In a clear-cut case of open dissent, USF's recently installed president, Fr. Stephen Privett (pictured above), fired the respected directors of the St. Ignatius Institute (SII) and annexed the program for the purpose of absorbing it into USF's misnamed “Catholic Studies” program.
Since the 1970s, SII has served as the only locale within the university wherein the true faith has been professed, giving students a grounding in the Catholic intellectual tradition and the official teachings of the Catholic Church.
USF's papal dissenters grudgingly permitted it to exist as something of a bone for the Church and the remnant of serious Catholics on the faculty and in the student body.
USF's new president, a blunt critic of traditional Catholics, has ended this détente. In a euphemistic letter to SII alumni, he presented his recklessness as prudence, saying he wants to “coordinate and concentrate the energy and resources currently allocated to the SII and Catholic Studies.”
He concealed his firings of director John Galten and assistant director John Hamlon as praise, expressing his “appreciation” for them even as he showed them the door.
His doublespeak should fool no one. As a proud theological reformer, his intentions are clear: to use the program's good reputation as a trojan horse for a modernist agenda alien to its canonical origins.
Six professors who teach in SII will resign from the program at the end of the school year. They explained their reasons in a letter to the university:
“Throughout these 25 years, the Institute has remained faithful to the vision of its founding Jesuit priests and that vision has borne much fruit… This has been a difficult task because certain individuals within the Jesuit community and the University have maintained a relentless assault on the Institute, trying to undermine its integrity.
“Representative of that liberality which can abide all things but orthodoxy, they have employed every means available to discredit the program and its personnel and to deny it resources. Regrettably, these forces have now succeeded.
“The injustice in the termination of Mr. Galten and Mr. Hamlon is manifest to all who know them and the Institute. It signals clearly that the University administration plans to alter fundamentally the character of the Institute.” (The signers are: Thomas Cavanaugh, Raymond Dennehy, Rosemarie Deist, Erasmo Leiva, Kim Summerhays and Michael Torre.)
Catholic historians should identify this moment in USF's history as significant. The destruction of its sound Jesuit identity is now complete — a terminus thrown into even more dramatic relief in light of Pope John Paul II's recent insistence that Catholic colleges in America recover their distinctively Catholic mission.
Following the dissenting line of the Jesuit journal America — which has loudly defended the secularization of Jesuit schools — Privett has expressed his non serviam to the Pope. The unstated mantra of the American Jesuit elite is this: “It is more important that American Jesuit colleges be American than Catholic.”
From USF to Georgetown, the Jesuits will tolerate every dogma, save uniquely Catholic ones.
Even as they wallow in freedom of thought and expression themselves, they deny it to the faithful Catholics in their midst. Even as they permit pro- abortion and pro-homosexual groups on their hallowed campuses, they cast loyal Catholics into the cold.
