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Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26020 Posts

Posted - 05/28/2010 :  12:24:09  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message  Reply with Quote
This past Monday, local public radio station reporter Kavitha Cardoza had an interview with Fr. David O'Connell, who is ending his stint as president of The Catholic University of America. One of the questions she asked was this:
The University doesn't invite or honor speakers who oppose Catholic teachings, like abortion or gay rights. Is that at odds with the philosophy of higher education, where students are usually exposed to a lot of different viewpoints?
And here is O'Connell's reply:
Umm... do you need to have cancer to know that it hurts, that it's not a good thing? I don't think so.
Brilliant, isn't it? The very idea of abortion or of gays being equal under the law is being compared to cancer. He's not responding to a question of allowing abortion doctors or gay people on campus, but instead responding to a question about speakers on such subjects. The ideas are cancer, to him.

And for a while before that question and answer, he holds forth at length about it being THE Catholic University of America, with the blessings of the Bishops, and he's the president, so he doesn't get the excuse of being just one voice among a multitude of Catholics.

He does later claim that the official policy is that people who "oppose Catholic teachings" can come and speak, so long as there's a proper Catholic also speaking at the same event. And he and the University have every right to say "my house, my rules" (as he basically does), but that doesn't mean that comparing certain ideas to cancer isn't stupid and needlessly prejudicial.

- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too.

The Rat
SFN Regular

Canada
1370 Posts

Posted - 05/30/2010 :  15:43:03   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit The Rat's Homepage Send The Rat a Private Message  Reply with Quote
The only good thing one can say about most priests is that they don't breed.

Bailey's second law; There is no relationship between the three virtues of intelligence, education, and wisdom.

You fiend! Never have I encountered such corrupt and foul-minded perversity! Have you ever considered a career in the Church? - The Bishop of Bath and Wells, Blackadder II

Baculum's page: http://www.bebo.com/Profile.jsp?MemberId=3947338590
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Dude
SFN Die Hard

USA
6891 Posts

Posted - 06/02/2010 :  09:43:50   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Dude a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by The Rat

The only good thing one can say about most priests is that they don't breed.

If they were allowed to get laid, then they might not spend so much time fucking children.


Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson

"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin

Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth
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