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No academic freedom
| Saturday, Oct 11 2008 4:49 PM
Last Updated: Saturday, Oct 11 2008 4:53 PM
It was very sad for me to read that the eminent theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether was rescinded a prestigious position at the University of San Diego.
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Ruether was on the honorary advisory board when I was president of Catholics for Free Choice. She was imprisoned in Dachau during World War II. She and her family were imprisoned because they were intellectuals! In an unfree society there is no academic freedom.
Because free choice in abortion is contrary to official Catholic doctrine it doesn't mean that discussing it "violates the Catholic faith." Free speech is one of our fundamental rights.
Abortion is a matter of religious freedom and freedom of conscience.
In 1965 at the Vatican II conference, John Courtney Murray, an American theologian, wrote the Declaration of Religious Freedom, which was adopted by the conference. It stated that no person should ever be forced to act contrary to their conscience, that religious freedom is an exercise in freedom and democracy.
JAN GLEASON
Bakersfield