President Timothy Law Snyder has failed LMU. He has damaged its Catholic identity. We are having a rally to protest what President Snyder has done and what he has failed to do on Monday morning December 6th between 7-9 a.m. on the corner of Lincoln Blvd and LMU Drive near the LMU fountain. The LMU Board of Trustees is meeting that morning, and as they drive by us into LMU, we need to make them aware of the many failures of leadership in the administration of President Snyder. (Some of you may want to stand outside the other entrance to LMU at the gate at the corner of Loyola Blvd and 80th near the LMU sign on Monday morning December 6th between 7-9 a.m.. That entrance may be used by a few board members.) We hope that the media will cover this event.
Please feel free to make and bring signs to protest President Snyder. Here are some ideas. “President Snyder, Renew LMU” “Snyder Restore St Serra” “Snyder Stop Religious Discrimination at LMU” “Snyder Restore Mission in BCLA” “Snyder Stop Pronoun Policing” “Snyder Needs to Stop Student Cyberbullying” “Tim, does ‘inclusivity’ include Catholics?”
Please tell your friends and bring your friends. We will see you by the fountain.
Catholic students on campus have been bullied, harassed, and even sent messages like, “we hope you die.” For example, consider the following post “Everyone bully the LMU republicans Instagram page pls [please]” from one LMU student against another group of LMU students:
The mother of two current LMU students wrote to President Synder about the harassment and bullying. President Synder ignored her concerns and did not reply to her letter. Maybe his version of “inclusivity” does not include faithful Catholics. Please find her letter below.
Dear President Snyder,
As the mother of two current students at Loyola Marymount University, I am appalled at the cyber-bullying that occurred toward a group of pro-life LMU students. In opposition to the Planned Parenthood fundraiser, a small group of pro-life LMU students chose to table on campus a few days before the event. A photo of the group was posted on Instagram by a comedic account which harshly ridiculed the group of pro-life students. What followed were over 200 comments on this photo from LMU students. A number of the comments were vile and hateful in content, some even ridiculing the appearance of the pro-life students and mocking them. This is cyber-bullying. Pro-life students are already a minority on campus. Should Catholic and pro-life students be afraid to share their personal views?
Your office was made aware of this incident through our previous letter, but we received no response.
LMU students should be held to a level of decorum which respects free speech and insists on acting civilly and respectfully. We understand disagreement and debate, for these are fundamental aspects of free speech, especially on a college campus. However the ridicule and cruelty which occurred through this Instagram post is unacceptable. Our children that attend LMU have a personal attachment to the pro-life issue as children of an adopted mother. They have been raised in Catholic doctrine to respect life from conception to natural death. As a Catholic university, LMU must protect its Catholic students just like any other students, and in this egregious example LMU has not protected these students.
How will the administration respond to this instance of vile and hateful ridicule against Catholic pro-life students? We implore the administration to stand with its Ignatian values and protect students of all beliefs. This protection must extend to those with beliefs in the minority. Only then will the university’s mission statement be achieved. In closing, LMU is a Catholic university. Do Catholic students receive the same protection as other students at LMU? We pray that they do. We hope moving forward that the administration takes action to ensure that all students, yes even Catholic pro-life students, are protected, respected, and considered a viable part of this Catholic university.
Sincerely,
A Highly Concerned LMU Mom (name withheld to prevent further bullying of her children currently at LMU)
To support this effort, please sign below and circulate the link to this petition https://renewlmu.com/ by emailing friends and posting on your social media. LMU’s President can be reached at 310.338.2775
[T]he Rev. William J. Fulco, S.J., a Jesuit priest and the retired National Endowment for the Humanities Chair of Ancient Mediterranean Studies, passed away on Nov. 28, 2021, of a longtime illness at the Sacred Heart Jesuit Center in Los Gatos, California. He was 85 years old.
Father Fulco joined LMU in August 1998, and through his retirement in 2019, he established himself as a scholar, teacher, curator, mentor, and raconteur. A popular teacher, Father Fulco’s courses covered an impressive range of topics: “God and the World of Ancient Israel”; ancient religions; music culture in ancient Palestine; ancient Near Eastern languages; Near Eastern archaeology; biblical archaeology and Old Testament studies; and classical numismatics. He traveled the world exploring those subjects, and he made archeological travel available for LMU students, annually sponsoring digs across the globe through his NEH funding. In 2007, LMU recognized him with the President’s Fritz B. Burns Distinguished Teaching Award, one of the highest honors bestowed on faculty by the university.
