Andrew Abela speaks during the celebration of the founding of the Catholic University of America's school of business and economics. Photo by Ed Pfueller, courtesy of The Catholic University of America
More protests over Koch gift to Catholic University of America
(RNS) A group of leading Catholic activists and academics has renewed criticism of Catholic University of America over a large gift from the billionaire industrialist and conservative funder Charles Koch, and over a school official's statements that seem to endorse Koch’s questioning of climate change and the right of public workers to unionize.
Andrew Abela speaks during the celebration founding of the school of business and economics. Photo by Ed Pfueller, courtesy of The Catholic University of America
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In a letter sent on Monday (Feb. 10) to CUA President John Garvey and Andrew Abela, dean of CUA’s new business school, more than 50 Catholic signatories said Charles Koch and his brother, David, “have a clear political and ideological agenda.”
The Kochs’ libertarian-leaning positions, they said, “are in direct conflict with traditional Catholic values.”
CUA’s announcement last fall that the Koch Foundation had given $1 million to the School of Business and Economics to fund lecturers and courses in “principled entrepreneurship” sparked concern among some faculty and champions of Catholic social teaching.
In December, dozens of them wrote to Garvey and Abela expressing concern that “by accepting such a donation you send a confusing message to Catholic students and other faithful Catholics that the Koch brothers’ anti-government, Tea Party ideology has the blessing of a university sanctioned by Catholic bishops.”
CUA, based in Washington, has an especially high profile in part because it sits in the nation's capital and it operates under the aegis of the U.S. bishops.
The university responded with unusually pointed and personal criticisms of the signatories, calling them “presumptuous” and accusing them of trying to “to manufacture controversy and score political points.”
Abela, who is an exponent of conservative free-market policies that are gaining traction in some Catholic circles, also gave an interview in which he said that “Catholic social teaching says nothing" about public sector unions. He also said that while Catholic teaching affirms respect for the environment, “it doesn’t say if you question global warming or climate change that’s a sin.”
Joseph Fahey, head of Catholic Scholars for Worker Justice and chief organizer of the latest letter, said the assertions were misleading when it came to long-standing church teaching on unions and misconstrued repeated church and papal pronouncements on the environment.
“In the face of growing threats to workers' rights, Catholic university leaders should be especially mindful not to give moral cover to well-funded anti-union activists," Fahey said. “It's essential that universities protect Catholic identity when it comes to worker justice and the common good.”
The critics’ letter noted that Pope Francis has been outspoken on the Christian duty to protect the environment -- a cause the Koch brothers have strongly opposed.
On global warming it also quotes former Pope Benedict XVI, who wrote: “Can we remain indifferent before the problems associated with such realities as climate change, desertification, the deterioration and loss of productivity in vast agricultural areas, the pollution of rivers and aquifers?”
CUA said that it would have no statement beyond its response last December to the initial letter.
Other CUA defenders have said the Koch critics are themselves tainted because they received help in publicizing the letter from the progressive religious lobby Faith in Public Life, which receives some funding from the Open Society Institute backed by liberal-leaning billionaire George Soros.
Faith in Public Life says it receives about $200,000 a year from Open Society, about 13 percent of its annual budget. Officials there say they work with Catholic leaders in support of Catholic teaching, whereas Koch money is used to oppose Catholic teaching.
YS/AMB END GIBSON
Comments
You must realize, people like the Koch brothers are unable to even think that there is anything they cannot buy, whether it’s oil or mansions or protectors or politicians or women or Catholic Universities! They have been born and bred into that mentality. They are mental throwbacks distinct from the physical evolutionary process. Their bodies have evolved, but not their minds or their morals.
That whould be a wise consideration as we celebrate Charles Darwin’s birthday. Not all minds evolved in equal measure with their bodies. Just consider our lazy and ignorant electorate and the bold practitioners of politics like Ayn Rand, the Koch brothers, the Romneys, Paul Ryan, Scott Walker, John Kasich, the “Tea Party,” and all the other misfits of the Republican Party.
The real question is who are the political” misfits”–those in the conservative wing of the Republican Party— or those in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party.
Considering, after all, there are as many- or more millionaires throwing around their financial weight in the Democratic Party than in the Republican Party. Some researchers even claim that the Democratic Party has become solely owned by George Soros whose sleazy business dealings drove him from Europe. A few years ago Soros got a Democratic Party debate canceled by threatening financial revenge against any Democrat who took part in a Fox sponsored debate. One by one most Democrats dropped out of the debate
And calling people one disagrees with– or maybe hates–“mental throwbacks” doesn’t exactly help along civilized debate. Or is that just George Soros talking????
Right wing fascism loves the Christian establishment
like gasoline loves a box of matches.
Of course Charles Koch is throwing his money behind the irrational, anti-science, anti-democratic, submissive ‘flock’. The purpose is transparent.
Shame on the Catholics who think has anything to do with ‘love’ or ‘compassion’.
“there are as many- or more millionaires throwing around their financial weight in the Democratic Party than in the Republican Party.”
cite please, with link… [includie pac’s run by millionares by party]
“Some researchers even claim that the Democratic Party has become solely owned by George Soros…”
cite please, with link
You’re a joke. These “Catholics” have no problem with baby-murderers but the fact that the Kochs have different ideas than Leftist “Catholics” about how to build toward the future and cleaner technologies makes them untouchable? PUHHHLLLEEEAAAASSEEE!!
Just Google “George Soros millionaire Democratic Donor” and” Democratic Party Millionaires” and you’ll find a long list of stories under both headings. Incidentally, 7 of 10 wealthiest members of Congress are Democrats.
