St. Thomas students, faculty and staff have wide-ranging reactions to the sex-abuse scandal that has put the Catholic Church at the center of news headlines for the past few weeks.
Freshmen Nina Ricceri and Brianne Reeves would like to see the Catholic Church apologize for alleged incidents of child molestation and sex abuse.
As the end of the year approaches, many seniors are busy preparing to graduate. Although most students graduate after four years, 20 percent return to St. Thomas for more classes after their senior year.
Still, the average time for a student to graduate at St. Thomas has been steadily decreasing.
With the help of a few students, physics professor Gerry Ruch hopes to have St. Thomas’ observatory fully functional by the end of summer.
After spring semester, he will program the observatory’s computer system and integrate the observatory, which opened in September, into physics classes and other programs.
To promote the usage of the emergency blue lights on campus, the Undergraduate Student Government will host an event during convocation hour Tuesday in the Upper Quad.
A group of St. Thomas students, led by senior Amanda Leaveck, have decided to face the lack of education in third world countries. They will devote their talent toward raising money to build a school in India.
The group is organizing a fundraiser, which will include art, fashion, dancing, and singing, at 9 p.m. April 21 at First Ave.
St. Thomas students and close friends shared prayers and stories of Daniel Zamlen during a memorial prayer service held in the St. John Vianney Seminary chapel Thursday evening. The service was held on what would have been Zamlen’s 20th birthday to commemorate the one-year anniversary of his death.
This spring break, St. John Vianney Seminary sponsored four St. Thomas Catholic men 4,904 miles around the world to Rome.
The group was made up of sophomore John Baumgardner, senior Matthew Sweeney and juniors Daniel Carr and Matt Pazderka. All four men are active members of the Catholic men’s leadership group on campus.
Underage binge drinking has long been a source of major concern, but according to a new study done by Outside the Classroom, a company concerned with drinking issues on college campuses, underage binge drinking has been on the decline this year compared with years past.
Outside the Classroom founder and Chief Executive Brandon Busteed explained the extensive research that produced the study results.
False fire alarms cost St. Thomas money from its tuition-fueled budget, but the overall costs extend far beyond cash. On-campus residents are familiar with false fire alarms.
The FBI is warning police across the country that an anti-government group’s call to remove governors from office could provoke violence. The group called the Guardians of the free Republics wants to “restore America” by peacefully dismantling parts of the government, according to its Web site. It sent letters to governors demanding they leave office or be removed.
ope Benedict XVI urged priests to oppose violence as he led a ceremony dedicated to the priesthood Thursday, marking Holy Week with his church buffeted by clergy sex abuse scandals in Europe. “As priests, we are called in fellowship with Jesus Christ, to be men of peace, we are called to oppose violence and trust in the greater power of love,” Benedict said in his Holy Thursday homily in St. Peter’s Basilica. He made no mention of the scandals, as some thought he might do on a day the church pays tribute to its priests.
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton will co-chair a committee overseeing at least $3.8 billion in post-quake aid to Haiti, the ravaged country’s prime minister said. The announcement was made ahead of a critical donors conference Wednesday at the United Nations headquarters in New York. Haitian officials will ask representatives from more than 130 countries for reconstruction help at the meeting chaired by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, the former president’s wife, and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon.
President Barack Obama prepared Tuesday to sign the piece of his sweeping health care overhaul that makes the government the primary lender to students and strips banks of that power. Obama’s hard-fought legislative victory packaged two of his domestic priorities. Obama already signed the bulk of the health care legislation, but a final set of tweaks provided a route for the education package, the largest rewrite of federal college assistance programs in four decades.
Two female suicide bombers blew themselves up Monday in twin attacks on Moscow subway stations jam-packed with rush-hour passengers, killing at least 37 people and wounding 102, officials said. They blamed the carnage on rebels from the Caucasus region. The blasts come six years after Caucasus Islamic separatists carried out a pair of deadly Moscow subway strikes and raise concerns that the war has once again come to Russia’s capital, amid militants’ warnings of a renewed determination to push their fight.
Pope Benedict XVI opened Holy Week on Sunday amid one of the most serious crises facing the church in decades, with questions about his handling of cases of pedophile priests and the Vatican acknowledging its “moral credibility” was on the line. Benedict made no direct mention of the scandal in his Palm Sunday homily. But one of the prayers, recited in Portuguese during Mass, was “for the young and for those charged with educating them and protecting them.” Jesus Christ, Benedict said in his homily, guides the faithful “toward the courage that doesn’t let us be intimidated by the chatting of dominant opinions, towards patience that supports others.”
