Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Worcester bishop...acts like one

As blogged earlier, Jesuit-run Holy Cross College in Worcester, Massachusetts planned on hosting a conference featuring Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion speakers. In response to the uproar, Worcester Bishop Robert J. McManus has issued a statement today. It reads, in part:

I have received numerous complaints from people who are shocked and outraged that a Catholic institution like Holy Cross would have anything to do with such groups. They have appealed to me to ask Father Michael McFarland, president of the College of the Holy Cross, to revoke the College’s agreement to rent space to the Massachusetts Teen Alliance. I have done so.

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Both Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice are notorious for their policies and practices that directly reject the Church’s teaching on artificial contraception and abortion. The College of the Holy Cross should recognize that any association with these groups can create the situation of offering scandal understood in its proper theological sense, i.e., an attitude or behavior which leads another to do evil. Certainly it is understandable how people of good will could interpret the college’s allowing presentations to be made by such groups as truly scandalous.

Amen. One nit, and perhaps I'm being too picky, but...

It is my fervent wish that the administration of the College of the Holy Cross will unequivocally disassociate itself from the upcoming conference sponsored by the Massachusetts Alliance on Teen Pregnancy so that the college can continue to be recognized as a Catholic institution committed to promoting the moral teaching of the Roman Catholic church.

"Fervent wish?" Can't he force the college to do what he wants?

Anyway, good for Bishop McManus for his statement, and good for all the folks who contacted the diocese to express their outrage.