Saturday, December 13, 2008

Prayer Breakfast/USF UPDATE

This is an update to the recent posts "'Catholic' Mayor Publicly Attacks Catholic Faith" and "Good News From USF".

We just received our December 12 issue of "Catholic San Francisco" the weekly newspaper of the Archdiocese of San Francisco. They covered the insulting behavior of Mayor Gavin Newsom at the recent prayer breakfast. There was little new in the story except this quote from Fr. Donal Godfrey, Executive Director of University at the (Jesuit) University of San Francisco.

"Jesuit Father Donal Godfrey, executive director of University Ministry at the University of San Francisco, said that while he 'personally opposed Prop 8 which is a matter of conscience,' he 'did not feel that this was the right occasion for a speech such as this.'"

Here we have the Executive Director of University Ministry at USF, charged with the spiritual welfare of Catholic students on a Catholic campus, defending "as a matter of conscience" (whatever that means) dissenting from the teaching of the entire Magisterium of the Church on what the Holy Father has called a non-negotiable issue.

I'd call this incredible, except it is business as usual at USF. To get a good feeling from where Fr. Godfrey is coming from, listen to this radio interview he gave to ABC Radio Australia during "World Youth Day" earlier this year.

Yesterday, after they were caught pushing a health plan on students that MANDATED abortion coverage, USF's PR Department said:

"We regret this mistake, and we take full responsibility for not adequately reviewing the contract. We are grateful to those who brought this issue to our attention."

Like hell they are. I don't think that was any more of an accident than the continued employment of Fr. Godfrey is an accident.

Posted by Gibbons J. Cooney.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Fr. Godfrey must be a heretic. Why is he in control of a university. He should be working in a soup kitchen or something.

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Anonymous said...

What are the chances that Archbishop Niederauer will call Fr. Godfrey in for a conversation about his submission to Catholic doctrine about marriage and sexuality? Fr. Godfrey's public statement places him outside full communion with the Catholic Church and could cause scandal among USF students and Catholics in the Archdiocese. The Jesuits are just about a lost cause, anyway.