The Unfelt Kick In The Teeth
Comfortably numb

WARNING!! Harsh Language Alert!

It started with a gentle nudge. How subtle. Now the audacity and arrogance of the American Roman Protestant Church has reached its predictabe next step.

Call it the Aldous Huxley Syndrome, call it the Golden Age of American Heresy, call it what you will. One thing's for sure... bullshit like this is just another page in the pathetic history of the Spirit of Vatican II.

And American Catholics don't even bat an eyelash. This is just another day in the life of the New & Improved Spirit of Vatican II-Friendly American Catholic Church.

Here's the entire article from the California Catholic Daily; (Emphasis mine)
USF Extends Father Privett’s Contract
University’s President to Serve Third Five-Year Term

In a move that will not comfort those who value fidelity to Catholic teaching at Catholic universities, the (Jesuit) University of San Francisco has extended the contract of President Stephen A. Privett, SJ.

Fr. Privett will begin a third five-year term as President of USF beginning September 14, 2010. Fr. Privett’s contract was unanimously approved by the USF Board of Trustees on June 9.

The USF News story reporting the contract extension said: “Fr. Privett’s leadership has been essential to improving USF’s profile as a premier Jesuit Catholic urban university devoted to educating leaders who fashion a more humane and just world as well as raising the university’s level of academic excellence, two successes they would like to see continue in his new term, board members said.”

The story did not indicate what defines USF as a “Catholic” university. During Fr. Privett’s presidency, the USF has closed its graduate program in theology. A small sampling of other notable events during Fr. Privett’s tenure include:


- Giving the invocation at the 2004 inauguration of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom--one month before Newsom instructed the San Francisco County Clerk to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

- The invitation to Nancy Pelosi, now doing all she can to ensure federal funding for abortion, to be USF’s 2007 Commencement Speaker.

- Hosting the “Religion and Sexuality: What’s the Connection?” seminar, which included speeches by Lisa Sargent, chaplain of Planned Parenthood Golden Gate, and the Ignacio Casteura, president of the Clergy Network of Planned Parenthood.

- The appointment of Fr. Donal Godfrey to the position of executive director of Campus Ministry at the university. Fr. Godfrey gave a workshop at the recent “DignityUSA” convention in San Francisco, where he boasted of marching, in his clerics, at the San Francisco gay pride parade.

- Hosting Bishop Geoffrey Robinson of Australia, despite the fact that Archbishop Niederauer (and Cardinal Mahony) had denied him permission to speak in their dioceses, because of his dissenting views; a controversy over the university’s health plan providing abortion coverage for students (later rescinded).

- Honoring of Therese Stewart and Shannon Minter, the two attorneys who successfully argued that the California Supreme Court should rule to redefine marriage as something other than between one man and one woman.

- Although USF has had to cancel its graduate program in theology, the university’s department of theology and religious studies does manage to employ the Reverend Vincent Pizzuto, a professor who abandoned his Catholic faith and was ordained priest in the “Celtic Christian Church” in 2006. The Reverend Pizzuto in late 2008 published the article “God Has Made it Plain to Them: An Indictment of Rome’s Hermeneutic of Homophobia,“ in which he claimed to find “…an identifiable and systemic homophobia pervasive throughout the Roman Catholic hierarchy.”
Fr. Privett has been saying that one of his goals is “increasing campus diversity.“ The need for diversity at the school was indicated during last year’s battle over Proposition 8, the preservation of natural marriage in California. Public records show that 25 USF faculty members made financial contributions to one side or the other during the campaign. One faculty member donated in support of Proposition 8, while 24 faculty members made donations in opposition.