Santa Clara University president does the right thing, Catholic staff upset

SANTA CLARA – A decision by Santa Clara University’s president to drop health insurance coverage of elective abortions for the Catholic university’s faculty and staff has triggered a serious rift at the school.

Many faculty members say they were blindsided by the move at an institution that has long prided itself on open communication and governing by consensus.

The thorny issue echoes a nationwide debate at Catholic universities over their institutional identities and ability to consider the convictions of those who do not identify with – or who disagree with – certain principles the Catholic tradition holds as central.

The uproar at SCU comes on the heels of a contentious vote this week by trustees of Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, another Jesuit school that decided not to provide coverage for elective abortions. And, ironically, the controversy came to a boil on the same day that California Gov. Jerry Brown, a former Jesuit seminarian, went off in a different direction by signing two bills aimed at increasing access to abortion in California.

“This really makes Santa Clara University’s express commitment to openness, diversity and inclusiveness ring hollow,” said history professor Nancy Unger, who is Catholic. (source)

Because nothing says “openness, diversity and inclusiveness” quite like funding abortion. Seems to me murdering a child leads to less diversity and is not exactly inclusive. When disallowing abortion coverage is what angers you as a Catholic educator – your’e doing it wrong.

Still the good news is that two Jesuit schools are taking action regarding something that should never have happened in the first place.

This article only tangentially notes the recent law signed by Gov. Jerry Brown regarding abortion. He signed a law to allow non-physicians, including nurse practitioners to perform abortions. Pro-abortion activists freak out if a doctor doesn’t operate an ultrasound machine in a pro-life women’s clinic and yet have no problem with non-doctors slicing and dicing the unborn in woman’s wombs. Safe, legal, rare.

Another thing comes to mind regarding Gov. Moonbeam or is that Gov. Unborn Death-ray. I remember watching the installation Mass for Archbishop Michael C. Barber, SJ last May which the Governor attended. I was very annoyed by the comments during Mass yucking it up with the Governor and the mention of his being “Jesuit trained.” Sure I didn’t expect them to attack the Governor even if he calls himself a “uncompromising champion of a woman’s right to choose” along with other intrinsic evils. Politics shouldn’t enter the Mass, but it really is political pandering the way he was acknowledged. He just shouldn’t have been mentioned at all.