Center for Ethics and Leadership

2009-07-02T12:31:00.000-07:00

White Collar Crime Gets Paid Big Time

Long ago in 1949, one of America's great sociologists and founders of criminology, Edwin H. Sutherland, wrote White Collar Crime. His was set standards in recognizing that the wealthy and powerful were susceptible to a sort of criminality to be distinguished from what was called "street crime."

Nonetheless, our popular images of criminality rarely include multimillionaire brokers.

Until this week.

Bernard Madoff got the maximum -- 150 years. The sentence was ten times longer than his defense attorneys suggested and 3 times longer than the federal probation office recommended.

Worse, no one submitted letters to Judge Denny Chin vouching for Madoff's otherwise strength of character or previous good deeds.

Worst, No member of his immediate family was present for the sentencing.

It's a long way down.

The sentence is interesting in another way. It suggests that America is taking white-collar crime much more seriously nowadays. Criminals can ruin others' lives in many ways.

2009-06-23T10:40:00.000-07:00

An Excellent New Docu-Play on Autism

Last week, I attended a wonderful play at The Painted Bride Art Center in Philadelphia entitled, Life on the Spectrum: A Love Story. The spectrum is the autism spectrum, and the playwright, Meghan McCullough-Kirk, is the older sister of Tim McCullough, an adult with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).

Life on the Spectrum began as McCullough-Kirk's senior thesis for her B.A. in playwriting at the Eugene Lang College of The New School. It consists of dramatized interviews of parents of children with ASD, factual information dispelling myths about autism, and McCullough-Kirk's own reminiscences about growing up with a little brother who was very different from all the other kids. This is a very well crafted play that is always interesting and never tedious. Its several vignettes fall into place neatly and build to a dramatic crescendo that appeals both to the emotions and to one's political intellect.

The two shows in June were to benefit AACCEPT (Autism Awareness & Creating Community Environmental Programs Together). AACCEPT's chair is Tim and Meghan's mother, Linda McCullough. It is a fledgling organization designed to address a pressing need, the lack of services for adults with autism. The situation is more severe in both Pennsylvania and New Jersey, now that both Governors Rendell and Corzine have warned that budget pressures threaten even current autism services.

McCullough-Kirk co-directs of SITA (Social Issues Through Art) with Rebekah Griffin. Here follows a quote from their remarks in the show's Playbill: " . . . our fundamental belief that art is a powerful tool that can be used to stoke the fire of change. . . . It can make people think. It can make people talk. It can bring an entire room full of strangers together . . ." Our theater director here at Alvernia thinks in a similar way about drama, as do I. Congratulations, Meghan, on a job well done.

2009-06-23T09:40:00.000-07:00

Conservative Student Organization Protests at Bucknell

Last April, the Bucknell University Conservatives Club, an undergraduate organization, wanted to have an affirmative action bake sale on campus. Persons of color would have to pay less for the food. The bake sale was intended to promote the appearance of Star Parker, a well-known African-American conservative who opposes affirmative action. Bucknell administration called it discriminatory and refused permission, thereby generating the predictable claims of victimization by the students, who argue that it is a matter of free speech. Conservative groups continue to keep the issue alive, and it finally hit the Philadelphia Inquirer today.

There is a difference between speech and action, and a bake sale is action. There was no interference in Ms. Parker's appearance. The club also has its own faculty moderator, a member of the management faculty. In addition, the club has a good publication, The Counterweight, whose tagline is, "The Other Half of Your 'Balanced' Education."

Of course, there are actions and there are actions. The administration must make a judgment call about the potential disruptiveness of any student action, and the Bucknell administration decided against the sale. Other colleges across the nation have had such sales.

I suppose there would be nothing the club could say if, for example, the Bucknell Caucus For Economic Justice sponsored a White Privilege Bake Sale. White males could buy large vanilla cupcakes with vanilla icing for practically nothing; white females could also buy vanilla cupcakes, but not as large as the others. African-American students would get small chocolate cupcakes rather expensively, and Hispanic students would have to show two forms of government-issued identification to participate.

If the tables were set opposite each other in the cafeteria, maybe Bucknell would get more than a food fight.