Father Fulco founded LMU Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts’ Archaeology Center to study and display the collected and preserved museum-quality artifacts he acquired during his travels. His scholarship in the Aramaic language led him to be the advisor for the film “The Passion of the Christ.”
He also advised on the films “The Nativity Story” (2006) and “Jesus VR: The Story of Christ” (2016), and the television documentary series “Ancient Aliens” (2010-13). Father Fulco worked extensively with the Pontifical Biblical Institute Museum in Jerusalem and made a transformative impact through his work with Alcoholics Anonymous, speaking at retreats across the United States.
He was the classic Jesuit academic, equally at home on an archeological dig as in the classroom. Father Fulco embraced, with his characteristic animated joy, whatever project lay in front of him. He was a devoted member of LMU’s Jesuit Community, a highly engaged faculty advisor, and he remained connected with his former students over the years, always present to celebrate sacraments and offer advice. His contributions and impact inspired the formation of the Father Fulco Balanced Living Scholarship, reflecting his work over the years with Sigma Phi Epsilon and benefiting first-year students.
A native Angeleno, Father Fulco was born in the Leimert Park area, graduated from Loyola High School and joined the Society of Jesus in 1954. He was ordained in 1966. Father Fulco earned his Ph.D. in Near Eastern languages and literatures from Yale University. He earned his B.A. at Santa Clara University and his M.A. at Gonzaga University. He also held a Licentiate of Sacred Theology and Master of Sacred Theology from the Jesuit School of Theology, Berkeley, California.
Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May his soul and all the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.
Recent newsstoriesreported that a professor in LMU’s Department of Theological Studies forces his students, on penalty of reduction of their grade, to include their personal pronouns next to their name in their classwork. This practice must stop immediately because it is a direct violation of LMU’s mission.
Forcing students to declare their pronouns violates the promotion of justice because it violates the right of free speech. The right of free speech, which LMU says it protects, includes the right to remain silent, the right not to say something that you do not want to say. Compelled speech is not free speech.
Forcing students to declare their preferred pronouns also violates the education of the whole person because it violates privacy. Some students may want to remain private about their gender identity. It is invasive and inappropriate for a professor to force his students to publicly declare their sexual orientation or their gender identity.
Forcing students to declare their preferred pronouns also violates the service of faith because it signals endorsement of what Pope Francis has called “gender ideology.” Gender ideology is a dualism that the ‘real me’ (male) could be trapped inside a (female) body, that biological males can become women, that an individual might be any one of 58 genders, and that sex and gender are mere social constructions. These views have been repeatedly and strongly criticized by Pope Francis. The Pope teaches that the human body, as male or female, is part of the good gift of God’s creation. Any university whose mission statement includes the service of faith should protect students of faith from being forced to act against their faith.
To be crystal clear, we believe, as the Catholic Church believes, that all human beings deserve to be respected by everyone and protected against unjust discrimination. Indeed, we should love all human beings, including every person with gender dysphoria.
But respecting people does not mean adopting their ideology or their practices. Protecting people does not mean forcing other people to act contrary to their faith or their consciences. And loving all people does not mean speaking or acting contrary to the truth. As St. Edith Stein taught, “Do not accept anything as the truth if it lacks love. And do not accept anything as love which lacks truth.”
We respectfully ask you, therefore, to issue a public declaration and establish as official LMU policy that no professor is permitted to force his or her students to disclose their personal pronouns. We ask you to stop your administration’s institutional commitment to gender ideology, and to renew LMU’s institutional commitment to Roman Catholicism.
Sincerely,
Anne (Rezzo) Rosen, LMU Alum 1985
To support this effort, please sign below and circulate the link to this petition https://renewlmu.com/ by emailing friends and posting on your social media. LMU’s President can be reached at 310.338.2775
We are grateful to the hundreds of people who signed our petition to restore the statue of St. Junípero Serra to a place of honor on campus. We are also impressed by the thoughtful comments and messages that we have conveyed to President Snyder, Archbishop Gomez, and other important members of the LMU community.
