Catholic Basketball Coach Vs the Archbishop - The First Half

We shall see what occurs in the second half of this "game" that is going on. As I link to toward the end of these post it might not be a happy ending.

Well this is becoming a controversy. Pro life Catholic blogger Jill Stanek has the story at Catholic coach: pro-abortion, pro-Hillary. She goes into it in some detail. The skinny is that the Catholic Basket Coach of St. Louis University showed up at a Hillary Rally and announced he was Pro-Stem Cell research and Pro Choice so there. Archbishop Burke as you can tell was not pleased.

Vox Nova has a thread on this at The Battle Between a Bishop & Jesuit University Coach. I am sure the comment section there might get interesting.

Pat Forde of ESPN has a article on it here at Majerus: 'Good for your soul to be involved in this process. The whole tenor of the Forde piece tends to be a defense of Majerus. Pretty much heck he is in sports and has opinions good for him how dare anyone say anything.

The problem is this though and it is pointed out by Archbishop Burke in the St Louis Dispatch.
"When you hold a position in a Catholic university, you don't have to embrace everything the Catholic church teaches. But you can't make statements which call into question the identity and mission of the Catholic church.... You can't have a Catholic university with one of its prominent staff making declarations" in conflict with the church."

Well that is true. I suspect that many people will see this issue depending how they view sports. That is those that love it and those that think there is too much of it.

The problem is this. I don't know who the President of Notre Dame , Boston College and Georgetown are but I for darn sure can tell you who is coaching the football and basketball team. College sports are very much ID'ed with the University. In the secular context when LSU plays I very much see them representing me as a person and my state. When I see Notre Dame play , as much as I root for the Irish too lose at times, they represent American Catholicism to me and many in these country in some aspects.

I can tell you if the Head Football Coach of Notre Dame in his spare time became Spokesman for Catholics for Free Choice heads would be rolling.

In Missouri the questions even get more complex. Partly because Missouri has been the front line on several pro-life issues. Especially dealing with some forms of stem cell research. That these comments were made while ten of thousands of Catholics, some no doubt from St Louis University, were marching for LIFE in DC is a problem.

At the end of the day, this basketball Coach is the public face to thousands for a major Catholic University. So he should while he is in that position be mindful of that.

Mirrors of Justice ,which is Catholic Legal blog, is commenting on it. There is controversy there. Go see More on Majerus and the latest post Jesuit, sì; Catholic, not so sure (source: David O’Brien, who coined the phrase many years ago) .

In that post is a link to a blog of a darn good Canon lawyer that I visit some times. That is In Light of the Law. He has a quite interesting post on what the Archbishop could do if he wished to the Coach. The answer is quite a lot. Go see Does Coach Majerus really think he can out play Abp. Burke? .

For more on this story go to Coach Marjerus defies Archbishop Burke; cites Jesuit education.