I'm confused, and I don't know what to think.
The National Labor Relations Board--which is supposed to provide unbiased judgments and arbitration between Labor and Industry/Employers--has been a little hard on Catholic Colleges lately. It's a given that under the current administration, the NLRB is partisan, exercising it's power on behalf of the unions, not an unbiased reading of the law, but I'm a little troubled.
In January, the NLRB ruled against Manhattan College, saying it didn't have standing as a Church activity--and cited the College's own literature against it. Manhattan College managed to do itself harm by proclaiming its lack of adherence to the Church's rules about what it takes to be a Catholic College. Now for the second time, the NLRB has ruled against a Catholic College--St Xavier University in Chicago--saying it is not a Church run institution.
I am not familiar enough with the situation at St. Xavier to give an opinion.
But the Supreme Court ruled in 1979 (NLRB vs The Catholic Bishop of Chicago et al) that the NLRB doesn't have jurisdiction over Church schools, and it seems to me that they are trying to assert that by attacking the Catholic identity of the schools. (This goes hand-in-hand with Obama's ongoing attempts to drive a wedge into the Church exploiting the existing fault lines over social teaching, morality and structure. There is a historical precedent for this--see the post below on 27 Feb 33!) However, you can tell from the date of the citation above that this problem predates the Obama Administration.
The NLRB uses a test called 'substantial religious character' to determine whether or not a school or institution is actually a church operated entity. But the Federal Courts have twice instructed the NLRB,in 2002 and 2008, that this test is illegal and must be stopped. It hasn't complied, Like so many Federal Bureaucracies, it seems to feel it is above or outside the law, or perhaps the source of the law.
This seems like an attack by a government agency on Catholic Education, and there have been many of those, dating to the 19th century, and at times they have required the intervention of the Supreme Court to protect the rights of Catholics to educate their children and to operate Catholic Schools and Colleges.
The problem is, I'm not sure that many Catholic universities are Church run, either. Consider Notre Dame. This insitution, long an icon of Catholic University education, can persuasively argued to be non-catholic. From it's decision to honor, in contravention of Ex Corde Ecclesiae , a pro abortion politician, to it's appointment and acceptance of a woman who has long supported the pro-abortion Emily's List, to it's elevation to department head of a professor who sponsored and championed The Vagina Monologues--despite the statements of the local ordinary that it should not be performed on campus, it makes it easy for anyone to challenge it's religious identity. It wouldn't be hard to say that the religious character of the school isn't substantial, it's window dressing for tax, labor law and funding purposes. At this point, I would be hard put to say the NLRB would be wrong to say that it's not run by the Church--it simply does as it pleases.
The problem is, what about a school that's trying to reclaim it's Catholic Identity? Take De Paul, in Chicago. The university has denied tenure to several applicants, for lacking a thorough grounding in the Philosophy and History required to effectively conduct catholic education. Good for them. Yet the Faculty and Student Body is protesting, saying that it's racist not to give these people tenure, or discriminatory to the GLBT community, etc. Is this a reflection of the Catholic identity of the institution? Well, yes, it is. According to Ex Corde Ecclesiae, student life and faculty matter. The NLRB could effectively argue that the Church Run Identity of the School has been discarded by the Faculty and Students.
I don't know if these schools are Catholic, or Catholic in Name Only. And this makes them, and all our institutions, vulnerable to government interference or take over. To put it bluntly, our appetite, as Catholics, for dissing Catholicism and nurturing dissent may well s cost us the work of 250 years. Work by those who labored under bigotry and discrimination, and at times violence. And because of this, bigotry and discrimination and yes, violence, will cripple us for generations.
This would be so much easier, if we could tell at a glance if a school was Catholic.
The National Labor Relations Board--which is supposed to provide unbiased judgments and arbitration between Labor and Industry/Employers--has been a little hard on Catholic Colleges lately. It's a given that under the current administration, the NLRB is partisan, exercising it's power on behalf of the unions, not an unbiased reading of the law, but I'm a little troubled.
In January, the NLRB ruled against Manhattan College, saying it didn't have standing as a Church activity--and cited the College's own literature against it. Manhattan College managed to do itself harm by proclaiming its lack of adherence to the Church's rules about what it takes to be a Catholic College. Now for the second time, the NLRB has ruled against a Catholic College--St Xavier University in Chicago--saying it is not a Church run institution.
