Ave Maria Parents Launch Website

Excerpts:

We have learned that Ave Maria College is being stripped of its assets prematurely in response to pressure by individuals within the AMC Michigan Board of Trustees, who also serve on the AMU Florida Board. These Board members wish all AMC Michigan assets transferred to AMU Florida. We regard this as a serious conflict of interest, and we are alarmed at the promises now being broken to our sons and daughters at AMC, who were repeatedly promised a quality Catholic education until 2007.

Our reasons for coming together as parents are simply to voice a number of questions and concerns over the current plan to move all of Mr. Monaghan’s assets to Ave Maria University, Florida, to the needless detriment of the Michigan college, which may directly harm the educational carreers of our sons and daughters.

For many of us, who live in Michigan, Ohio, Canada, and surrounding areas, sending our sons and daughters down to Florida is simply not practical. In a spirit of understanding, Mr. Monaghan has repeatedly promised to complete the educational mission he began in Michigan, and has given us repeated assurances that those of our kids who entered the freshman class in Fall 2003 would be able to graduate with a full Ave Maria College degree in Spring 2007. To this end, he has pledged $25 million new dollars to fund the college until that time. Now, however, various members of his AMU Florida administration are urging him to transfer all of his financial assets to AMU Florida, which includes assets already promised in writing to Ave Maria College. While the majority of Ave Maria College’s funding remains in tact at present, significant “asset transfer” has already started to occur in various forms. This taking back of gifts to Ave Maria College has done much to destroy the morale of the AMC Michigan students, pointlessly forcing some of them to look elsewhere for a good Catholic education.

As Catholic parents, we feel that this taking back of gifts already given to AMC Michigan constitutes a serious injustice to our children, as well as to the broader AMC community. In a spirit of Christian charity and accountability, we wish to remind Mr. Monaghan and the Ave Maria Foundation of the Catholic Church’s constant teaching on social justice, as it appears in the words of The Catechism of the Catholic Church:

2410 Promises must be kept and contracts strictly observed to the extent that the commitments made in them are morally just. A significant part of economic and social life depends on the honoring of contracts between physical or moral persons – commercial contracts of purchase or sale, rental or labor contracts. All contracts must be agreed to and executed in good faith.

CRUXNEWS: Ave Maria College To Be Dismantled

Excerpt:

Perhaps some people can’t understand why Ave Maria College doesn’t just say, “Thank you so much for all you’ve given us. We’re pleased now to be dismantled at your whim.” Perhaps some will feel that the college is being ungrateful to protest broken promises and aborted existence. But then Catholics don’t much like abortions—early or late term.

CRUXNEWS: Ave Maria College To Be Dismantled

Excerpt:

Perhaps some people can’t understand why Ave Maria College doesn’t just say, “Thank you so much for all you’ve given us. We’re pleased now to be dismantled at your whim.” Perhaps some will feel that the college is being ungrateful to protest broken promises and aborted existence. But then Catholics don’t much like abortions—early or late term.

Robot Uprising Continues, Turns Violent

robochompAs the robot uprising of 2004 continues, it has taken a new and violent turn. Though the rebellion of American automata began with a peaceful protest of a variety of robots in Maidson, WI, it has now spread to other regions of the country, where it is being led by a new, charismatic, and militant leader known as Robosaurus.

Robosaurus recently appeared in California and is scheduled to appear later this summer in Arizona, Michigan, Indiana, New Jersey, Ohio, and New York.

roboeatingplaneAt his appearances, the fire-breathing Robosaurus commonly destroys automobiles (pictured above), and he also has been known to seize and dismember planes (right), raising the total damage inflicted in one of his appearances from thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Authorities fear that Robosaurus may team-up with his twin robot, Truckasaurus (last seen in the vicinity of Springfield) and go on a national spree of destruction.

robobabyMost disturbingly, Robosaurus appears to have reproduced asexually. A “baby robosaurus” was recently spotted at one of the creature’s events (left), bringing the prospect of a national infestation of similarly destructive robots.

Despite these fears, promoters hope that the rampage of Robosaurus, his relatives, and his offspring can be stopped. Plans are being laid to contain the creatures harmlessly so that they can be put on display for paying customers in a planned amusement center known as “Metallic Park.”

AP: Ultraorthodox Jews Worry Tiny Crustraneans Make Water Non-Kosher

I sympathize with the scrupulous impulse of some NYC Jews (who appear to be ultraorthodox rather than orthodox), who worry that the copepods in local tap water render the water non-kosher unless the little critters are filtered out (copepods being crustaceans and crustaceans being non-kosher).

Still, I’m glad that the question wouldn’t arise in Catholicism–not just because our food laws don’t work that way but also because in Catholic legal hermeneutics the law is to be observed in modo humano (i.e., “in a human manner”). If you have to examine your food with a microscope or high-power magnifying glass or other piece of technology to determine what something in your food is then we have been taken out of the realm of observing the law in a human manner and so we don’t need to worry about it.

It’s also probably good that the question doesn’t arise in Catholicism because if it did then people would accuse us of creating the law in order to economically advantage the makers of water purifiers–just as they accuse meatless Fridays of having been created by the pope to benefit Italian fishermen.

On the other hand, given the unflattering Jewish stereotypes floating around, NYC’s Jewish community may be subject to similar accusations.

AP: Ultraorthodox Jews Worry Tiny Crustraneans Make Water Non-Kosher

I sympathize with the scrupulous impulse of some NYC Jews (who appear to be ultraorthodox rather than orthodox), who worry that the copepods in local tap water render the water non-kosher unless the little critters are filtered out (copepods being crustaceans and crustaceans being non-kosher).

Still, I’m glad that the question wouldn’t arise in Catholicism–not just because our food laws don’t work that way but also because in Catholic legal hermeneutics the law is to be observed in modo humano (i.e., “in a human manner”). If you have to examine your food with a microscope or high-power magnifying glass or other piece of technology to determine what something in your food is then we have been taken out of the realm of observing the law in a human manner and so we don’t need to worry about it.

It’s also probably good that the question doesn’t arise in Catholicism because if it did then people would accuse us of creating the law in order to economically advantage the makers of water purifiers–just as they accuse meatless Fridays of having been created by the pope to benefit Italian fishermen.

On the other hand, given the unflattering Jewish stereotypes floating around, NYC’s Jewish community may be subject to similar accusations.

Happy St. Justin Martyr Day!

Today is the feast of St. Justin Martyr, Patron of Apologists.

He was born in what is now the city of Nablus in Palestine. He lived c. A.D. 100-165, and he was martyred in Rome. He is the greatest of the early Christian apologists and a patron saint of apologetics. His legacy to the Church includes two written apologies for the Christian faith and his famous Dialogue with Trypho the Jew.

To read more about St. Justin Martyr, look here.

To read St. Justin Martyr’s writings, look here.

Christian Arab Denies Christ To Save Life

One has the most extraordinary sympathy for the horrible, inhuman situation the man found himself in, but this was a violation of basic requirements of the gospel.

Fortunately, since the gentleman is probably Catholic or a member of an eastern non-Catholic Church, he at least should have access to the sacrament of reconciliation.

On the other hand, if the four Indians and the Italian mentioned in the story were asked if they were Christian before they were killed and honestly replied that they were then they should end up canonized.