Rockhurst University to Host Symposium with Newspaper Condemned by Bishop
October 14, 2014, at 3:27 PM | By Justin Petrisek |
Rockhurst University, a Catholic institution in Kansas City, Mo., is set to cosponsor a symposium with the National Catholic Reporter on November 1, 2014, according to the University. Last year, the Reporter’s local bishop reminded Catholics that the newspaper was condemned by a previous bishop and asked to stop using the name “Catholic” in its title.Writing in his column for The Catholic Key, Bishop Robert Finn of the Kansas City-Saint Joseph Diocese, publicly noted his “responsibility as the local bishop to instruct the Faithful about the problematic nature of this media source with bears the name ‘Catholic.’”
Bishop Finn continued, “I find that my ability to influence the National Catholic Reporter toward fidelity to the Church seems limited to the supernatural level.”
Bishop Finn wrote in his column:
I have received letters and other complaints about NCR from the beginning of my time here. In the last months I have been deluged with emails and other correspondence from Catholics concerned about the editorial stances of the Reporter: officially condemning Church teaching on the ordination of women, insistent undermining of Church teaching on artificial contraception and sexual morality in general, lionizing dissident theologies while rejecting established Magisterial teaching, and a litany of other issues.
My predecessor bishops have taken different approaches to the challenge. Bishop Charles Helmsing in October of 1968 issued a condemnation of the National Catholic Reporter and asked the publishers to remove the name “Catholic” from their title – to no avail. From my perspective, NCR’s positions against authentic Church teaching and leadership have not changed trajectory in the intervening decades.
When early in my tenure I requested that the paper submit their bona fides as a Catholic media outlet in accord with the expectations of Church law, they declined to participate indicating that they considered themselves an “independent newspaper which commented on ‘things Catholic.’” At other times, correspondence has seemed to reach a dead end.
Father Thomas Reese, S.J., senior analyst for the Reporter and former editor in chief of America magazine, is scheduled as the keynote speaker at the Rockhurst symposium.During the 2012 presidential election, Fr. Reese said, according to Catholic Online, “Bishops may be unhappy about the contraception mandate, but they have only 200 votes in this election.” He also reportedly said, “Contraception is a lot cheaper than live births, especially if the live births are problematic.”
Furthermore, Fr. Reese reportedly resigned from his post as editor in chief of America magazine following criticism from then-prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.
Last May, Fr. Reese undermined the efforts of some bishops to ensure that teachers uphold Catholic teaching. He reportedly said:
“This is happening now because you now have employees whose lives and marriages are public,” Rev. Thomas Reese, a senior analyst for the National Catholic Reporter and a visiting scholar at Santa Clara University told NBC Bay Area. “People see same-sex wedding announcements in the paper now, when before it was, ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell.’’’
Some bishops are responding to this behavior, Reese said, by “arguing that these people are not observing Catholic teachings and therefore shouldn’t be working for us.”
“I don’t think their argument holdswater,” Reese added. “If they were consistent, they’d fire anyone who got divorced and remarried, or who lived together.”
The one-day symposium at Rockhurst is titled “Becoming a Church of Mercy” and will consider “the milestones and lessons from the first 18 months of Pope Francis’ transformative papacy.”Catholic Education Daily is an online publication of The Cardinal Newman Society. Click here for email updates and free online membership with The Cardinal Newman Society.
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