Archbishop calls for discipline of Rick Majerus

[TrmptPraise]

Rick Majerus is the current basketball coach for St. Louis University, a predominately Catholic University.

The Catholic basketball coach for the Catholic St. Louis University looked into the TV camera at the Clinton rally last weekend and said, "I'm pro-choice, personally."

"I'm very much an advocate for stem cell research," Majerus told KMOV-TV at the Saturday rally at McCluer North High School.

On Tuesday, St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke said St. Louis University should discipline Majerus for comments he made at the rally. Burke also told the Post-Dispatch that he would deny Majerus holy Communion if the coach did not change his positions on abortion rights and embryonic stem cell research.

Referring to Majerus' statements, Burke said before the March for Life rally Tuesday in Washington that it was "not possible to be a Catholic and hold those positions."

"I'm confident (SLU) will deal with the question of a public representative making declarations that are inconsistent with the Catholic faith," Burke said. "When you take 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 that identity and mission of the Catholic church."


Here's the kicker: SLU is nominally a Catholic institution, but last year the Missouri Supreme Court said, in a 6-1 decision, that SLU "is not controlled by a religious creed," which cleared the way for public funding of the university's new, $80 million arena.

In its Supreme Court brief, the school's lawyers said SLU "… is not now owned or controlled by the Society of Jesus."

The school reminded the court of its decision to sell St. Louis University Hospital to Tenet Healthcare in 1998 "despite the strong and well-publicized objections of the Archbishop of St. Louis."

The school's brief also pointed out that despite its Jesuit tradition, the university does not require employees or students "to aspire to Jesuit ideals, to be Catholic or to otherwise have any specific religious affiliation."

So, if SLU is a non-denominational school (from the states view), making public funding available to itself, it would seem that the Archbishop's statements would hold no merit nor would they be enforceable in regards to comments or opinions of one of its staff.

I am reading this correctly?

[RevDWW]

Could he be looking to get out of a contract?

[pelathais]

I think the archbishop is off base in asking the school to discipline the coach. The archbishop however can discipline the coach himself since the coach professes to be a Catholic. So the withholding of communion threat might have teeth.

But if the coach is playing ball in an $80 million publically funded arena then the 1st Amendment comes into play as well. But that is a complicated story.