Sunday, July 11, 2010

Catholic prof fired for giving Church teaching on homosexuality

Our good friend and fellow Catholic convert, Dr. Kenneth Howell, who worked for St. John's Catholic Newman Center as Director of the Institute of Catholic Thought, and taught Introduction to Catholicisim and Modern Catholic Thought at the University of Illinois, Urbana, has been fired for relating the Catholic teaching on homosexuality in his class:Pray for the good man. Howell won awards for excellence in teaching at the University of Illinois over the past decade. I cannot imagine a more balanced and sensitive presentation of Catholic and alternative ethical interpretations to a pluralistic student body than his; and if that's enough to get a professor (1) fired by the university, and (2) fired by the Newman Center for which he worked, then indeed, in good faith, I do not know what hope there is for reasoned dialogue within secular academe. The situation seems hopeless.

On the other side, the student responsible for tarring Howell's teaching with the libelous term "hate speech" while remaining safely under cover of anonymity, the university administration who buckled at the first whiff of what could possibly be spun by the media as faculty "homophobism," and the administration of the Newman Center and chancery responsible for letting Howell go rather than standing behind him, all reveal the stalwart spine of jellyfish.

Chesterton was right: our world today is ron amok with wild and wasted virtues, like "humility," settled, not on the organ of ambition, but on the organ of conviction, where it was never meant to be: hence people are so humble they are incapable of being certain of anything being true anymore. The world is also awash and overflowing with virtues of which we could use less, like oliaginous "sensitivity," "compassion," and "niceness"; while it suffers an acute shortage of adamantine virtues, like truth, courage, justice, fidelity, and self-control. Howell represents the latter. He should be defended. If this were a just country, he would never have been fired. In a just country, men are fired for transgressions and vices, like betrayal, theft, sloth, and faleshood, not for truthfulness, discipline, and fidelity.

[Hat tip to comment by Anon. and Jordanes for clarifications.]

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Students are tyrannical customers. But this adjunct professor does not seem very competent, to judge from the crude comments quoted from him in the third link you gave.

Anon said...

Dr,

I would caveat the PZ Myers "article" I sent the link to you as I found it interesting that there was somewhat of a defense for Dr. Howell.. but in general PZ Myers was horrid as usual.

-Anon

Pertinacious Papist said...

My apologies. I'm not posting from home, but from somewhere in Kansas. I was not able to append the "advisory" to link #3 until today. Myers is horrid, but I think it's interesting to see what someone in the ecular 'mainstream' is saying about the situation. Horrid, blind, stupid and base are adjectives that come to mind.

Unknown said...

This is just the beginning of what will happen to all of us eventually IF we hold on to the eternal Truth. May the Lord help us in our endeavors. We are going to need it, especially when B.O. gets his way and shuts down the good sites on the internet. Our freedom of speech will be gone!

Confitebor said...

fired by the Newman Center of which he was Director

Dr. Howell was not director of St. John's Catholic Newman Center -- the director and chaplain is Msgr. Ketcham. Dr. Howell was director of the Institute of Catholic Thought, which existed a part of St. John’s Catholic Newman Center until the University of Illinois fire Dr. Howell and rescinded the Newman Center's permission to offer credit courses in Catholicism under the auspices of the university: when the university cancelled that privilege, there was no more "Institute of Catholic Thought," and thus Dr. Howell's job at the Newman Center practically evaporated with it. Dr. Howell proposed a plan whereby the Newman Center could sponsor credit classes in Catholicism from outside the U of I that could then have the credit transferred into the university, but apparently that kind of arrangement isn't what Msgr. Ketcham had in mind for the Institute of Catholic Thought. The whole point of the ICT was to offer U of I classes.

Anyway, what the U of I has done to Dr. Howell and to the Catholic students at the U of I is outrageous. Hopefully Dr. Howell can succeed in a lawsuit against the university on First Amendment grounds.

Anon said...

The PZ Myers "article" also shows the mentality of the followers that man has. Myers' poor misguided arguments are repeated almost verbatim in the comments on a number of blogs. For those interested... here is a copy of the letter Dr. Howell wrote:
http://www.news-gazette.com/news/religion/2010-07-09/e-mail-prompted-complaint-over-ui-religion-class-instructor.html

Anon said...

Link to email written by student

JM said...

As an adjunct Howell has little room to complain, unfortunately. Just like Obama, liberal academics are ruthless. If you are anti-homosexuality, they will lop off your legs. Guaranteed. There is no neutrality, trust me. The Church will finally get that, or it will cave. One or the other. The days of cultural respectability are gone, kicked thru the threshold by the latest scandals.

Lutheran said...

Intolerable situation. The University knows his work. The students have had the opportunity to take their own glance and acknowledge it.

There are times that I wonder if some "students" are more the agitators than the prior. Can it be known who takes particular classes simply to inflict as much chaos and godless hate as possible?

It's all a dasterdly shame upon the pseudo-students, this University, colleges and universities, many think-tanks generally, and society for producing and encouraging such utter crap.

Though I do not know Dr. Howell personally, I strongly, with every fiber of my being, wish to thank him for standing his ground. His current employment condition is damn hard and unjust--all the harder in this lousy economy. As it lets everyone know for certain that there is a hell, there must just as certainly be a heaven--the Lord IS smiling upon you Dr. Howell. You've called their game and forced their hand into the public arena. Stand strong as Daniel, for it is the evil that trembles.

Cheers!

Confitebor said...

From what I've heard from U of I students in the know, I think there's a good case to be made that the anonymous offended student who complained to his friend, who then filed the formal complaint, was not seriously a student of Dr. Howell's, but was only playing one for the purpose of causing trouble for the good professor.

Pertinacious Papist said...

Jordanes,

This reminds me of an on-site description of what it was like in China when the Communists took over (and it could just as well have been Russia, N. Korea, or Nazi Germany). That is, freedom of speech was instantaneously repressed by fear of being 'outed' to the authorities about politically incorrect views. Neighbors feared saying anything about socio-political conditions to their one another, for fear their views might be reported. ... And, in our country, all in the name of "liberal" "right thinking" and "tolerance."

Why people don't seem to understand the Orwellian double-talk, I do not know. Democracy becomes totalitarian. No body understood this better than J. L. Talmon, the author of The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy.

Anonymous said...

I thought the Inquisition is over....
why don't you people stop trying to impose your dumb beliefs on others....

Pertinacious Papist said...

Dear "Anonymous" (immediately above),

Thank God for folks with insight such as you! I am so pleased you agree that secular universities should not be conducting Inquisitions against free-thinking Catholic profs! God BLESS you!