Dissent in an unlikely place: GOP outreach to Catholics is threatened by war

[DeepModem Mom]

LAT: Dissent in an unlikely place
Bush speaks today at a Catholic college led by an ally, but views on the war dampen the welcome.
By James Gerstenzang, Times Staff Writer
May 11, 2007

LATROBE, PA. — President Bush could hardly have picked a better private liberal arts college to find a welcoming audience for a commencement address than St. Vincent, a Catholic school run by a loyal former White House aide in a conservative region.

Yet consider what has taken place here since Bush was invited for today's speech: Students vigorously debated the invitation at a town-hall meeting last month. A former St. Vincent College president wrote a scathing newspaper essay saying Bush had no place on the campus. About a quarter of the tenure-rank faculty wrote an open letter to Bush challenging the Iraq war as contrary to Roman Catholic doctrine. Several dozen people held a candlelight vigil Thursday night protesting the visit. And for several Sundays, nuns protested on the edge of the campus.

The discord, polite and reasoned as it may be, is emblematic of passions across the country as the war moves further into its fifth year, with increasing military deployments and mounting death tolls among Iraqi civilians and U.S. troops.

If anything, the debate there — at a college associated with the Order of St. Benedict and led by a man who once ran Bush's faith-based initiative — suggests that dissent is spreading into places with little history of protest.

It also suggests that the Bush-led Republican drive to increase support among Catholics, built around Bush's stance on abortion and other social policy issues, could run into trouble over the Catholic doctrine of a "just war."...

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-bush11may11,0,4185426.story?coll=la-home-center

[partylessinOhio]

1. Thank God for the protestors!

This was my family's church for many years and many of them are buried there at St. Vincent's Cemetery. I deeply resent that St. Vincent's hired this quack, Towey, who led the faith-based crapola for the Idiot-In-Chief. The final insult is to have invited * to speak there today. It is SO WRONG!

[DeepModem Mom]

3. Thanks for posting! nt

[partylessinOhio]

4. You're welcome. St. Vincent's Archabbey grounds provide an impressive

setting for the Archabbey/Monastery, the Parish, the Seminary and the College as well as the Cemetery. It should not have been sullied by the likes of Towey and *. Towey is a very questionable type of climber who latched onto Mother Teresa before Bush.

Saint Vincent Archabbey


Saint Vincent Archabbey is the oldest Benedictine monastery in the United States. The Benedictines of Saint Vincent operate Saint Vincent College and Saint Vincent Seminary in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, and minister in other apostolates on campus, in many western Pennsylvania parishes and at parishes in Baltimore, Maryland; Virginia Beach, Virginia; Benedictine Military School, Savannah, Georgia; Wimmer Priory in Taipei, Taiwan and at St. Benedict Priory in Vinhedo, Brazil.


http://benedictine.stvincent.edu/archabbey/



ST. VINCENT CEMETERY - Latrobe, PA

[Grandrose]

2. Good for them!

:kick: and recommend.

[Bravo Zulu]

5. I think every time

Bu$h visits a holy sight that you need to bring in the medicine men or an exorcist to get rid of the evil spirits, they had to do that down in South America!

[partylessinOhio]

6. The two losers today:

U.S. President George W. Bush is introduced by St. Vincent College President Jim Towey to deliver a commencement address to students at the college in Latrobe, Pennsylvania May 11, 2007. Towey was once the White House director of Faith-based and Community Initiatives in the Bush administration.



Secret Service agents stand by as U.S. President George W. Bush is greeted upon his arrival by Saint Vincent College Chancellor Archabbot Douglas Nowicki in Latrobe, Pennsylvania May 11, 2007. Bush delivered a commencement address at the college.