Catholic News Item Proves to Be Not So New at All (Clinton speech flap) [View All]

[Rose Siding]

The reports spread quickly yesterday through Catholic news services and religious Web sites: Marymount Manhattan College had been declared no longer a Roman Catholic institution after inviting Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to give the commencement address next month.

The Cardinal Newman Society, a group that works to keep Catholic schools Catholic and had led protests against the scheduling of Mrs. Clinton as the speaker, announced the news in a press release, in which it applauded the archbishop of New York for "courageously" severing a "wayward" college.

There were only two problems. Marymount, a liberal arts school on the Upper East Side known mostly for its secular programs in theater and dance, has considered itself nonsectarian for many years. It was being stripped of a nonexistent status.

And the archdiocese said it had taken no action against Marymount. It, too, has not thought of Marymount as a Catholic school in quite a while.

http://nytimes.com/2005/04/30/nyregion/30catholic.html