2009-06-23T06:47:00.000-07:00

Charlie Manuel's Leadership

This post will not engage the formal theories of leadership that have been developed. It is more a reflection on watching a leader closely and noticing the results. For those of you who don't know, Charlie Manuel is the manager of the Philadelphia Phillies, baseball's current champions. Like many Phillies' fans, I spent the first few years of Manuel's tenure wondering what he was doing. Of course, nothing convinces like success, and last year his team won it all, thereby shifting the burden of proof squarely onto the shoulders of his critics.

Manuel manages by trusting his professionals to be internally motivated to perform at the highest level. At least I think that is the unspoken theory. Consequently, even when they underachieve, he gives them time to recover.

His is not a hands-off philosophy, however. For example, he stuck with Pat Burrell through thick and thin, and the biggest payoff was Burrell's double in the clinching game of the World Series that was the eventual winning run. Burrell is not with the team this year, and in retrospect, as much as we all liked him, he had to go. Similarly, Manuel has moved Jimmy Rollins from his preferred spot as leadoff hitter to sixth in the batting order in an attempt to help Rollins emerge from his batting slump.

Yet these decisions come when circumstances dictate their necessity. Manuel's basic stance is to let people play with the knowledge that there will be good performances and bad. The result? It is common knowledge throughout major league baseball that players love to play for Charlie Manuel. And his previous team, the Cleveland Indians of the mid-90s, did very well, too.

Maybe this is just confirmation of the cliche: hire good people and then trust them to do the job. Whatever it is, it seems to work.

2009-06-02T05:31:00.000-07:00

Murder is not the Answer

On behalf of the Catholic bishops, Cardinal Rigali, who chairs the pro-life committee, immediately issued a statement condemning the murder of Dr. George Tiller on Sunday. Here is the quote:

"Our bishops' conference and all its members have repeatedly and publicly denounced all forms of violence in our society, including abortion as well as the misguided resort to violence by anyone opposed to abortion," Cardinal Rigali said. "Such killing is the opposite of everything we stand for, and everything we want our culture to stand for: respect for the life of each and every human being from its beginning to its natural end. We pray for Dr. Tiller and his family."

2009-05-05T07:25:00.000-07:00

Now the Reading Eagle Feels the Pressure

For the fourth time in the short history of this blog, I am defending newspapers. The Reading Eagle last week announced the layoff of 52 employees, including reporters. Actually the term used by the paper was "termination of employment," so those employees won't be back soon. The newspaper industry continues to suffer, and with it the type of information that is uniquely its own to provide, namely, journalism that is both timely (daily) and in-depth. New media appeal to our very American sense of immediacy, but are not deeply analytical. Newsweeklies are, well, weekly, and they are not local. Perhaps there's a new "daily" already in existence -- it's called a website -- but who sits in front of her or his computer just reading? Oh, I do, but I have been reading a newspaper, beginning with the long-defunct Philadelphia Bulletin, since the primary grades. I'm acclimated.

2009-04-24T10:15:00.000-07:00

Married Priests?

America magazine has just come forward with a proposal for a married priesthood.

Bravo, America! A courageous statement that has been long in coming. A married priesthood is no panacea for the priest shortage, as many of us know. The clerical career is a demanding one. Nonetheless, America brought forward excellent reasons from canon law, a theology of priestly ministry, and the reality of married priests (former Anglicans and Lutherans) already serving in the church.

2009-04-20T09:16:00.000-07:00

Pressure on Alligator Bayou!

A year ago, I returned from a short visit to Baton Rouge and wrote about a swamp I had visited. Here is what I wrote:

Environmental Ethics and Entrepreneurial Leadership

When in Louisiana last week, my family and I went on a swamp tour given by Alligator Bayou. The owners, Frank Bonifay and Jim Ragland, were apparently quite successful in real estate and construction as young men. They then sold their business to purchase 1500 acres of the Alligator Bayou swamp in 1993. The swamp had been scheduled for clear cutting by a timber company. Bonifay and Ragland moved 901 acres into permanent preservation by creating the nonprofit Bluff Swamp Wildlife Refuge and Botanical Gardens. They have been working to improve their enterprise as an ecological education organization since. They give a wonderfully informative and entertaining tour. We need more capable leaders like them to put first things first, and to preserve national treasures rather than leaving them to indiscriminate development.

Now Alligator Bayou is in a legal fight with another ecologist who represents land owners in the same area. These men want to open the floodgate that would reduce water levels in the swamp and also, they claim, reduce flooding on their land. Scott Nesbit represents clients who own 6,300 acres in the Spanish Lake area (where Alligator Bayou is located). Frank Bonifay, co-owner of Alligator Bayou, says the draining will put his partner and him out of business. Nesbit says they have no right to artificially flood his clients' land.