Geez, all this to do over a million bucks? I can only paraphrase Moynihan’s famous quip: the reason fights at Catholic universities are so vicious is because the stakes are so low. Harvard probably spends this amount of money on hors d’ouevres for its fund raising events. The Kochs are not so terrible. All you sanctimonious liberals: hold your noses and take their money.
Only an ignorant person would characterize the Catholic Church as anti-science.
Bullocks… social justice “catholics” arent Catholic. They support baby murder, sodomites, and use “climate change” as a bullwart for population control.
They support diobolical groups like planned parenthood who have been spreading their Margaret Sanger eugenicsunder the bannar of “wwomen’s health”.
Pathetic
Planned parenthood gives more to baby killer democrats than the Koch brothers.
Don’t forget about the fake Catholic groups that Soros started. Catholics in alliance for the common good being one of them, and the millions Soros gives to catholics for choice… both dissident groups
no cites, no links…nothing that backs either of your claims…
“some researchers…” ranks with “some astrologers” in the credibility sweepstakes
Mike,
I am not ignorant.
The Catholic church may be the most open-minded of all religions when it comes to evolution and astronomy NOW. But you must not forget what they did to Galileo and countless other scientists over the centuries – jailing them, persecuting them and even killing them – for discoveries which countered church doctrine.
Today millions of Catholics will walk into old buildings, chant incantations toward the ceiling and upon doing so believe that a cracker on a dish has become the literal body of a man who died 2000 years ago.
They leave the building with their delusions reinforced; among them the delusion that facts are not really ‘facts’ at all.
That is anti-science.
The true coin of religion is ‘control of others’ and you just put it perfectly.
“Keep government away from me…
But stick it in everybody else’s bedroom”
Your position is completely unimpeded by any thought process.
Ancient nonsense.
“Baby killer democrats” is a disgusting, ignorant slander.
There would be far fewer abortions if Religion would stop impeding the distribution of contraceptives.
Your position is heartless, impractical and cruel.
Jim,
“Only a million bucks”
Where was that generous attitude when food stamps were being obliterated by congress? “Sanctimonious” is apparently only what you call your opposition.
If Catholic University wants to whore themselves out to the Koch’s so be it. Just don’t pretend to act with any kind of moral authority in doing so. Expect people to be upset and deal with it. Taking the Koch’s money means taking the criticism that one gets for associating with them.
One of the biggest modern problems religious believers have had with science is the bigotry of some who claim to be speaking for science.
Historically, any new ideas–even today–generally meet with some opposition.
Yet Copernicus was a Polish priest, the “father” of genetics was Gregor Mendel–a monk, the Big Bang Theory that virtually all scientists ascribe to today was propounded by a Jesuit priest. His biggest problem in getting his theory accepted was atheist scientists whose bigotry blinded them to the truth of his work.
Some should read “Galileo’s Mistake” by Wade Rowland (whose book was the basis of a PBS Nova).
The whole issue revolving around Galileo was not as simplistic as atheist bigots against religion would have it.
And consider the “country-club”” incarceration” Galileo received. Compare that to the brutality that atheists meted out to millions of people in the 2oth Century.Communist Gulags, Nazi Dachaus (filled with clergy –many of whom were executed (like the heroic Dietrich Bonhoffer who did more to oppose Nazism than any atheist.
DEACON JOHN,
“Dietrich Bonhoffer who did more to oppose Nazism than any atheist.”
Oh, my is that rich!
The Vatican Concordat of April 26, 1933 was the first peace treaty ever signed with Adolph Hitler.
Why? Perhaps because Hitler had a favorite parable in ‘The 12 Minas’:
“And as for these enemies of mine who didn’t want me to be their king–bring them in and EXECUTE THEM right here in front of me.’” – JESUS, (Luke 19:27)
“Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.”
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
Don’t bring up Nazis unless you want to highlight Christian atrocities.
At least Atheists don’t have a holy book which implores terror with “Gott Mit Uns”
DEACON JOHN,
Science is the inquiry into the unknown.
Religion however is a fossilized, unchanging ancient philosophy asserting countless claims upon human activities in the name of unquantifiable beings and unsupportable facts asserted to be eternally true and unchanging which cannot be proven, demonstrated or shown to exist – all for the worship of an invisible, unprovable, logically impossible being called a god or Gods.
Religion and science are not compatible. Unless religion willingly admits it is nothing more than a man-made enterprise of poetry, myth, ancient fables and attempts to interpret human suffering it must die off.
God as myth is fine. But God is unsustainable as a ‘fact’.
DEACON JOHN,
Sorry but it took an atheist to end WW2.
Einstein. We couldn’t have done it without him.
I googled a number of sites to get information on Einstein’s religious beliefs. and came across this Einstein statement: “I cannot prove to you there is no personal God.” In fact, he specifically refused to accept EITHER label “:atheist” or “believer”, but much of what he said about his attitude toward religion borders on what some religious people call mysticism.
DEACON JOHN M. BRESNAHAN,
“I received your letter of June 10th. I have never talked to a Jesuit priest in my life and I am astonished by the audacity to tell such lies about me. From the viewpoint of a Jesuit preist I am, of course, and always have been an Atheist.”
– Albert Einstein, Letter to Guy H. Raner Jr., July 2, 1945
ATHEIST – DOES NOT BELIEVE IN GOD.
ATHEISM IS NOT THE CLAIM THAT A GOD DOES NOT EXIST.
ATHEIST ONLY SAYS HE DOES NOT BELIEVE.
Its all politics, not religious. As has been stipulated before, there are a lot of liberals who infest the Catholic Church, and I’d guess even more so on “Catholic” campusses.
The Koch Bros are conservatives and GOP supporters, and these so-called “Catholic activists” are probably leftwingers, Catholics in name only (CINO’s) and THAT is the reason they don’t like the university taking the money. The whole Jew/Catholic thing I am quite sure has nothing to do with all the hubbub.