Carondelet high students tackle consumerism as issue of faith.

The Catholic Voice, propaganda organ for the Diocese of Oakland, reported in it’s April 17, 2006, edition on a recent debate regarding consumerism that took place amongst students at Carondelet High School in Concord, California.

It was presented as a part of an annual Forum initiatived at the school four years ago named after Mother St. John Fontbonne,
who ”re-organized the Sisters of St. Joseph after the FrenchRevolution.”

The debate was tailored, according to the Voice article: “so as
to nudge the 400-plus students to examine consumerism in light of Catholicism during a lively two hour session on the Concord Campus.”

Parents take note: that’s two hours, presumably, in which they were not learning Math, English or Science.

These young people actually are being indoctrinated to embrace Egalitarianism. James Twitchell Professor at the University of Florida has termed this camoflouged anti-consumerist advocacy as “Marxism-Lite.” This training leads to “Central planning or an eventual totalitarian society.”

This Fontbonne Forum was begun through the auspices of the Carondelet Campus Ministry program under the direction of Andrew Hodges. Rather than imparting solid Catholic teaching to students the entire agenda of this campus program reads like a leaf out of the progressive wing of the Democrat Party.

The Campus Ministry Program at Carondelet is under the direction of Andrew Hodges.
Its title of Ministry is misleading. It does not minister to the students faith needs nor show the students how to lead a Catholic life. On the contrary it is a training program for social activism masquerading as a ministry.

While Mr. Hodges led a group of 40 students in the January West Coast Walk For Life he also escorted students to a pro illegal immigration lobby day in Sacramento and organized a trip to Georgia for a few students to participate in the annual protest at the government School of the Americas, Other activities included Amnesty International events, working at St. Anthony’s Dining Room in San Francisco among the homosexuals and prostitutes and sleeping with the homeless in Salinas while bemoaning the conditions of the “poor” abused farm workers ala Cesar Chavez.

Mr. Hodges is not instilling a biblical love of supporting one’s neighbors. He is training the next generation of socialists.

Other Carondelet teachers involved in this Fontbonne Forum include Maureen Wanket, formerly a teacher at Loretto High School in Sacramento. She describes herself as an author and teacher and positions herself as a social dissident inspired, as a defiant teenager, by the book “Catcher In the Rye.” She apparently sees her calling as an author and teacher directed towards creating this same disaffection toward social norms in today’s youth.

The Voice article highlights the amateur work of a Carondelet student who filmed the Forum participants’ speeches along with the Georgia vigil activities and then wove them into a short documentary. The documentary on consumerism featured an interview with Brian Joyce, Pastor of Christ the King church in Pleasant Hill. An interesting choice since it is reported that his favorite department store is Nordstrom’s.

One of the most egregious elements in this Forum was the display of a desecrated American flag, as reported in the Voice article:

When students and faculty entered the auditorium, they came face to face with a large American flag decorated with corporate logos instead of stars. They received handouts of provocative quotes and questions for conversation starters.

Any teacher or youth leader desiring to build up a sense of moral ethics and honor would not do so by tearing down our American flag. Parents should seriously question the ethics behind this program. It appears that the Principal of Carondelet has hired teachers more interested in indoctrinating the students into a campaign of denigrating America than in learning to think for themselves through educating the intellect.

Not once in this whole article was there any reference to Catholic teaching or morals. A quote from three of the students summing up the Forum’s message tells it all. The students said: “Consumerism doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Individuals have choices and can opt for making choice that are both socially and environmentally good.” This is a dead giveaway that this is nothing more than strident politics.

OAKLAND DIOCESE REMAINS SILENT ON ISSUE OF HOMOSEXUAL PARTNERS ADOPTING.

San Francisco's Hateful Anti-Catholic Resolution Prompts Lawsuit

ANN ARBOR, MI, April 4, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A virulently anti-Catholic resolution (see coverage http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/mar/06032203.html ) unanimously passed by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors has prompted a federal lawsuit by the Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The Board resolution condemned Catholic moral teaching on homosexuality and urged the Archbishop of San Francisco and Catholic Charities of San Francisco to defy Church directives prohibiting gay adoptions

The lawsuit, brought on behalf of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights and two San Francisco Catholic citizens, challenges the anti-Catholic resolution as a "startling attack by government officials on the Catholic Church, Catholic moral teaching and beliefs, and those who adhere to the tenets of the Catholic faith, in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution."

The March 21, 2006 resolution alludes to the Vatican as a foreign country meddling in the affairs of the City and describes the Church's moral teaching and beliefs as "insulting to all San Franciscans," "hateful," "insulting and callous," "defamatory," "absolutely unacceptable," "insensitive[] and ignoran[t]." The resolution calls on the local Archbishop to "defy" the Church's teachings and describes Cardinal William Joseph Levada, the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is responsible for safeguarding the doctrine on the faith and morals of the Church throughout the Catholic world, as "unqualified" to lead.

According to Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, "The demagoguery and virulent words of this resolution are reminiscent of the anti- Catholic bigotry of the Ku Klux Klan and the Know Nothings, which marred our Nation's earlier history. San Francisco may as well have put up signs at the City limits: 'Faithful Catholics Not Welcomed."

Catholic doctrine proclaims that allowing children to be adopted by homosexuals would actually mean doing violence to these children, in the sense that their condition of dependency would be used to place them in an environment that is not conducive to their full human development. Therefore, such policies are considered gravely immoral and Catholic organizations must not place children for adoption in homosexual households.

The lawsuit claims that the First Amendment "forbids an official purpose to disapprove of a particular religion, religious beliefs, or of religion in general." The lawsuit states that this "anti-Catholic resolution sends a clear message to Plaintiffs and others who are faithful adherents to the Catholic faith that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community and an accompanying message that those who oppose Catholic religious beliefs, particularly with regard to homosexual unions and adoptions by homosexual partners, are insiders, favored members of the political community."

Robert Muise, the Law Center attorney handling this matter, commented, "Our constitution forbids hostility toward any religion. In total disregard for the Constitution, homosexual activists in positions of authority in San Francisco are abusing their authority as government officials and misusing the instruments of government to attack the Catholic Church. This egregious abuse of power is an outrage and a clear violation of the First Amendment."