It gets much more complicated with disputes over what is actually causing the flooding and which solution is the more ecologically sound. That the dispute crosses two parishes, Iberville and Ascension, in southern Louisiana further tangles things.

Nesbit's clients apparently want to swap land development credits (mitigation credits). These involve payment to restore wetlands for a developer who wants to fill wetlands elsewhere in the same watershed. You can keep up with the story at ://www.2theadvocate.com/news/suburban/42648442.html or Google any of the names and places in this post.

2009-04-06T13:10:00.000-07:00

A Cultural Change in American Life?

Ayn Rand has been a significant figure in American popular culture and ethics. Her position of rational self-interest is well known as is the caustic nature of her remarks about those whom she judges not to have met her definition of the heroic person. Her close circle of associates in Manhattan in the 60s and 70s included long-time Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, who used his position to see if Rand's theories worked in practice. They did not, as Greenspan remorsefully told Congress last fall.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union and its clear proof that communism did not work, there has been a timidity in American intellectual life to criticize the laissez-faire capitalism for which Rand stood and which Greenspan implemented. It is good to have him admit that the philosophy had a "flaw."

A promising young Mennonite philosopher, Darrin W. Snyder Belousek, has explained "Greenspan's Folly" in a recent issue of America. Belousek looks to Catholic social teaching and its idea of the common good as an antidote to Rand's "Virtue of Selfishness."

Perhaps one good that will come from this severe economic recession is a rethinking of the meaning of the word freedom in the concept of a free market.

2009-04-06T08:52:00.000-07:00

It Seems I Have Found A Cause -- Newspapers

Randy Siegel, the publisher of Parade magazine, has a very interesting op-ed in today's Philadelphia Inquirer. Briefly put, rumors of the death of newspapers are greatly exaggerated. Siegel has done the kind of work journalists should do. Time magazine published at Time.com a list of this country's ten most endangered newspapers. But, discovered Siegel, Time's affiliate 24/7 Wall St. created the list. 24/7 also runs a website designed to give traders daily tips on hot stocks. Siegel sniffed out an agenda. He also went on to criticize a few other apparently objective media analysts who actually shill for new media. As Siegel writes, newspapers are in trouble. But beware the analysts for whom their demise will be lucrative.

(And I am aware of the irony of my defending newspapers in the very new media that threaten them, a blog.)

2009-04-06T08:07:00.000-07:00

Cardinal George's Firm but Diplomatic Stand

I saw the YouTube video of Cardinal George's address at DePaul University, where he took up the matter of Notre Dame's invitation to President Obama. The cardinal redirected the requests of those Catholics who are angry about the invitation to the university. To those asking him what he intended to do about it, he replied, "What are you doing about it?" He went on to say, "The Bishops don't control the University of Notre Dame." He also said that whatever one Catholic organization does affects all of Catholicism since the church is one. Those concerned should contact Notre Dame.

He expressed his deep regard for President Obama and offered that they agreed on many issues, but profoundly disagreed on the very important issue of abortion. His eminence is known for his forthright stand on issues, and this is the second time recently that I have seen him speak publicly (once in person) in which he has been diplomatic but firm. His manner is a contrast to the most angry Catholic attacks that have been launched and which have prompted Fr. John Kavanaugh to write in the upcoming April 13 issue of America, "We Catholics, we Christians, are in danger of becoming known not by how we love but by how we hate."

2009-03-31T16:57:00.000-07:00

Rabble-Rousing and Abortion II

There he goes again. Patrick Reilly's self-proclaimed Catholic university watchdog, the Cardinal Newman Society, having failed in an attempt to embarrass Reilly's alma mater, Fordham University, last October (see my October 27, 2008 post), now moves up to Division 1 with a foray against the University of Notre Dame.

The president of the United States will give the commencement speech to the Fighting Irish class of 2009 in keeping with Notre Dame's tradition of having the president address a graduating class.

Reilly's complaint is his usual one-note tune, abortion. I will leave to others the problems with his moral calculus as applied politically. I would rather turn to his agenda and to the thinly veiled threats of right-wing politico and Catholic George Weigel.

