The shock waves on Katie Couric's attack on Ave Maria University and its dangerous Catholic culture with its "segregation," its "intolerance," its disrespect for "civil liberties" are spreading. Myrna Blyth picks it up today on National Review, noting the same Katie who whacked the founder of Domino's Pizza as a menace wrote get-cozy notes to the Unabomber to score an interview.
Here's another example of Katie picking on religiously centered towns only when they're Catholic. The town of New Square, New York (population 4,624) floated up to national attention in 2001, after it was discovered that this all-Hasidic Jewish community offered more than 99 percent of their votes for Hillary Clinton for Senate in 2000. On "Meet the Press," Tim Russert noted The New York Daily News reported President Clinton granted clemency to four men "convicted of swiping millions in federal education grants by establishing a fake Jewish school." The clemency came after Clinton held a White House meeting in December 2000 with Senator-elect Hillary Clinton and New Square Rabbi David Twersky. Guess how rough Katie Couric was on that exclusive community, with criminal convictions cleared in a political scandal?
Sorry. Katie Couric never touched that story. The folks at "Today" somehow thought there was less controversy than with the Catholic town. (It did draw one news brief on a Saturday "Today.")
Katie does sound a lot like the Vatican-hating feminists, like the so-called "Catholic" leader that thinks the church is killing people by not promotoing condoms, quoted in this AP story:
Frances Kissling, president of the liberal Washington-based Catholics for a Free Choice, likened Monaghan's concept to Islamic fundamentalism.
"This is un-American," Kissling said. "I don't think in a democratic society you can have a legally organized township that will seek to have any kind of public service whatsoever and try to restrict the constitutional rights of citizens."
Trendy liberal journalists don’t want to signal to viewers that they hate religion. They want to show a modicum of respect for prayer, in private, removed from the world. But it’s when religion threatens to tippy-toe into the culture on those touchy "lifestyle" issues like sex that suddenly they identify the threat of repressive Christians (whether they’re more orthodox Catholics or Protestants) and their creeping theocracy. If I were CBS, I would think twice about how Catholics might come to view anti-Catholic Couric as America’s least likable newscaster.
UPDATE: Bettnet picked up the story:
I’ve seen even some Catholic bloggers say this is a bad idea because we’re called to go out into the world to evangelize it, not gather ourselves in Catholic ghettos where we won’t be contaminated by the ritually impure....that’s not what I’ve heard from the founders. In fact, they say it’s simply a way to give employees of the university a place to live near the campus, plus allow those interested in living near a first-class Catholic university an opportunity to do so. I doubt they’re going to have gates at the entrances to screen for baptismal status.
