Realness

Yesterday I joked about inviting people to watch the “real In the Arena” (shades of “The Real Ghostbusters!) and not Eliot Spitzer’s secondary show, but today I invite you to read David Mills’ piece about the real Gospel, and Catholic branding:

Last Thursday an annoyed columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News complained that Chestnut Hill College, a small Catholic college in the suburbs run by the Sisters of St. Joseph, had let go an adjunct religion professor who served as a pastor in the Old Catholic Apostolic Church of America. James St. George was, she wrote, a great teacher, loved by students, so why would the college fire him? The Philadephia Daily News ran a news story yesterday indirectly suggesting (by giving the last six paragraphs of the article to his supporters, for one thing) the same point.

On Friday, the latter reported, “the college issued a statement accusing him not only of being gay, which it called contrary to traditional Catholic doctrine, but also of misrepresenting before he was hired that he was a member of an independent branch of Catholicism.” (That “which it called” is another of the indirect suggestions.)

The college seems to have acted in response to an e-mailed complaint from a local lawyer, who pointed out that “Having someone like Jim St. George teach theology at a Catholic college perpetrates a fraud on parents who send their daughters and sons to Chestnut Hill for a Catholic education.” He sent it to Cardinal Rigali as well as officials at the college and the Daily News’ columnist.

I figured you’d want to read it all and discuss!