USF Vice-Provost for Students also Board Chair of Abortion Providers

California Catholic Daily has an edited version of this story.

USF’s New Vice-Provost of Student Life Also serves as Board Chair for Abortion Providers
On July, 28, 2016 the Jesuit University of San Francisco announced the appointment of a new vice-provost of student life. From the press release announcing the appointment:

“The University of San Francisco (USF) has named Julie Orio vice provost of student life. Orio has served as interim vice provost of student life at USF since August 2015, where she has led a team of approximately 140 full-time professionals and 25 graduate students to enliven the university’s Jesuit mission through its co-curricular offices and activities that support the development and success of all students. She will begin her permanent role immediately.”

The release continued:

“Beyond her responsibilities at USF, since 2006 she has been actively involved in the Women’s Community Clinic in San Francisco, serving as board member and chair.”

“Enlivening the university’s Jesuit mission” apparently includes “serving as board member and chair” of an organization that provides birth control, ‘emergency contraception,’ and ‘Medication Abortion.’ The ‘Women’s Health Services’ page on the Women’s Community Clinic’s website page describes ‘Medication Abortion’: “ Medication abortion is a way to terminate an early pregnancy by using medications. It’s often called the ‘abortion pill’, and it’s an option for women during their first ten weeks of pregnancy. Medication abortion works through a combination of two drugs: Mifeprex and Misoprostol. Mifeprex blocks the hormone progesterone, which will stop the growth of the pregnancy; Misoprostol will then cause the uterus to contract and help your body expel the pregnancy.”

The mission statement for USF’s Office of Student Life includes the following: “While each office within Student Life holds a specialized mission, our work is in service to and collaboration with the University's mission to offer ‘the knowledge and skills needed to succeed as persons and professionals, and the values and sensitivity necessary to be men and women for others.’” How this vision of “the values and sensitivity necessary to be men and women for others” can be furthered by a person serving as board chair of an organization which describes abortion, the taking of an innocent human life, as “expelling the pregnancy” is perhaps something that only a corrupt Jesuit can understand.

It is not the first time USF and the Women’s Community Clinic have partnered. On Mar8, 2010, in the article ‘Abortionfest at USF’, CalCatholic reported that one of the featured speakers at USF’s 2010 Global Women’s Rights Forum was Dr. Eve Zaritsky, the then-medical Director of the Women’s Community Clinic. From the article “The Women’s Community Clinic ‘Services’ page offers ‘Emergency Contraception,’ which, depending on the timing, can be an abortion. The Women’s Community Clinic does not offer non-emergency contraception abortions, but will refer women to organizations that do.” That lack has obviously since been addressed. The aricle continued “The forum is sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences, the Leo T. McCarthy Center for Public Service and the Common Good, the Sociology Colloquium, the School of Nursing, the Politics Department, the Gender and Sexuality Studies Department, and curiously, the Theology and Religious Studies Department….”

Ms. Orio is far from the only rotten apple at USF. USF Faculty includes the Reverend Vincent Pizzuto. In addition to his work as Professor of New Testament Studies, with “LGBT Hermeneutics and Theology” listed as one of his areas of expertise, Pizzuto is also the Director of USF’s Catholic Studies and Social Thought Minor and the Coordinator of the Ignatian Faculty Forum. His biographical page on the USF website lists another of his areas of expertise: “same-gender marriage.” It does not mention that Pizzuto, born Catholic, and currently a minister of the Episcopal Church, has presided at such counterfeit “marriages.”

The anti-Catholicism at USF goes right to the top. As CalCatholic reported on April 23, 2016 , USF’s president, Fr. Paul Fitzgerald, SJ, attended San Francisco’s the Gay Pride parade, in 2015. The parade is a celebration of the sin of sodomy.

Why San Francisco’s Catholic clergy and hierarchy choose to remain silent is unknown. While USF is objectively no more evil than the University of California or Stanford, its masquerade as an institution in any way connected to the Catholic Church presents a much greater spiritual danger.