Accuracy in Academia has devoted considerable attention to policies and practices at Boston College that make the institution run by the Jesuit order of priests sometimes look “Catholic in name only.” Thanks to the fine young men and women keeping the faith at The Observer, the alternative newspaper on campus, we now know that administrators there are making some effort to return tradition in the midst of academic fads.
Nevertheless, the reporters at The Observer at Boston College show, old habits of accommodation are proving hard to break. “Returning to school for the Spring semester, some professors were shocked to learn about a new university policy that added crucifixes to every classroom on campus over the winter break,” Michael Reer reports in the January 27, 2009 issue of The Observer. “Calling the crucifixes and Catholic icons offensive at a Jesuit university, at least one professor is refusing to teach in classrooms adorned by a crucifix even if he should have to move his class to a different room at his own expense.”
Wow, that’s serious. Most liberal professors are reluctant to part with their own elusive spondulex, no matter how plentiful it is, unless they are making a political contribution to the candidate of their choice, donations they would probably like to declare charitable contributions to the IRS.
“The crucifixes have been a part of The Heights in scattered classrooms since the 1970s,” Reer writes. Diane Macedo, who graduated from BC in 2004, told me in a radio interview later that year that in four years at the school, she did not remember ever seeing a cross.
Macedo is now a producer with Fox News. Reer is the editor-in-chief of The Observer.
In his words, “The Observer promotes and defends traditional political and religious values both within Boston College and beyond.” In his article, he quotes two chemistry professors who object to the school administration’s reintroduction of crucifixes in Catholic classrooms.
Perhaps they should have read the BC mission statement. Then again, maybe the other objecting pedagogues would not have been as bent out of shape about the icons if the new president were represented on them.
“Some students and alumni have questioned campus ministry’s joint celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. and Barack Obama’s inauguration, considering the new administration’s pro-choice policies,” Reer reported in a separate story in that same issue of The Observer. “Despite Campus Ministry’s assertion that a ‘majority of the liturgy’ was focused on King, the event was billed as a ‘Celebration of Hope’ by Campus Ministry posters around campus.”
“Further drawing the ire of some alumni was the fact that the liturgical celebration, taking place in a Catholic chapel, seemed to rejoice over the election of a president that [sic] will stand in direct opposition to the Catholic Church on one of its most prominent social positions.” That would be abortion.
“The fact that they have different contextualized responses and approaches to their own particular callings is not problematic to me personally,” Reverend Howard McLendon told Reer. The Jesuit director of Campus Ministries takes a more realistic but perhaps too optimistic view.
“Part of our fervent prayer is also that he grow in his understanding, appreciation and application of policies that support a consistent ethic of life so important in this country,” Rev. James Erp, S. J., said of the new president of the United States. Meanwhile, one of President Obama’s first acts in office was to reverse President Bush’s executive order banning the U. S. government’s promotion of abortion abroad.
Ultimately, despite the efforts of BC administrators to make BC Catholic in more than just name, the campus remains mired in post-modern mode. “At the conclusion of the program, I knew BC’s diversity ratios and that I was required to respect them,” Allison Gallagher wrote of her freshman orientation in a feature in The Observer. “I know how to properly conduct myself at a party, and I knew that I had suffered through three long and boring days, filled with forced discussions and awkward silences.”
Although such an approach may seem to be an odd way to introduce students to Catholic higher education, it might be the perfect introduction to the manner and mores of the Obama Administration. Nonetheless, parents and students who opt for such religious institutions to pursue a higher education in do not expect the governance of a Catholic institution of higher learning to reflect the way in which 52 percent of the electorate has destined the nation to be governed for at least the next four years.
Malcolm A. Kline is the executive director of Accuracy in Academia.