“The statue dates back to the 1990s, when it was placed outside the campus library as a gift of William H. Hannon, a Catholic philanthropist and passionate admirer of Serra. Hannon was a major benefactor of the campus, an honorary trustee, and regent emeritus. Many campus buildings are named for him at the university, which claims affiliation with both the Society of Jesus and the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary.”
Claims is exactly the right word, but only when convenient.
LMU was built with the money of Catholic donors and parents. President Snyder wants to keep what is convenient (the buildings, the donor base, the cash) and reject what is inconvenient (the statue, the BCLA mission statement, anything Catholic which is contrary to woke ideology).
“In a Nov. 24 statement to CNA, the university said: ‘In summer of 2020, the statue of Rev. Serra on LMU’s Westchester campus was removed to conduct repairs. When the campus reopened from the pandemic in fall of 2021, the university convened a task force to invite feedback from the community and to develop recommendations on future plans. No final decisions have been made, and the university remains committed to a thoughtful process of open dialogue.’”
Those on campus who want to ban the statue consider it a symbol of tyranny, oppression, and racism whose presence is “triggering trauma” for students rather than providing “a safe and welcoming place” for everyone on campus.
This argument for removing the statue of St. Junípero Serra applies even more forcefully to Sacred Heart Chapel. The beautiful chapel is built in the Spanish Mission style. But according to woke ideology, the Spanish Missions were expressions of European colonial oppression, racism, and white supremacy. The Chapel is even painted white, a blatant attempt to glorify white supremacy and to marginalize Black and Indigenous people of color.
Since Sacred Heart Chapel is so much larger and more prominent than the Serra statue, the Chapel must be an even greater threat of “triggering trauma” for those who chose to come to LMU. If they go into the chapel, things go from bad to worse because right in the center of the chapel is a large crucifix. Think of the oppressive symbolism that the crucifix entails for Jewish students whose ancestors suffered pogroms, Muslim students who ancestors suffered under Christian crusaders, and Protestant students whose ancestors suffered under the Spanish inquisition. And what about the atheists on campus? Non-believers showed us what they thought of Catholic places of worship when during the Reign of Terror they took down the crucifix and turned the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris into a storage warehouse. They also knew exactly what to do with priests and other Catholics who stood in the way of their pursuit of utopia. These Catholics got to experience a new invention named after Joseph-Ignace Guillotin. Now that’s moving beyond words to taking action for Liberty, Equity, and Inclusivity! So, if we are to be consistent advocates for inclusive, non-triggering “safe spaces,” we should remove the crucifix immediately and then before Easter, at the latest, demolish Sacred Heart Chapel or at least rededicate it to Michel Foucault.
Apparently, some people who chose to come to a Catholic university hate Catholic symbols. They won’t feel “safe and included” until everything they dislike about Catholicism is removed from their sight. Should we make our “campus a safe and welcoming place” by means of removing every last vestige of Catholic identity? Should a Jewish university scrub itself clean of every Jewish symbol to avoid traumatically triggering those who choose to come to a Jewish university?
On the other hand, maybe those who are triggered by Jewish symbols at a Jewish university should check themselves for latent anti-Semitism. And maybe those who come to a Catholic university and are triggered by Catholic symbols should check themselves for implicit bias or the virus of woke ideology.
LMU’s administration under President Snyder is institutionally committed to Roman Catholicism when fundraising with donors, recruiting students with parents willing to pay, and appealing to alumni.
LMU’s administration under President Snyder is institutionally committed to woke ideology when hiring administrators, recruiting professors, and fundraising for Planned Parenthood.
In the summer of 2020, after statues were taken down across the United States, your administration approved the removal of the statue of St. Junípero Serra that stood in the front of the Charles Von der Ahe Building, the former library. We object to your action.
It is hard to believe that the statue was taken down in order to be repaired. An identical statue, also donated in 1992 by one of our greatest donors William Hannon, can be found in very good condition at St. Anastasia School, just one mile away from LMU. In any case, any repairs should be complete by now, a year and a half later. Nor was LMU’s statue taken down in order to prevent likely vandalism. Due to Covid, almost no one was allowed on campus until Fall 2021.
These symbols matter, and they are dearly treasured by the Catholic faithful. Moreover, as the essay, “Is Loyola Marymount University Losing its Catholic Identity?,” predicted, “The final argument about religious identity will be about whether distinctively religious art should remain. A compromise will be struck whereby the pieces considered offensive—such as the central crucifix and the statue of Mary—are removed, but the stained glass windows remain intact, a silent reminder of a long lost tradition.” Your choice to remove this statue was one more step you have made towards LMU losing its distinctive identity and becoming just like any secular school.
