Creighton University has a fairly lengthy record of stubbing its toe, allowing dissident professors free reign as they author articles defending various immoral behavior, not exactly what you'd expect from a large Jesuit university.CU is making the news again, this time for a new blunder.
Creighton is going to host a pro-abortion and pro-euthanasia speaker, Anne Lamott, who proudly aborted her own child and helped one of her "friends" commit euthanasia! (Unbelievable? Check out her articles below.) Lamott (pictured above) will be keynote speaker at the 2007 CUMC Center for Health Policy & Ethics lecture for women on September 19th. Outrageous, but here's the proof.
“The Rights of the Born” by Anne Lamott (published on Friday, February 10, 2006 by the Los Angeles Times)
“The Rights of the Born” by Anne Lamott (published on Friday, February 10, 2006 by the Los Angeles Times)
“At death's window: The trauma, sorrow and bittersweet love that come with helping a friend to end his life” by Anne Lamott, (published on June 25, 2006 by the Los Angeles Times)
Many of my friends and family members have high school and junior high school aged children. These families will be shopping colleges in the next few years. I also have several peers who are considering continuing education. Decisions to host speakers like Lamott make it impossible for me to encourage enrollment in (or donations to) Creighton University.
Please e-mail this post to your Catholic friends and colleagues (look for the little envelope icon beneath the post). Make your displeasure known by contacting Amy Haddad, Director of the Center, and informing her your child won't be a Bluejay, nor will CU be getting your hard earned money because of the school hosting speakers like Lamott. People are paying attention, and this madness is going to stop - one way or another.
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Note: Direct your e-mail to Haddad, but 'cc' the president of the university as well as the archbishop.
Dr. Amy Haddad, Director
Creighton University Medical Center
Center for Health Policy and Ethics
2500 California Plaza
Omaha, NE 68178
(402) 280-2164
Fr. John Schlegel, President
Creighton University
2500 California Plaza
Omaha, NE 68178
(402) 280-2770
-Archbishop Elden Curtiss
100 No. 62nd Street
Omaha, NE 68132
(402) 558-3100
8 comments:
I am very distressed that Dr. Haddad would allow a person who has no regard for human dignity or life to be hosted as a guest speaker of her department.
Perhaps she should also allow a pedophile to speak as well for another perspective on the negative aspect of humanity.
Someone in authority seriously needs to do an analysis of what is a valid divergent perspective. Those that have no regard for the sanctity of life certainly do not belong on a Catholic campus.
Creighton University will certainly never again see a penny from our family's donation.
May Our Lord forgive them.
SICKENING! What the heck is going on with Creighton????
First we had those professors promoting cohabitation and premarital sex as a way of becoming "grace filled" - and now this.
Creighton might as well have Sinead O'Connor come too, and rip up a picture of the Pope. After all, I think she's had multiple abortions "just because she could"!
I will definitely be writing a letter.
Why has Creighton been allowed to keep passing off the bad stuff, because we need our Archbishop to take away any mandatums and to start the process of taking away the "Catholic" identity. We also need to have a ban on Creighton being allowed to help with faith formation of the deacons/to ban any programs from being allowed at the parish level, high schools and grade schools. Some folks in this city put Creighton on a pedestal, it's not worth losing your faith.
The talk was canceled. Deo Gratias.
The talk has, indeed been cancelled.
not exactly what you'd expect from a large Jesuit university
No I couldn't IMAGINE something like this going on at, say, Boston College or Loyola or Georgetown.
Let's face it, overall Creighton has much more in common with these typical Jesuit schools that are hotbeds of dissent than it does with the handful of faithful (and growing) orthodox Catholic colleges.
One begins to wonder, how long, O Lord? May Archbishop Curtiss--or his successor--have the courage to do whatever is necessary to get rid of the bad apples at that institution (and it goes way beyond just the theology dept.--try the med school for starters), and promote those there who are wholly faithful to the Magisterium.
What's the problem at the med school (besides poor judgment at the the CHPE)?
