As most folks know, Boston College is a Catholic college founded by and run by Jesuits. It shouldn't come as a surprise, then, that the school might have something of a Catholic ethos, right? Well, a decision by college officials to publicly express the school's Catholic nature has aroused howls of outrage by those who consider such expressions of the Catholic faith by a Catholic institution to be insensitive to non-Catholics.

Some Boston College professors and students are raising a holy ruckus over the Catholic school’s return to its religious roots by hanging crucifixes in all its classrooms, calling the move “offensive” and a break from the Jesuit tradition of tolerance.

“There is no choice if you don’t think it’s appropriate. You can’t turn it around,” said biology professor Dan Kirschner, faculty adviser for BC’s chapter of Hillel, a Jewish student group. “I think it is being insensitive to the people of other faith traditions here.”

Amir Hoveyda, head of BC’s chemistry department, blasted the school in an e-mail to the Herald for “not being interested in an exchange with its faculty members.”

In an interview with the college newspaper, The Observer, which broke the story, Hoveyda described the crucifixes as “offensive” and the university’s actions as “anti-intellectual.”

“I can hardly imagine a more effective way to denigrate the faculty of an educational institution,” he is quoted as saying. “The insult is particularly scathing, since such symbols were installed without discussion . . . in a disturbingly surreptitious manner.”

Now wait just one minute. This is, at the end of the day, a Catholic institution run by a Catholic religious order. It is not unreasonable for the school to therefore make some expression of its Catholic identity -- and a crucifix in the classroom is really a pretty minimal intrusion of Catholicism into daily life on campus.

To those who have an objection to crucifixes in classrooms at a Catholic college, I have a suggestion -- try a non-Catholic school instead.

Posted by: Greg at 08:15 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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