The Ave Maria Chronicles: Don't say she didn't warn ya???

The latest wrinkle to our continuing saga is a "blast from the past," courtesy of the Ave Parents website.

"As the Ave Maria project moves forward, he [Monaghan] must continue to depend upon others to help him achieve his vision, and to no little extent his success in doing so will depend upon how he treats those that he has enlisted in the project and his willingness to seek and follow good advice."

Sooo... just when you thought this was another case of axe-grinding professors, along comes a warning, dating back to May of 2003, which could hardly be characterized as a vicious attack on anybody. (Thanks to one of the commenters for bringing this letter to my attention.) Over a year ago, this well-known philosophy professior and Catholic speaker wrote this letter while a visiting Professor at AMC Michigan. At the time, she became aware of serious problems with AMC's administration, which was then led by President Nick Healy (before he moved down and started AMU Florida).

Dr Smith is a Chair of Life Issues at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, author of Humanae Vitae: A Generation Later, editor of Why Humanae Vitae Was Right: A Reader and has written many articles on ethical and bioethics issues. She taught for nine years at the real Notre Dame and twelve years at the University of Dallas. She speaks nationally and internationally on the several issues, especially the Catholic Church's teaching on sexuality. Smith is also a consultor to the Pontifical Council on the Family.

There are those within the Catholic blogosphere, who would dismiss the controversy as a sign of poor character and a lack of good faith in the AVC/AMU leadership and their misson. After all,they say, if you can't trust Father or Doctor So-and-so,who can you trust? That is beside the point. This is less a question of orthodoxy, than of orthopraxis; less a question of talking the talk, than of walking the walk. Our faith is to be in Christ, not in the ability of some button-down-suit-with-a-title to talk a good game.

Some of us used to tell ourselves, if you can't trust Cardinal So-and-so to be orthodox, who can you trust?