With all due respect to some on campus who see things differently, the statue of St. Junípero Serra should be returned to a place of honor. The saint’s statue should be accompanied by exactly the same contextualization, historical perspective, and critical evaluation that accompanies all the other statues, plaques, memorials, and quotations in stone on campus from figures including Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King, Jr, Mahatma Gandhi, Bill Gates, St. Ignatius of Loyola, and the Virgin Mary. That is to say, none. For these figures, we do not publicly document their real or alleged sins, or the sins of those associated with them, near their sites of commemoration.
This consistent policy in how we treat statues on campus is particularly appropriate for St. Junípero Serra who recently completed the lengthy and rigorous examination process involved in becoming a canonized saint. In the words of Pope Francis, St. Junípero, “sought to defend the dignity of the native community, to protect it from those who had mistreated and abused it.” As Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles and Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco point out, St. Junípero “defended indigenous people’s humanity, decried the abuse of indigenous women, and argued against imposing the death penalty on natives who had burned down a mission and murdered one of his friends. At age 60, ill and with a chronically sore leg, Serra traveled 2,000 miles to Mexico City to demand that authorities adopt a native bill of rights he had written.”
Regardless of what any committee may recommend to you, we hope your decision about this statue does not further erode our Catholic identity. If a Planned Parenthood fundraiser can be held at LMU in Roski, certainly a statue of this country’s first Hispanic saint canonized by the first Hispanic Pope can be in a place of honor and respect at LMU. If you wish to have the statue placed inside, so as to lessen the likelihood of vandalism, it should be in a place of high visibility as it was before. We suggest putting it in Roski.
Yours truly,
Marcos Chavira, LMU Alum 1995
To support this effort, please sign below and circulate the link to this petition https://renewlmu.com/ by emailing friends and posting on your social media. LMU’s President can be reached at 310.338.2775
We have forwarded our petition, signatures, and messages to President Synder and other important community leaders, including the Archbishop of Los Angeles José H. Gomez. The following messages came in to us too late to be included, but we post them now so that their voices of concern may be heard.
One message read:
I can no longer support LMU financially nor recommend it as a “Catholic” university. The current administration’s recent actions make it impossible. There no longer seems to be the “commitment to Roman Catholicism and the Judeo-Christian tradition” that you tout. St. Ignatius must be turning over in his grave to see a Jesuit university turning away from basic Catholic doctrine. Shame on President Snyder and the Board!
Another reads:
A fundraiser for Planned Parenthood, and now this! How can you continue to call LMU a Catholic university?
And another:
I donate to LMU as a Catholic University. Though I applaud free exchange of ideas and discussions in an academic setting, it appears that the university is abandoning it’s commitment to being a Catholic university first and foremost. This will certainly affect my willingness to donate in the future. I pray that LMU will reconsider the direction that it is headed.
And another:
Dear President Snyder, Apart from what’s already stated, I urge you in the strongest terms possible to restore the Catholic mission statement language that used to exist at LMU. A blunt — if not crass — question places it all into proper perspective. What is LMU’s raison d’etre? For that matter, what is any so-called “Catholic” institution’s reason for existing, if not to proclaim loudly and live unapologetically its Catholic Identity and Mission. Surely, LMU does not exist merely to be yet another credible secular school!!! The nation and world are full of high quality secular state schools where one can obtain a top-notch education at a fraction of the cost. Indeed, the “something extra” reflected in the tuition cost differential is traceable to the moral Catholic component. Conversely, if you abandon the Catholic nature and mission focus of the school, there is no real reason for students to pay elevated tuition at LMU; one could pay far less tuition at a quality State school, receive a comparable education (or better, depending on the school), and pay a fraction of the cost.
Another letterreads:
This is unconscionable. The very faith which built your school is now to be deleted and denied? Before the cock crows… we are very disappointed in your lack of moral courage for our faith and the values that built your University. Until you stand up for those values we will make sure to tell our Catholic friends and family to look elsewhere when it comes to educating our youth.
Thank you for the overwhelming number of messages and letters of support. The more you circulate the information you find at renewlmu.com, the better.
