Georgetown founder John Carroll wouldn’t be surprised to find his university in a controversy concerning the appropriate place of religious groups in civil affairs… but he might be surprised that this time an attack came from within the Church.
“That man molested me. He knows it. He knows it. He knows it.” So was the testimony of “Mark” on April 5, Holy Thursday, in the case of Monsignor William Lynn and the Rev. James Brennan, currently on trial in Philadelphia. Lynn is accused of attempting to hide evidence of abuse by clergy, moving pedophile priests among parishes, and of endangering the welfare of two children. Brennan is accused of raping a 14-year-old boy, “Mark,” whose abuse is described in court documents.
Campuses are pluralistic places with students and faculty who represent a diversity of religious traditions, races, ethnicities, and sexual expressions. “So, in regard to the Church’s teaching on homosexuality, the Catholic university should be a natural place to ask, ‘what are the lived implications of the Church’s teachings? How do you, in a reality-based way, negotiate the Church’s teachings with human lives?’”
A report from the principally Catholic anti-contraception rally in Maryland reveals a constituency whose calls for religious freedom appear to be at the cost of freedom for all others.