“How does thinking happen? How does the brain mediate the process of thought or feeling? We don’t know the answers to those questions,” Sax said.

“In my article, I make no attempt to claim what that [brain function] difference signifies, because neuroscientists don’t know.”

He said while there are “plausible” interpretations that can be made based on the data, the researchers themselves “make no attempt to guess at the significance of their own findings.”

“The claim I’m making is girls and boys are different— that image strongly supports that claim,” he said.

Sax noted in his Psychology Today article that academics such as Judith Butler have pioneered popular theories that “male” and “female” are merely social constructs.

“The category of ‘girl’ and ‘boy’ are meaningful categories, they’re not a mere performance or a social construction as Judith Butler would have us believe. And they are clearly meaningful and real prior to birth,” he said.

Sax also pointed out that The New York Times published an op-ed April 1 in which Dr. Carol Hay, a professor of philosophy at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell, endorses Butler’s understanding of gender, calling gender “fundamentally a performance” based on and learned from social systems.

Sax posited that the author is unaware of “research showing that ‘male and female’ are present in the human brain prior to birth.”

“I wouldn’t say that she is lying, I would say that she is unaware of the relevant research,” he clarified.

CNA reached out to Hay for a reply. She told CNA in an interview that when it comes to gender, she tends “to be pretty critical of the science, because I think it’s often motivated by a particular political agenda, as all science is motivated by a particular political agenda.”

Despite this, Hay said that in her view, even if science can prove that there are innate biological differences in the male and female brains, “I’m not sure that would tell us anything about why boys and girls end up acting completely differently.”

“The question is whether those brain differences— if they do exist— the question is whether they then actually translate into the kind of gender differences that we’re used to associating with men and women and boys and girls,” she argued.

Sax, however, maintained that the data is meaningful, showing a concrete difference in brain function between males and females, even if it is not yet clear what that signifies.

“That claim that gender is meaningless, or gender as merely a ‘performance’ isn’t a true statement. It’s a false statement,” he said.

 

[…]

Boston, Mass., Sep 3, 2023 / 06:00 am (CNA).

Pat Sajak, the longtime host of the popular television game show “Wheel of Fortune,” will be retiring after this upcoming season.

After more than 40 years in that role, Sajak is like a member of the family for the show’s millions of fans.

A lesser-known fact about the Emmy winner is that he’s the chair of the board of trustees at Hillsdale College, a small Christian, classical liberal arts school in southern Michigan that is often branded as “conservative” and which one magazine has even described as being “at the heart of the culture wars.”

Founded by Freewill Baptist slavery abolitionists in 1844, Hillsdale defines itself as “nonsectarian Christian.” But Sajak’s many Catholic fans might be interested to know that Hillsdale has a thriving Catholic community of students and faculty — and has become something of a hub for converts to the Catholic faith.

An average of about 15 students from Hillsdale convert to Catholicism each year, Kelly Cole, a staff member from the local St. Anthony Catholic Church, which ministers to the students, told CNA. 

Additionally, in recent years certain Catholic prelates have made visits to campus including Winona-Rochester Bishop Robert Barron, who gave the college’s graduation commencement address in May, and German Cardinal Gerhard Müller, former head of the Vatican’s doctrinal office, who offered a lecture on campus in 2021.

Is Pat Sajak Catholic?

Sajak declined an interview with CNA. While his religious affiliation isn’t clear, a 1993 article from the Los Angeles Times reported that Sajak received an annulment from the Catholic Church. Sajak’s first marriage was with Sherril Sajak, but after they divorced, he married Lesly Brown, his current spouse of over 30 years, according to Hollywood Life. 

People magazine reported that Sajak married Brown at a Catholic church in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1989. Outsider reported that this church was St. Mary’s. 

A Chicago native, Sajak, who called himself an “unapologetic conservative” in a 2012 interview with the Hoover Institution, has Polish roots and described his upbringing as blue-collar. A Vietnam veteran, he served as a television weatherman before his time at “Wheel of Fortune.”

Since 2019, Sajak, who is 76 according to the History Channel, has been serving as chairman of the board for the school. But he’s been involved with the school long before he was the chair, serving as the vice chairman of the board of trustees beginning in 2003.

He said in his interview with the Hoover Institution that he came to Hillsdale as a result of his relationship with the school’s president, Larry Arnn, whom Sajak met when he served on the board of the Claremont Institute, a conservative think tank. 

In that interview, he praised the school for not taking government funding, something that Hillsdale prides itself on.

The school was included in the Princeton Review’s 2024 edition of the nation’s best colleges, earning a No. 3 ranking of “most conservative students,” a No. 2 ranking of “most religious students,” and a No. 2 ranking of having the “friendliest students.”

A Great Books curriculum

Why is Catholic life at Hillsdale so vibrant?

