Source: Ivory Tower Heretics -- Read Full Story

For those seeking a truly "Catholic" college experience in the New England Region, it can be tough. Boston College, a.k.a. Barely Catholic, long ago succumbed to the secular world-view and is probably best known for dissenting theologians popular with the mainstream media.

Holy Cross College is even worse. It's public promotion of Planned Parenthood at a recent symposium brought the condemnation of the Bishop of Worcester. They openly support abortion and gay causes as well as hosting the pornographic and blatantly anti-Catholic Vagina Monologues.

The smaller colleges of choice for Catholic students likewise suffer an identity crisis and crisis of faithfulness. Tilting leftward, they do all they can to avoid outward expressions of piety while trumpeting so-called :diversity" and "tolerance", code for gay friendliness and hostility to traditional Catholic belief. These colleges include Merrimack College, Stonehill College, Saint Anselm's College and Assumption College.

We previously reported that the new president of Assumption, Francesco C. Cesareo, gave a speech last fall upon his installation that signaled that perhaps he would turn Assumption back into a Catholic school. So we decided to take a look and see how he's fared so far.

First, it's important to note how far the school had to go. In 2002 it was reported that a student manning a booth in support of traditional marriage on campus was openly harassed by pro-gay attackers brought on campus from the outside by a gay campus group in full view of Mark Bilotta, a college administrator. In 2006, Mr. Bilotta was named the head of the Worcester Consortium of colleges and is still employed in a senior position at Assumption.

The campus gay club, AC Allies, still advertises their on campus activities, and as usual disguise their intention to promote homosexuality as some sort of human right and anti-bullying campaign, the same tactic being used nationally to get homosexuality accepted at secular high schools. On a recent post acceptance tour, a student remarked to me that they couldn't even find a pro-life club.

But in an even more in-your-face act, and a good indicator of the resistance the new president is facing, it was reported that the faculty voted to charge President Francesco Cesareo and his cabinet with violating policy when they refused to host a gay activist veteran as a Veterans Day speaker. On Internet postings, some faculty claimed the school was violating their "free speech rights." Given that Assumption College is a private, religious institution, such a claim is juvenile. Hopefully these weren't law professors. More striking is that no one was as vocal when the student was being harassed for supporting traditional marriage.

Turning a Catholic college around may be more difficult than the new president thought but it can be done. One huge obstacle is that most college faculty are tenured and secure enough in their positions to openly defy and secretly undermine any policies they disagree with.

Examples where the turnarounds did occur or are in progress include Franciscan University at Steubenville Ohio, rated as faithful by Cardinal Newman Society and National Catholic Register, and Providence College where similarly a new college president declared the Eucharist and the chapel to be the center of all the college stands for and set about ridding the campus of activities contrary to the Catholic mission. Catholic colleges like Franciscan U have become the transfer destination of choice for devout Catholic students disillusioned with the Catholic-in-name-only colleges.

To truly make the change will require preferential acceptance of practicing Catholics in the student body as well as in hiring of staff. Sadly, Assumption's reputation as a gay-friendly party school (the nickname of the school is "Consumption") is so ingrained that good Catholics are likely to continue to shun the school (as the child of this writer has decided to do). The school president will have to make painful changes that are both decisive and public if he is to change course.

We'll keep an eye on Assumption to see if this occurs.

Source: My Way News -- Read Full Story

Next up for Pope Benedict XVI, a welcoming nation that wants to get to know him. Benedict's first trip to the United States as pope begins Tuesday - a five-day visit to Washington and New York, including a speech at the United Nations. Anyone expecting strident speeches from the man once called "God's rottweiler" for his role defending Roman Catholic doctrine will be disappointed. Benedict will deliver an unwavering message that society needs religious values, but this intellectual pontiff will do it in the most positive way possible. After making relatively little headway in his efforts to re-ignite the faith in Europe, America's roughly 65 million Catholics seem anxious to hear him. "He has a way of helping us see what the Gospel and what the Catholic faith tradition asks of us that is challenging and not frightening," Washington Archbishop Donald Wuerl, Benedict's host in the first leg of the five-day trip, told The Associated Press.

Source: Los Angeles Times -- Read Full Story

Manny Ramirez hit a two-run double in the sixth inning to give the Red Sox the lead, and Josh Beckett yielded only one questionable hit in the first five innings and five hits in all in 6 2/3 innings. The game was delayed 2 hours 11 minutes with Yankees on first and second and two out in the eighth. When play resumed, Jonathan Papelbon struck out Alex Rodriguez. Papelbon struck out two more in a perfect ninth for his fourth save in four tries.

Source: The Tech Herald -- Read Full Story

A BBC-funded excavation at Stonehenge may have uncovered the original reason for the site's existence say archaeologists. The breakthrough discovery occurred when the team dug through a layer of ground at the site containing sockets which once held bluestones, smaller stones which formed the structure of the original Stonehenge site. Professor Tim Darvill, of Bournemouth University, who is leading the excavation work along with Professor Geoff Wainwright, president of the Society of Antiquaries, said the bluestones had been transported 250km from the Preseli Hills in Wales to the Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, where taken to the site because people believed they had magical healing powers. Professor Geoffrey Wainwright theorised the original Stonehenge was a "Neolithic Lourdes".