To repeat what I wrote last October (slightly edited): Reilly has made a career of hunting down colleges that are not truly Catholic according to his lights. His litmus test is quick and sure. Unfortunately, it is as narrow as it is incomplete. A look at the Cardinal Newman Society's website does not readily show any concerns other than abortion. Reilly is a Senior Fellow at the Capital Research Center, a conservative think-tank that targets non-profits. A university, including a Catholic university, is not tasked to forward the blatantly political agendas of these groups, whether hounded by self-proclaimed defenders of the faith like Reilly or zealots like David Horowitz pursuing leftists hiding in the ivory tower. Ralph Reed eventually came clean and left the Christian Coalition to become the political operative he always wanted to be. Patrick Reilly is well advised to do the same. The University of Notre Dame is a model of concern for a just society. Reilly and his allies would do better to support, even in disagreement, this great school.

As for Weigel, the Fox News website quoted him as saying that donors have the strongest leverage in these matters and expressed his wish that they will notice. In others words, he called for a boycott.

Those who find this appearance offensive have a right to complain and even not attend. The bishop of Ft. Wayne/South Bend, Bishop John D'Arcy, will not go, and Notre Dame's conservative and well-published philosophy professor, Ralph McInerny, has expressed displeasure. If he walks out in protest, all the better. It will draw the president's attention to this very thorny issue.

But this simplistic crusade? No.

2009-03-25T15:33:00.000-07:00

America's Leadership Religion

I spent a few minutes at an upscale bookstore today. I am not frequently in bookstores, so when I go I notice trends. I looked in the business section and then in the religion section, and I saw the American myth in each.

The business section was filled with books written by America's wealthiest self-made men and women. Some were giving advice; others were telling their story. Every book jacket showed a face beaming with similar self-determination and confidence.

The religion section told the same tale. Here the books were from successful televangelists, but there was the same beaming self-confidence and the same encouragement to the reader that he or she indeed can do it.

A parenthesis here is that the wives of famous men are also getting their own book deals.

And there it is: America's leaders, including its spiritual leaders, triumphantly extolling a narrative of self-satisfaction available to anyone who makes the effort.

That's some spirituality of leadership. This center has a mission dedicated to a very different idea of genuinely spiritual leadership.

2009-03-22T12:26:00.000-07:00

Passions

In a recent conversation I remarked how the last two academic meetings I attended, which dealt with administrative and curricular programing and reform, did not excite me as much as simply teaching theology. "So follow your passion!" I was told. That gets it precisely backward. The object is to make management an object of passion, not a goal dispassionately (dare I say rationally?) reached. Only then does it become leadership because only then does it become transformative, charismatic, and the work of a servant. Whatever one's profession, this is the trick.

2009-03-17T19:35:00.000-07:00

A Winter Reflection

Since the Reading Eagle saw fit to put me on the front page on Sunday, I thought I would reprint via blog a column I wrote for the Alvernian last year on civility in academe. It is an explication of Bob Dylan's song Jokerman.

Standing on the waters casting your bread
While the eyes of the idol with the iron head are glowing.

It has been an eventful two months. I replaced the engine in my car. That’s how I celebrated New Year’s Eve. Christmas was terrific. I hope yours was, too. January was snow-free. Who could ask for more?

The cheating New England Patriots finally lost to a monster defense (offense wins games; defense wins championships), and as of this writing Roger the Rocket may be in some very hot water.

Now we are in a forty-day period of reflection. The last period of winter’s barren death before the new life of spring, and perhaps time for a thought on how we treat each other.

Well, the rifleman's stalking the sick and the lame,
Preacherman seeks the same,
Who'll get there first is uncertain.

With the Center for Ethics and Leadership, my thoughts turn frequently to the corporate world and now and again to a book I read a few years ago that still troubles me. I have known about childhood bullies, schoolyard bullies, "mean girls," you name it. But
workplace bullying, adult to adult, that was something new. There it was, however, an entire book devoted to a phenomenon researchers have dubbed "mobbing." For the citation-minded: Noa Davenport, Ruth Distler Schwartz, and Gail Pursell Elliott, Mobbing: Emotional Abuse in the American Workplace (Ames, IA: Civil Society Publishing, 1999).