On Hillsdale’s website, the school prides itself on a core curriculum that “considers the spiritual and intellectual inheritance of the Western Tradition and provides a fuller perspective on the world and its workings.”

From the school’s longtime English professor David Whalen’s perspective, the college’s “traditional, Great Books-heavy curriculum” inevitably brings students into contact with many ideas that are influenced by the Catholic faith. 

The Great Books curriculum consists of literature courses mandatory for every student. 

Whalen, a Catholic who is also the school’s associate vice president for curriculum, said that the amount of Catholic conversions each year is a result of “grace” but “also the natural consequence of young people reading deeply in the Western intellectual and spiritual tradition and reflecting on their own beliefs.”

While the “great majority” of Hillsdale’s faculty and students are not Catholic, Whalen said that the atmosphere on campus is “highly collegial” and the Catholic community flourishes at the school.

“There are enough Catholic students, faculty, and staff to sustain a quite vibrant Catholic community and, at the same time, integrate with the campus as a whole,” he said. “This makes the college attractive to Catholic students, as does its traditional curriculum and strong academics.”

Being a minority on campus, Catholics would do well to brush up on their faith, Whalen said.

“This is a highly intelligent place, and people with different beliefs are going to be articulate and thoughtful about them. So, the Catholics here need to be so as well,” he said.

Taking Catholicism seriously

Cole, who converted to Catholicism the year she graduated from Hillsdale in 2002, said that she took Whalen’s literature course and it had a major impact on her conversion.

But it wasn’t just the literature classes that pushed her to convert, it was mainly the history courses, she said. 

“And my history courses were taught by Protestants; it wasn’t Catholics that were teaching this or anything,” she noted. 

Cole, 43, said that “trying to faithfully engage with history and the history of Christendom and talking about our Judeo-Christian heritage just led to me feeling like I needed to take Catholicism seriously.”

Earlier this year, the Diocese of Lansing posted a video highlighting the 2023 Easter Vigil at St. Anthony’s in which 24 people, 22 of them Hillsdale students, were received into the Catholic Church. 

Today, Cole, her husband, Lee Cole — a professor at the college — and her seven children all reside in Hillsdale, where she serves on staff at the city’s St. Anthony Catholic Church, where she was received when she converted more than 20 years ago.

Defenders of the faith

Just as it did then, St. Anthony is the sole institution providing the sacraments to students on campus. But the church works hand in hand with the school’s “Catholic Society,” a student-led club that organizes social events and opportunities for students to receive the sacraments and brings speakers to campus. 

Noah Hoonhout, a 2023 graduate who led the school’s Catholic student organization, said that the Catholic Society is “the most active” club on campus. 

Among the recent speakers the society has sponsored are German Cardinal Gerhard Müller and American theologian George Weigel, both of whom drew large crowds, according to Hoonhout. 

According to the Hillsdale Daily News, the school’s president called Weigel and Müller “ardent defenders of the immemorial teachings of the Christian faith and of the liberty of the human soul before God that Hillsdale College holds so dear” following their lectures in 2021.

Whalen told CNA that when Müller visited campus he was invited to say a few words at a dinner in his honor at the school’s president’s house. 

Whalen said that Müller “gave an extemporaneous short talk that was both brilliant and beautiful. It was a great moment.”

The Catholic Society points students toward St. Anthony’s many ministries, one of which is specifically established for Hillsdale students called “The Grotto.”

The Grotto is a house located near campus where students can come and pray before the Blessed Sacrament.

Each week, the Grotto offers Mass, confession, eucharistic adoration, the recitation of the rosary, formation events, and social gatherings for the students, such as “convivium,” where dozens of students will gather for dinner at the house on Thursday nights and hear a talk on the Catholic faith from a professor at the school. 

Hoonhout, 22, said that the Grotto is one of the “centers of Catholic culture” on campus.

What’s next?

In Sajak’s long tenure at “Wheel of Fortune,” he has earned several awards, including a Daytime Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. 

In 2019, Guinness World Records deemed him to have “the longest career as a game show host for the same show,” which was 35 years and 198 days at the time, according to abc.com.

Although not much is known about what Sajak will do following retirement from “Wheel of Fortune,” Hillsdale has said that he will continue serving in his role as chairman of its board of trustees.

His role at the game show will be taken over by celebrity host Ryan Seacrest. Sajak’s longtime co-host, Vanna White, reportedly will remain with the show.

“Well, the time has come. I’ve decided that our 41st season, which begins in September, will be my last,” Sajak tweeted on June 12. “It’s been a wonderful ride, and I’ll have more to say in the coming months. Many thanks to you all.”

[…]

U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during a roundtable with Jewish community leaders in the Indian Treaty Room of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, Oct. 11, 2023, in Washington, D.C. / Credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

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