Concerned Faculty, Staff Cite Hostility Towards Catholic Values at Marquette

To follow up on Terry's post from Saturday, this was posted at the Cardinal Newman Society.

A group of concerned faculty and staff members at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wis., recently gathered to discuss the University’s dwindling Catholic identity and the increased occurrences of Catholic teaching being discouraged, and even silenced, in University settings.

Participants of the group, Concerned Catholics at MU, wished to remain anonymous, but their meeting minutes were provided to The Cardinal Newman Society, and indicated that approximately 20 staff and faculty members were in attendance.

Last year, Marquette announced that it would conduct a “climate study” to determine the positivity and inclusivity of the University’s atmosphere. The study’s final report cited several concerns about ongoing hostility towards Catholic values: “Many respondents cited their Catholic or conservative values being marginalized, saying ‘Conservative Catholic views on the expression of human sexuality are not respected — not even room for dialogue’ and that ‘There is an ongoing sense of disrespect, anger, and assumptions related to the Catholic identity of our university.’”

In response, the administration encouraged the Marquette community to gather in like-minded groups in order to discuss their concerns and propose “action items” for the administration to “pursue in order to improve the climate on campus,” according to a post by John Hardon [McAdams, although it would be great to have Fr. John Hardon on our side...] on the Marquette Warrior, a blog which frequently covers Catholic identity concerns at the University. Concerned Catholics at MU “was one of the largest among these special-constituency climate study forums.”

- See more at: http://www.cardinalnewmansociety.org/CatholicEducationDaily/DetailsPage/tabid/102/ArticleID/4654/Concerned-Faculty-Staff-Cite-Hostility-Towards-Catholic-Values-at-Marquette.aspx#sthash.4GLxYaW9.dpuf

I've said before, St. Thomas' Catholic Studies program should be a model for the modern secular Catholic University.

Update: Apologies, the post was on MW, but it was a "guest column" by a John Hardon in no relation to Fr. John Hardon, SJ.