We are determined to hold President Synder publicly accountable for what he does and what he fails to do.
President Snyder’s decision to approve the Planned Parenthood Fundraiser continues to draw attention from the media. For example, an article in the Washington Post (paywall free version here) quotes:
“[One student], who was raised Catholic but is not religious, said Loyola Marymount feels like an ‘unsafe campus to be on as a woman.’”
The idea seems to be that if LMU does not hold fundraisers for Planned Parenthood, then LMU is somehow threatening the physical well-being of women. This is hard to believe. But maybe ‘safety’ means mental well-being, understood as feeling comfortable. But then all the pro-life students on campus were made ‘unsafe’ by the Planned Parenthood Fundraiser, since they were extremely upset by President Snyder’s approval of this event.
Another article in the campus newspaper, the Loyolan says the following, “One held a sign, “If abortion is murder, masturbation is mass genocide.” Maybe a biology class next year will clear up this confusion for the student. It’s odd how the “We believe in Science” crowd forgets inconvenient scientific facts. The Loyolan article continues:
“It’s not just about abortion services, it’s [sexually transmitted disease] testing and treatment, contraception and most importantly cancer screenings and prevention,” said [another student].
Planned Parenthood doesn’t only do abortions. So what? A hitman doesn’t only do killings-for-hire. He may call his grandma every Sunday, play video games, and most importantly make a great pumpkin pie for his family every Thanksgiving. Do these other actions mitigate his killing-for-hire?
The Loyolan essay continues, “Promotional posters asked, ‘Confused on why students were allowed to call other students murderers?’ referencing the nature of the Nov. 5 protest.” Confused is right. LMU’s Bias Incident Response Team (BIRT) comes down like a ton of bricks on anyone who shows any kind of bias against a member of the LMU community because of “someone’s actual or perceived sex, gender, gender identity and expression, race, color, religion….”
We wonder if these students, and LMU itself, show equal concern for religious pro-life students at LMU on campus who have been bullied, harassed, and even sent messages like, “we hope you die.” For example, consider the following post “Everyone bully the LMU republicans instgram page pls [please]” from one LMU student against another group of LMU students:
Will LMU administrators hold this student and others who are harassing and bullying Catholic students accountable? Will LMU’s Bias Incident Response Team (BIRT) swing into action and public condemnation? Will President Snyder send an email to the entire LMU community decrying attacks on Catholic students on campus? I wouldn’t bet on it.
Several years ago, an essay entitled, “Is Loyola Marymount University Losing its Catholic Identity?” made this prediction, “In order to reflect what is really happening in the university, mission statements will have to be altered by deleting words such as ‘the service of faith’ and ‘commitment to Roman Catholicism’ from university and college mission statements. Deletion of these few lines will have no effect on the day-to-day running of the university, as they had no effect for years previously.”
Unfortunately, this has already happened. Please compare the following mission statements.
“The Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts (BCLA) embodies the wider University goals of liberal education and commitment to Roman Catholicism and the Judaeo-Christian tradition. The curriculum in the College liberates the mind, nourishes the spirit, and cultivates creativity for the challenges of today and tomorrow. Its courses, therefore, are at the heart of the University’s core curriculum for all undergraduates.” (LMU Bulletin 2014-15, p.49)
“BCLA is the oldest and largest school at LMU and the liberal arts is at the heart of the LMU undergraduate education for all our students. We have 25 degree programs and 31 minors that will help you sharpen your intellectual capacity, gain deep content knowledge, and practice the marketable skills–such as critical thinking, writing, diversity awareness, and teamwork–that are highly valued by employers. In fact, the overwhelming majority of employers prefer to hire people who demonstrate the outcomes from a liberal arts education. Liberal arts graduates have similar peak earnings as business and pre-professional majors, and are more likely to pursue graduate degrees” (LMU Bulletin 2015-2016, p.57)
We write because we want you to restore the missing language of a “commitment to Roman Catholicism and the Judaeo-Christian tradition.”
More importantly, we want BCLA, and LMU more generally, to actually live out this stated mission and Catholic identity in its decisions. We need both words and deeds.
Sincerely,
George Cassar, LMU Alum 1987
To support this effort, please sign below and circulate the link to this petition https://renewlmu.com/ on your social media. LMU’s President can be reached at 310.338.2775 and on twitter @LMUSnyder
RenewLMU 