The phenomenon was first named about 25 years ago by a European industrial psychologist, Heinz Leymann, who defined it as "psychological terror" that used "hostile and unethical communication directed in a systematic way by one or a few individuals mainly towards one individual." It starts with a conflict and escalates. The mobber gathers allies; sometimes management is complicit, sometimes actively mobbing also. The victim, like many abuse victims, gradually diminishes until he or she leaves the corporation or worse, suffers severe physical problems. By this point it is the victim who is labeled as unprofessional, difficult, or if actually impaired, unable to continue in the job.

False-hearted judges dying in the webs that they spin,
Only a matter of time 'til night comes steppin' in.

Mobbing suggests remedies for workplace bullying and holds out Levi Strauss and Co. as a model proactive approach. The clothing manufacturer stresses teamwork and trust, diversity, recognition, ethical management practices, communication, and empowerment as the foundation of its workplace culture, and the interview with its personnel policy planner published in the book shows that they have been successful.

It was with some disappointment that I read that mobbing is more prevalent in small non-profits, education, and healthcare than in larger corporations, perhaps because of poorer management training. Yet, today, as if to tell me that I ought to believe what I read, I received an e-mail from Jossey–Bass publishers announcing a new book on mobbing in academe: Faculty Incivility: The Rise of the Academic Bully Culture and What to Do About It by Darla J. Twale and Barbara M. De Luca. The new book leans heavily on Mobbing for its theory; I have read only the promotional material and the first chapter, which was made available as a PDF. The book will be as hard on administration as it will be on faculty, and as critical of faculty as of administration.

It's a shadowy world, skies are slippery gray,

Ethically, workplace bullying usurps genuine leadership. Human beings are both creative and industrious. Not only do they take pride in their work, they achieve a sense of dignity in doing a job well. To tear at this sense of dignity for power’s sake is wrong. Academically, both books say that not much research has been done; there is room for a good deal more. Faculty and students in appropriate disciplines, take note.

Jokerman dance to the nightingale tune,
Bird fly high by the light of the moon,
Oh, oh, oh, Jokerman.

2009-03-02T15:50:00.000-08:00

Another Newspaper in Trouble

It may be old news by now, but a once great newspaper, The Philadelphia Inquirer, faced bankruptcy last week. Philadelphia Media Holdings, LLC, parent company to the Inquirer and the Daily News, filed for restructuring under Chapter 11. Many say that print is dead and newsprint even deader than dead. I hope that is not true. Like many of my generation, I still like to sit with a newspaper, even if it is the morning paper and I have not had a chance to look it over until evening. A sour note in the filing was that major investor Brain Tierney of Philadelphia Media Holdings increased his salary from $600,000 to $850,000 last year. Management gave a reason, but it did not sit well with employees.

2009-03-02T11:27:00.000-08:00

Alvernia Theater Stretches Again

The weekends of March 12 and 19 mark the Alvernia Theater troupe's spring play. It is another benchmark in this program's continuing development and ranks with the group's successful staging of Romeo and Juliet last year. This year's play is called Tales of Shoogilly. Written by David Blakely, it has won acclaim in reader's theater.

It has never before been staged.

Nathan Thomas and his merry band of Alvernia student actors are to be congratulated, as is set designer Melissa Guyer.

But enough about them -- the play. It covers three periods in the lives of several characters who grow up in Shoogilly, Texas. We go through their teen years, their lives after World War II, and their later years in 1967. The courses their lives take are intriguing enough, but Blakely uses their experiences to ask many questions about belief both religious and secular. A separate issue is religious practice. Characters develop and change; some hold on to the same ideas their entire lives.

As a writer, Blakely moves the plot along quickly and constructs good dialogue. More interesting is his shuffling of the actors. Thus actors in a role in the first act may play another character in either act two or three, or might even play one character in her youth and but not as an adult. The rotation of roles is Blakely's further observation on how we grow and change along with our beliefs.

Nathan Thomas has been very direct about aligning Alvernia theater with the school's mission. Last year he produced The Last Days of Judas Iscariot; the year before a play by an Iraqi woman entitled Nine Parts of Desire. His purpose was to get us to think about the Middle East and our role there.

I hope all Alvernians make it a point to see Tales of Shoogilly. Mr. Blakely will be at the March 12 world premiere of his play.

2009-03-02T11:24:00.000-08:00

The Market Falls Through Another Floor

There are several other matters I want to blog about today, but I just checked the Dow. It has fallen below 7,000. I did not think it would penetrate that floor. Does anyone have any insight?

