Liberal Catholics Fret Over Koch Donation to Catholic University
Given the atmosphere on some college campuses today, Catholics have bigger things to worry about than donations from the Kochs.
Michael Patrick Leahy of Breitbart reports.
Leftist Catholics Wary of Koch $1M Donation to Catholic University
On Friday, a group of left-wing Catholic academics bashed the Tea Party in a letter to John Garvey, President of Catholic University. They objected to the school’s recent acceptance of a $1 million donation from the Charles Koch Foundation to help fund a new school of business.
In the December 13 letter, the 49 signators, including Reverend Stephen A. Privett, the Jesuit President of the University of San Francisco, as well as several faculty members at Catholic University, Boston College, Notre Dame, and Holy Cross, complained that Koch’s Tea Party ideology conflicted with Pope Francis’s November 24 apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium.
“While we understand the challenges of starting a business school during a time of fiscal constraints and restrained philanthropic and government funding,” they wrote, “we must raise our serious concerns about a recent $1 million gift the university has accepted from the Charles Koch Foundation.” The signators claimed that “Charles and David Koch have an ideological agenda when it comes to shaping the national debate over economics and politics that is not simply academic in nature.”
The main complaint of the signators is that “[t]he Koch brothers are billionaire industrialists who fund organizations that advance public policies that directly contradict Catholic teaching on a range of moral issues from economic justice to environmental stewardship.”
The letter’s authors singled out the Tea Party for particular criticism. “We are concerned that by accepting such a donation,” they stated, “you send a confusing message to Catholic students and other faithful Catholics that the Koch brothers’ anti-government, Tea Party ideology has the blessing of a university sanctioned by Catholic bishops.”
Leftist Catholics Wary of Koch $1M Donation to Catholic University (Breitbart.com)
Comments
“The main complaint of the signators is that ‘[t]he Koch brothers are billionaire industrialists who fund organizations that advance public policies that directly contradict Catholic teaching on a range of moral issues from economic justice to environmental stewardship.’”
Okay. Let me change one or two items and lets see what might roll out.
“The main complaint of the signators is that ‘[Prince Waleed Bin Talal is a] billionaire [Muslim] industrialist[] who [in 2005] fund[ed the Prince Waleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown[*] and other] organizations that advance public policies that directly contradict Catholic teaching on a range of moral issues from economic justice to environmental stewardship.’”
“The signators [further] claimed that ‘Charles and David Koch have an ideological agenda when it comes to shaping the national debate over economics and politics that is not simply academic in nature.’” Gee, I wonder if that value-laden judgment might apply, in just a teensie-weensie little bit, to Islam.
How many of the 2013 complainants were complaining back in 2005 when this Muslim “gift” was made to Georgetown and its Islam apologist Esposito? Likely not one of them.
Does Islam advance public policies that directly contradict Catholic teaching on a range of moral issues, oh, just to choose a random point, lets say the divinity of Jesus Christ as the Savior of the world who is also the Son of God? Shhhhhh, don’t let on to the answer. Lets see if our august complainers know Catholic doctrine and Islamic doctrine.
Conclusion. Leftists? For certain, first and foremost. Catholics? Up for serious debate.
*The best that can be said of Georgetown is that it was once a Catholic school. Like Boston College, like Notre Dame, like other formerly Catholic colleges which traded away the Truth for their 30 pieces of liberalism.