Conservative Donnybrook

Julieanne Dolan, associate editor of the National Review Online and Holy Cross alum, has this piece on yet another disaster-in-the making in Worcester, Massachusetts.  Apparently, President Father McFarland is opening the doors to Planned Parenthood and NARAL, who will be sponsoring an Alliance on Teen Pregnancy Conference this Wednesday.  I really do not find this surprising, considering this is only the latest misstep in McFarland’s attempt to pander to the liberal diverse majority that comprises the student body at U.S. News & World Report’s only Catholic liberal arts college ranked in the top 50 (33 overall).

The Holy Cross Cardinal Newman Society (unaffiliated), whose mission it is to “renew the Catholic identity of Holy Cross,” has sure had a lot on its plate since McFarland  took the reigns in July of 2000.  In 2002, McFarland dismissed as trivial all concerns (and there were many) regarding a student-run production of The Vagina Monolgues, a play that lauds the vagina as “the very essence of womanhood.”  In 2003, he welcomed abortion advocate and alumnus Chris Matthews as the commencement speaker, even bestowing upon Matthews an honorary degree.  Again in 2003, McFarland chose to take a vow of silence when confronted by students and alumni who condemned the college newspaper editor’s “coming out” for homosexual marriages.

For fun, I decided to re-read Holy Cross’ mission statement.  For some odd reason, I think it read a bit differently when I was an entering freshman in 1998.  It is not until the third paragraph that the mission statement even  identifies the school as Jesuit.  Immediately thereafter, the statement almost takes pains to dismiss Holy Cross’ Catholicity: “The College is dedicated to forming a community which supports the intellectual growth of all its members while offering them opportunities for spiritual and moral development.”  Ironically, the school’s mission seems to promote the very relativism that the Church has been fighting since the Enlightenment demythologized religion for us.  Perhaps more ironic is the way the statement ends, with its emphasis on the environment of “shared responsibility” the college seeks to foster.  That is, shared responsibility for everyone but the President.