2008-12-10T11:40:00.001-08:00

Gay Marriage and Abortion, Abortion, Abortion. Newsweek Pushes the Envelope

Now Newsweek has really done it. This week's cover shows a Bible with the cover story's title, "The Religious Case for Gay Marriage." I saw the issue as it came into my home and thought that the magazine would get a very critical reaction in some quarters. It sure has. There has been a flood of e-mails and blog comments reprimanding both the magazine and the article's author, Lisa Miller. Actually, she did a good job. Miller has understood the questions many Christian ethicists and biblical scholars bring to Scripture's condemnation of homosexual acts and makes the broader case for the Bible's affirmation of loving relationship.

The case is not entirely convincing. Not all of Scripture can be explained away, but Miller is right in saying scripture does not present an open-and-shut case against gay marriage. Newsweek and Miller are to be commended for bringing into the mainstream media a conversation that has been going on among Christian theologians for a very long time.

Lost in the uproar have been Newsweek's three stories on abortion. The first laments a federal bill that will allow medical professionals to refuse to be involved in abortions for reasons of conscience and a state law (North Dakota) that will require abortion providers to read patients a pre-operative statement about the humanhood of the fetus and the negative physical and psychological repercussions of abortion. The second trumpets the advantage of stem-cell research that is not embryonic and consequently will require no destruction of embryos. The third worries that the combination of new prenatal technology to detect Down Syndrome earlier in pregnancy and some physician's misconceptions of the potential for a satisfying life for all involved with a person with Down Syndrome. There is much to discuss among these three articles and the different positions on abortion that seem to be implied by each writer's argument.

Newsweek has had a busy week.

2008-12-10T11:18:00.000-08:00

Newspapers Aren't Dead Yet

No sooner had I written about the demise of newspapers when The Philadelphia Inquirer began running the sort of heavily researched government expose it had not published in years. Today is the fourth and final installment of Smoke and Mirrors: The Subversion of the EPA, an investigative report of the Bush administration's manipulation of the Environmental Protection Agency into a pussycat of a regulatory agency. It's all here -- the EPA's courtroom losses as it tried to step away from its mission, the frustration of its own scientists with policy decisions, the withdrawal of hard-hitting memos and the reissue of much softer documents. Extra! Extra! Read all about it! You can go to the Inky's website and retrieve the entire series if you like.

2008-12-06T12:28:00.000-08:00

Sportstalk Crosses the Line

WIP radio in Philadelphia may be the leading sportstalk station in the country, and its morning show is the best of the bunch. But earlier this week, host Angelo Cataldi pushed a point for controversy's sake that angered his co-host Rhea Hughes more deeply than I have ever heard her respond.

NHL troublemaker and all-around flake Steve Avery, who plays for Dallas, was in Calgary for a game. Avery has dated both Rachel Hunter and Elisha Cuthbert, both of whom now date other NHL players. Cuthbert is dating a defenseman for Calgary. Earlier on game day Avery deliberately called over a Canadian TV network and remarked about other players dating his "sloppy seconds." The NHL immediately suspended him. The Dallas organization fully agreed, and even his teammates refused to come to his defense, so offensive was the remark. As third co-host Al Morganti said, Avery's comment was clearly intended to start a serious fight when the game was played.

For readers who do not understand what Avery meant, let me explain. The phrase "sloppy seconds" refers to sexual intercourse. In its original context it refers to a woman's having sex with more than one man in a single session. There is no more degrading way to refer to a woman or to insult a man who is in a relationship with that woman.

Angelo praised Avery for his honesty in making the statement, and refused to budge when both Al and Rhea and even regular guest Hugh Douglas tried to explain the problem to him. Finally, Rhea said to a guy with whom she has worked for more than ten years, "You have no respect for women." She meant it. I have never heard her more angry, and I have heard Rhea yell at callers. And she didn't raise her voice.

I turned off the radio at that point. I had arrived at the office. Maybe they patched things up. But it wasn't funny, Angelo. And don't pretend that a 58-year-old man (you) didn't know the term and its offensiveness, as it seemed you were doing. You might as well know now that I listen less after football season because I grow weary of your verbal leering at cheerleaders and dancers from gentleman's clubs, and I'm no prude. Rhea, maybe you should get tougher with Angelo when he goes through his routine with attractive young women. Your protests too often are feeble. Angelo, be careful. You don't want to end up exiled to satellite radio like Howard Stern.