Source: AP -- Read Full Story

The global economy faces "considerable challenges" in the shape of a slowing US economy, financial market turmoil and higher inflation, US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Saturday. Paulson, addressing the spring meeting of the International Monetary and Financial Committee, said global growth had been favorable in past years but circumstances had now changed in the fallout from the US home loan crisis. "2008 will be a more difficult year, with headwinds coming from adjustments in the US economy, financial market stress, higher commodity prices, and higher than desirable inflation," Paulson said, according to the text of his address. "Downside risks will vary ... but no economy is entirely immune from global forces." Paulson said that after several years of "what, in retrospect, was unsustainable home price appreciation, the US economy is undergoing a significant housing correction." The fallout puts all the risks on the downside and the US authorities have responded with a series of measures, including increased spending, to cushion the blow, he said. "It took time to build up recent excesses and it will take time to work through the consequences. We must expect more bumps in the road," he said, citing the correction in the markets and reassessment of risk since August.

Source: Monsters and Critics -- Read Full Story

Chinese state media on Sunday continued to intensify rhetoric against the Dalai Lama, with fresh comment accusing the exiled Tibetan Buddhist leader of encouraging violence and trying to 'tarnish the Beijing Olympic Games.' 'The Dalai Lama had never really given up his hope of 'Tibet independence' and had always been involved in anti-China political activities aimed at splitting the country and undermining national unity under the camouflage of religion,' said one government statement issued by the official Xinhua news agency. 'The Dalai clique falsely sought dialogue with the Chinese central government, truly confronting the government, falsely bragging for peace, but truly instigating violence,' said the commentary, which was issued in response to a resolution on Tibet adopted by the US House of Representatives last week. It said independence protests and rioting in Lhasa, the capital of China's Tibet region, were 'organized, premeditated and deliberately masterminded and instigated by the Dalai clique.'

Source: My Way News -- Read Full Story

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff says he feels the pain of employers pinched by intensified efforts to control illegal immigration, but adds that until Congress enacts broad immigration reforms they shouldn't expect any changes in enforcement. In an interview with The Associated Press, Chertoff said this week that the rising complaints from businesses offer some evidence the Bush administration's approach is working. "This is harsh but accurate proof positive that, for the first time in decades, we've succeeded in changing the dynamic and (are) actually beginning to reduce illegal immigration," Chertoff said. "Unfortunately, unless you counterbalance that with a robust system to allow people to come in temporarily and legally, you're going to wind up with an economic problem."

Source: My Way News -- Read Full Story

A political tempest over Barack Obama's comments about bitter voters in small towns has given rival Hillary Rodham Clinton a new opening to court working class Democrats 10 days before Pennsylvanians hold a primary that she must win to keep her presidential campaign alive. Obama tried to quell the furor Saturday, explaining his remarks while also conceding he had chosen his words poorly. "If I worded things in a way that made people offended, I deeply regret that," Obama said in an interview with the Winston-Salem (N.C.) Journal. But the Clinton campaign fueled the controversy in every place and every way it could, hoping charges that Obama is elitist and arrogant will resonate with the swing voters the candidates are vying for not only in Pennsylvania, but in upcoming primaries in Indiana and North Carolina as well.

Source: Reuters -- Read Full Story

Pope Benedict will pray for the conversion to love "of those whose hearts and minds are consumed with hatred" when he visits New York's Ground Zero, the site of the World Trade towers destroyed on September 11, 2001. A prayer he will read also commemorates those who died or were injured in the other September 11 attack at the Pentagon and on United Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers fought off hijackers. Nearly 3,000 people died in the September 11 attacks, including the 19 hijackers. The pope will visit Ground Zero in lower Manhattan on April 20, the last day of his six-day visit to Washington and New York. Last month, al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden accused Benedict of being part of a "new crusade" against Islam. The Vatican rejected the accusation. The visit to Ground Zero, now a gaping crater where new buildings and a memorial will be built, is expected to be the emotional high point of the trip.

Source: AP -- Read Full Story

Sitting in her hospital room in Marion, Ill., 17-year-old Kassie Hopkins knew something was wrong when she looked at the newborn officials told her she had given birth to a day before. Mary Jo Bathon had the same feeling but left Heartland Regional Medical Center with the hospital's assurance that the baby she had was her son. She headed home to Pinckeyville, an hour away, making a stop to buy baby supplies. But in fact, hospital workers had inadvertently switched the babies. They sent Bathon home with Hopkins' son, leaving 17-year-old Hopkins in her hospital room, worried about her son's whereabouts, attorney John Womick said Friday after suing on the women's behalf in Williamson County Court. "Kassie, she's having trouble communicating how she feels," Womick said Friday. "All she can do pretty much is cry. She's now paranoid. She's very concerned about something happening to her baby." The hospital realized the mix-up and called Bathon at home the same day, March 28, and left a message on her answering machine asking her to return to Marion to retrieve her real son, Womick said.