Challenging Times for Catholic Universities

Babette Francis, September 2010

In the USA there is concern among practising Catholics - and some bishops - about the orthodoxy of several Catholic universities which seem more dedicated to 'freedom of academic expression' than to their Catholic identity. It is a vexed question - at the tertiary level there should be healthy debate about philosophic and religious issues, but what is worrying is that certain issues are presented by invited speakers who offer viewpoints at odds with Catholic principles with no one defending the Catholic position. Often there is no opportunity for a rebuttal. If the audience is lucky, someone might be allowed to ask a question, but this is usually preceded by an injunction from the Chair: "Please do not make statements, just ask a question". This gives the speaker the opportunity for more time to defend his/her particular stance, and little reassurance to the questioner. The most egregious example of this was when President Obama, the most pro-abortion president in US history, was invited to give the graduation address at Notre Dame University, Indiana.The fall-out is on-going with pro-life protestors still facing jail time.

Nothing so awful has happened with Australian Catholic University, but I was deeply concerned to learn that ACU is offering a course in "Understanding Islam" because I heard the course is being funded by a Turkish Islamic Trust. A bishop reassured me the Trust rejects the Wahabist version of Islam, nevertheless I fear that the 'understanding of Islam' will not be my experience of Islam. I have lived in what were Muslim-majority provinces of India before the Partition of the subcontinent into India and Pakistan, so I know how Islam functions, especially in regard to its backward treatment of women. Furthermore Turkey, which is funding this course at ACU, is moving politically towards an alignment with theocratic Iran while weakening its current alliance with Europe and the West.

The course at ACU should include critiques of Islam from scholars such as Father Zakariah Botros, an Egyptian Coptic priest who regularly debates Islamic clerics on radio - and wins - so much so that he is the target of death threats with a $5million bounty on his head. Other scholars who should be included in ACU's course are Wafa Sultan and Aayan Hirsi Ali, who deal with the unjust treatment of women in Islam, and Rev.Mark Durie, Anglican vicar of St. Mary's, Caulfield, author of "The Third Choice: Islam, Dhimmitude and Freedom". The inclusion of such analysts would make the course at ACU balanced instead of a propaganda exercise. I have communicated my concerns to Professor Ismail Albayrak, Fethullah Gullen Chair in the study of Islam and Muslim-Catholic Relations, Asia-Pacific Centre for Inter-religious Dialogue, ACU, and look forward to his response.

Another controversial involvement by ACU was with the Australian Science Festival talks at Australian National University, on "Dying with Dignity". This event, held on 3rd August 2010, was promoted as being "supported by Australian Catholic University". The publicity for the talks stated: "What choices do we have about dying? What extent of control can we have over the situation? How can we maintain our dignity in the process........ABC Radio National's Paul Barclay will explore this controversial topic in a special live Australia Talks program with Founder and Director of Exit International, Dr Philip Nitschke, Australian Catholic University's Associate Professor Patrick McArdie, Palliative Care Australia's President Elect Dr Scott Blackwell and Dr Kaarin Anstey, Director of the Ageing Research Unit at the ANU's Centre for Mental Health Research."

Pro-life groups around Australia were dismayed that ACU appeared to be supporting this venture which gives Nitschke a 'respectable' veneer by engaging him in debate. I conveyed my concerns to Professor Greg Craven, Vice-Chancellor of ACU, and to his credit, the statement that the Festival was "supported by Australian Catholic University" was quickly withdrawn from the Festival website. However, it is still on p. 7 of the handbook of the Australian Science Festival circulated with the Canberra Times.

Kath Woolf, President, ACT Right to Life Association writes:"It is difficult to understand why such a controversial topic has been included in a Science Festival. The push for legalised euthanasia has nothing to do with science, except, negatively, in so far as it ignores medical advances in pain relief and facts about the now well-resourced palliative care movement. The matter of appropriate treatment of the suffering and the dying is a moral issue and a challenge to medical ethics. Including this topic 'for discussion' in a forum being heavily promoted to tertiary and secondary students is an outrageous step.The project should be ignored under protest. To participate in it is to give dangerous, albeit innocent, support for the project.

"Long experience here and overseas has shown that it is unwise in the extreme to give Nitschke any exposure at all; he is highly persuasive with his customary manner of concentrating on 'hard cases', that is, those he claims are dying in extreme distress and/or physical pain. This is most certainly not the full scope of his aims. He has advocated assisted suicide rights for the young, and the depressed. He runs suicide clinics to give advice on how to kill oneself. He is unacceptable in some countries. He was responsible for seven deaths in the Northern Territory before that Territory's permissive legislation was repealed by the 'Andrews' Bill in Federal Parliament. Offering to debate Nitschke is like agreeing to debate Hitler on the rights of Jews....."

With euthanasia Bills pending in WA, SA and Tasmania, it is difficult to understand why ACU is giving respectability status to Nitschke by agreeing to debate him.

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