2008-12-04T09:22:00.000-08:00

It's a Shame Newspapers are Dead

Michael Smerconish, a Philadelphia-based radio talk-show host, also writes a regular Sunday column for The Philadelphia Inquirer. In his column a few weeks ago, he lamented the downsizing of news operations at even the nation's largest papers. He made an interesting point in saying that his work, talking politics on the radio, depends on journalists' most important work, reporting the news in depth. His concern was Martin Eisenstadt, a fictional character created by two would-be TV and film producers. Eisenstadt was described a a well-credentialed conservative political consultant, and his fictional news was picked up by several outlets. Smerconish points out that with the continuing shrinking of newsroom staffs, more and more professionals like him are liable to be fooled.

It's a shame. News operations have been shrinking for years, and gone are the days when TV networks such as CBS took pride in the fact that they fully funded their news operations regardless of those operations' ability to make a profit.

I still like to hold a newspaper in my hands and get more than newsradio headlines.

2008-11-25T13:37:00.000-08:00

Former St. Joseph's Dean to Lead Effort for Camden Schools

Few cities in America are as bad off as Camden, NJ. Its per capita income is either last or next to last among America's cities. Thirty-five percent of its residents are under the age of 18, and 57 percent of them live in poverty. The schools are correspondingly poor.

As a partial answer to the ongoing crisis that is Camden, the diocese is partnering with the International Education Foundation (IEF) to create the Catholic Schools Partnership. This initiative will bring five elementary schools, four in Camden and one on the Camden-Pennsauken border, under the guidance of a five-person management team and a 12-person board of directors. Their task will be to bring the best educational and business models possible to the schools to enable them to survive, and perhaps thrive in the difficult circumstances that are part of everyday living in Camden.

The IEF was founded by Robert T. Healy, an alumnus of Camden Catholic High School and St. Joseph's University. Dr. Robert Palestini, former dean of St. Joseph's division of graduate and continuing studies and accomplished educator, will head the management team. Other leaders in Camden, including Msgr. Robert McDermott, pastor of St. Joseph's Procathedral in Camden, will play a role on either the board or management team.

Here is an example of leadership at its best, and here's hoping that the initiative succeeds beyond the team's wildest dreams.

2008-11-10T17:59:00.000-08:00

Retired Cardinal Reflects on Alienation of Catholics after Humane Vitae

Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, the Jesuit former cardinal of Milan has said in a long retrospective interview that Paul VI's 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, which found artificial contraception to be intrinsically evil, distanced many Catholics from their church and caused them not to take the Church's sexual teaching seriously. While the cardinal did not specifically discuss the morality of contraception, he thought the Church would benefit from further discussion of contraception from a more pastoral perspective.

The encyclical's effects continue to be a point of conflict within Roman Catholicism. Defenders often allege that many of society's ills, from STDs to the dramatic increase in divorce over the last forty years can be traced to artificial contraception. Critics accuse the encyclical of understanding the moral act of sexual intercourse in terms too narrowly biological that do not take into consideration the full range of human moral concerns. At the height of the controversy, Charles Curran, a priest of the diocese of Rochester, NY, and prolific scholar, was removed from his position on the ecclesiastical faculty of The Catholic University of America for his public opposition to it.

Cardinal Martini, now retired, was once considered papabile, that is, a possible candidate for the papacy.

2008-11-08T15:24:00.000-08:00

Abortion Again. This Time with Euthanasia and Same-Sex Marriage

Let's see . . . California banned same-sex marriage . . . In Colorado a proposal to define a human being as a person under law from the time of conception failed . . . Washington approved a referendum to allow physician-assisted suicide . . . and a law to outlaw abortion in North Dakota failed. I'm missing something here. America agrees to kill a living, genetically human organism (you can decide when to call it a person) at any stage during its life, including when it decides it no longer wants to live (and never mind the extraordinary ethical questions surrounding the genuine freedom and voluntariness of that choice), but committed partners' relationship cannot be formally recognized. The discussion of abortion and euthanasia centers on autonomy one way or another, but isn't that what marriage is, a choice? So the dissonance I perceive cannot be about choice. . . . I give up. Laws are passed to protect society; gay men and lesbian women apparently threaten society more than abortion and euthanasia. Can someone explain this conundrum to me?