St. Xavier University v.NLRB - Esse Quam Videri

By Thunder! I have a Doctorate in Important Stuff from Phoenix University (on-line)! This class size is an Outrage! Kick the Pope in Boyne Water! I'm Hitting the Bricks!Strike, Strike! Strike!

I'll be going in to Leo High School shortly. I get up at about 4 A.M. and practice writing. That has been my habit for many years. I started teaching in Catholic secondary schools in 1975.

I have never belonged to a teachers union. I was a janitor ( now SEIU)and held a paid up card for years. Nearly every male and many female members of my immediate and extended family hold union cards in the skilled trades - stationary engineers, machinists, plumbers, electricians, carpenters.

I generally get over to Leo High School between 5-5:30 A.M. where I read the obits for the names of Alumni, answer e-mails, do prospect research and often tutor the guys in English and American Lit, or help with their essays.

Teaching - is it a profession, or trade? Professionals, like lawyers, doctors, and accountants, set up their practices, or work for partnerships. Teachers want to be treated like professionals - they demand it.

It has been my honor to work with real professionals. People who have not only imparted information, methods, or theories but inspired young people to exceed their grasps.

At times, I have worked with few real dogs - people who took every sick day and change; never took advantage of the library during free time; could not manage a class of any size; had more excuses than Michael Moore has chins; threatened lawsuits when terminated. They were jokes. Many found homes with their State of Illinois Certifications in public schools.

One outstandingly stupid gent became a regional superintendent in southern Illinois. He had a personally crafted sign in his classroom: 'Untied We Stand!' Untied he was from the bonds of his Catholic school contract, after he violated his contract for the last time.

This morning I read the hopelessly slanted report by the Tribune's Seeker -Manya Brachear. Her grain of salt begins with this poisoning of the well -

For years, some Roman Catholic bishops and conservatives have complained that American Catholic colleges have strayed from church teachings. Now, labor regulators in Chicago have declared that St. Xavier University isn't Catholic enough by government standards either.

Really? Most Catholic colleges are Corporations and Bishops are Corporations Sole in Illinois. They are separate legal entities. Which is it legal, or doctrinal?

Georgetown University, De Paul University and University of Notre Dame have bent like like Gummi Worms to be perceived as secular Ivory Towers. In fact Georgetown removed the Cross for President Obama. Notre Dame arrested rosary praying priests and old folks, unhappy with Our Lady's University telling America that Abortion is Okay. De Paul University, for some goofy reason, wants to be a rube Berkeley.

It is no easy thing being a Catholic, anymore than it is being a good Baptist, or a devout Jew, especially given American sub-culture these days.

Homosexual Marriage is unacceptable; Abortion is unacceptable. Therefore, to the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, Progressive bully pulpit Catholic is unacceptable.

Catholic Gummi Bears agree.

The NLRB gooning of St.Xavier University is no more than the Obama White House playing street for its base. President has no street cred and needs some quickly. Gooning a Catholic school will toss red meat to MSNBC, GE, Hollywood and SEIU. It'll show the man is serious about Change '08. The Change that gave us our current economic and moral swamp.

Part time ( Adjunct) teachers are not forced into the St. Xavier University HR Offices on 103rd Street at gun point. There is a perfectly fine Community College on Pulaski at 76th ( Daley) and another over on Dr. Martin Luther King Drive at 99th Street (Chicago State). They are secular choices, where no bishops pop out of the wood work.

As to the social justice issue, read the encyclicals. Pope Leo XIII for whom this old high school was named is the Pope of the Working Man and author of Rerum Novarum. Leo XIII wrote it for 19th Century working men who had full time jobs as meat-cutters, teamsters, drovers, renderers, leathermen, engineers, carpenters, electricians and plumbers. This was the age of the Molly Maguire hangings (23 hangings) in Pennsylvania and Colorado Mine massacres - hardly adjunct art teachers.

Rerum Novarum was not a call to organize lemonade stand workers, though work very hard.

The fact that a person studied real hard to get a Phd. in Public Art, or wrote her Masters thesis on 'The Enslavement of Women in Archie and Jughead Graphic Novel' is to be praised, but meat for a union local getting organized anywhere.

Pope Leo XIII was no Saul Alinsky.

I hope that St. Xavier University wins this one.

Catholic Universities like Catholics should be what they seem to be and not bend like Gummi Worms in order to charm dim bulbs like Manya Brachear.