I am not familiar enough with the situation at St. Xavier to give an opinion.
But the Supreme Court ruled in 1979 (NLRB vs The Catholic Bishop of Chicago et al) that the NLRB doesn't have jurisdiction over Church schools, and it seems to me that they are trying to assert that by attacking the Catholic identity of the schools. (This goes hand-in-hand with Obama's ongoing attempts to drive a wedge into the Church exploiting the existing fault lines over social teaching, morality and structure. There is a historical precedent for this--see the post below on 27 Feb 33!) However, you can tell from the date of the citation above that this problem predates the Obama Administration.
The NLRB uses a test called 'substantial religious character' to determine whether or not a school or institution is actually a church operated entity. But the Federal Courts have twice instructed the NLRB,in 2002 and 2008, that this test is illegal and must be stopped. It hasn't complied, Like so many Federal Bureaucracies, it seems to feel it is above or outside the law, or perhaps the source of the law.
This seems like an attack by a government agency on Catholic Education, and there have been many of those, dating to the 19th century, and at times they have required the intervention of the Supreme Court to protect the rights of Catholics to educate their children and to operate Catholic Schools and Colleges.
The problem is, I'm not sure that many Catholic universities are Church run, either. Consider Notre Dame. This insitution, long an icon of Catholic University education, can persuasively argued to be non-catholic. From it's decision to honor, in contravention of Ex Corde Ecclesiae , a pro abortion politician, to it's appointment and acceptance of a woman who has long supported the pro-abortion Emily's List, to it's elevation to department head of a professor who sponsored and championed The Vagina Monologues--despite the statements of the local ordinary that it should not be performed on campus, it makes it easy for anyone to challenge it's religious identity. It wouldn't be hard to say that the religious character of the school isn't substantial, it's window dressing for tax, labor law and funding purposes. At this point, I would be hard put to say the NLRB would be wrong to say that it's not run by the Church--it simply does as it pleases.
The problem is, what about a school that's trying to reclaim it's Catholic Identity? Take De Paul, in Chicago. The university has denied tenure to several applicants, for lacking a thorough grounding in the Philosophy and History required to effectively conduct catholic education. Good for them. Yet the Faculty and Student Body is protesting, saying that it's racist not to give these people tenure, or discriminatory to the GLBT community, etc. Is this a reflection of the Catholic identity of the institution? Well, yes, it is. According to Ex Corde Ecclesiae, student life and faculty matter. The NLRB could effectively argue that the Church Run Identity of the School has been discarded by the Faculty and Students.
I don't know if these schools are Catholic, or Catholic in Name Only. And this makes them, and all our institutions, vulnerable to government interference or take over. To put it bluntly, our appetite, as Catholics, for dissing Catholicism and nurturing dissent may well s cost us the work of 250 years. Work by those who labored under bigotry and discrimination, and at times violence. And because of this, bigotry and discrimination and yes, violence, will cripple us for generations.
This would be so much easier, if we could tell at a glance if a school was Catholic.
2 comments:
Oh, you think that is confusing, The Toronto Catholic District School Board proposed an Equity Policy that among other things says that Groups like the GAY-STRAIGHT ALLIANCE are acceptable student groups in the high schools.
The Gay-Straight alliance had a presentation at our elder's school and among the crap their spewed was something along the lines of the Church laws and the Bible were written a very long time ago fo a certain group of people."
So they come into a presumably Catholic School, openly mock church teaching and then wonder why the Archbishop want's them out of the school's
I can't figure out why the school's don't invite speakers from COURAGE into the schools.
At least COURAGE is a Church approved support group for persons struggling with SSA, learning and accepting God's call to lead celebate lives.
You are confused, welcome to my world.
The problemwith courageis this: It teaches people with SSA to be chaste. The GBLT movement considers that HATE. What's worse is, the GAY (as opposed to homosexual)priests, bishops and religious don't want to hear that they have to be chaste--they don't teach the laity to be chaste--and they think that being afflicted with SSA gives them a license to be slutty.
That's why courage is the Apostolate that the modernists want to send somewhere...else.
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