I'm a med student at Creighton, and I didn't even know about this fuss until Father Schlegel sent an email to the student body (follows this post) cancelling the lecture. Father Schlegel is certainly not to blame. Dr. Haddad was not trying to slip this under his nose. I don't think they knew what Ms. Lamott represented. He is a busy man, and probably didn't look too far into this at first, and one of her more controversial publications came out after she was scheduled to visit. The only thing he is guilty of it not looking too far into it. Nobody is perfect and the only Man that was perfect was crucified for it. Creighton is not a bad or evil place. Also, Health Policy and Ethics and the medical school are completely separate. Don't make accusations about something you don't know anything about please. In fact, Creighton Med is doing more than to bring sprituality to medicine. I know that for a fact, unless you know more about the school I go to everyday than me? If you want your doctor to treat you like a human being, get a Creighton doc. Or get filed thru like a piece of meat like most other places.
Father Schlegel's email:
Colleagues:
I know that the mutual decision of Creighton University and Ms. Anne Lamott to cancel her planned lecture has been the subject of much discussion, debate and concern on and off campus. This is a healthy thing and a learning experience for all of us.
Unfortunately, however, the somewhat incomplete accounts of what has transpired may be clouding that discussion. The decision to cancel the lecture was not the result of outside pressure from any group. I made this decision last Friday, August 24, after prayerful reflection upon reading from her latest book, the publication of which post-dated the invitation and in discussion with Amy Haddad, director of the Center for Health Policy and Ethics. To put it more frankly: my reflection on this question started well before the bloggers latched upon the invitation.
I wish to say to all of you that Creighton as an institution and I are unequivocally and unambiguously committed to the principle of academic freedom. To quote from the famous AAUP statement on the subject:
"Freedom in research is fundamental to the advancement of truth. Academic freedom in its teaching aspect is fundamental for the protection of the rights of the teacher in teaching and of the student to freedom in learning. It carries with it duties correlative with rights."
Like any university, we have a responsibility to foster intellectual engagement with various perspectives and forms of knowledge, but as a Catholic university, we have the added responsibility of fostering engagement among these perspectives and forms of knowledge with the Catholic intellectual tradition. As Pope John Paul II wrote, the Catholic university is “a primary and privileged place for a fruitful dialogue between the Gospel and culture” (Ex corde ecclesiae, 3.34).
A faculty member must be able to pursue the truth as he or she conceives of it. At Creighton, no faculty member will ever be subject to any sanction for a rightful exercise of these core values of academic freedom.
In the case of a lecture like the one that Ms. Lamott was to give, however, the issue is more nuanced. We move from the issue of academic freedom to sponsorship. In the case of a sponsored lecture where the speaker is to be compensated and expenses paid, the lecture unavoidably and plainly takes on the imprimatur of the University. Context becomes vastly more important.
In this case, of course, the lecture was to be sponsored by the Creighton University Center for Health Policy and Ethics. Central to Ms. Lamott's work are very strong views on certain issues of health policy and ethics. While I certainly respect her right to express those views, and admire her frankness in doing so, her views are so clearly in opposition to the sacredness of life from conception to natural death that I could not in good conscience allow the University to place its imprimatur on her lecture. Her support of assisted suicide is indeed troubling when we have a medical center dedicated to the preservation of life. It is especially problematic considering the dedication of the Center of Health Policy and Ethics toward the improvement of care of dying patients and their families that is in keeping with the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services.
I know that many of you will be concerned that the logical end of this position is that we will never have a sponsored speaker other than ones by those who agree in every respect with Church teaching. I understand and respect that concern and can assure that it is manifestly not my intent to impose uniformity of this sort. Questions of these kinds are difficult and laden with context. As a Jesuit university, Creighton is a place of intellectual honesty, pluralism and mutual respect where inquiry and open discussion characterize the environment of teaching, research and professional development.
I hope over the course of this year to continue this discussion and to move forward.
John P. Schlegel, S.J.
Presidsent
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