Catholic hall at University of Oxford sacrificed to political correctness

Dr Joseph Shaw who taught philosophy there and is also Chairman of the Latin Mass Society writes:

Farewell to St Benet’s Hall 

How a Catholic institution capitulated to the non-binary gods of diversity 

Oxford, home of lost causes, and forsaken beliefs and unpopular names and impossible loyalties.” Such was Matthew Arnold’s description, and its truth, though diminishing through time, has been part of its greatness. Oxford harboured John Wycliffe, and defied Henry VIII’s demand for academic support for his divorce. It concealed persecuted Catholics and outlawed Jacobites. Its students still wear academical dress to sit exams, and ply its rivers in bizarre craft powered by long sticks. And it is home to some very eccentric institutions. 

One of the most eccentric, St Benet’s Hall, is now closing. Few of the founding principles of Oxford’s constituent “houses” would be allowed today. One, founded to support clerics who would pray for the dead of the battle of Agincourt, is today one of the most prestigious academic institutions on the globe: All Souls College. Others, of more recent vintage, are affiliated to various versions of Protestantism, or belong to different Catholic religious orders. 

These are “Permanent Private Halls”, of which St Benet’s was one. These are granted the right to admit students by the University, like colleges, but with less autonomy, and unlike colleges they are not self-governing academic communities. Instead, the Halls are ultimately the responsibility of trustees. They were founded — to simplify a little — in order to make possible the participation in the university of Catholic religious (Benedictine monks, Capuchin Franciscan Friars, Jesuits, and Dominicans), or of non-Catholic seminarians (Baptist, low and high Anglican, Unitarian). Professed religious and seminarians, it was felt, could not simply join an ordinary college: they needed a residence and intellectual community of their own.

Full article here

It should come as no surprise.  A Cardinal was not allowed onto High Table with me at another college because they were concerned about protests from left-wing students.   Capitulation is the order of the day in academe

One is reminded that while John Milton called in the Areopagitica for "the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties", his generosity stopped when it came to Catholics.

The University of Oxford has happily been taking Chinese money but holds its nose when Catholic money is forthcoming.  Again, not surprising when the Pope will stay silent in the face of Chinese government persecution while persecuting the Latin Mass himself. 

We live in a darkening and intolerant age.  Plenty of guilty bystanders in the case of St Benet's Hall.

Some years ago, I had a letter in the national press to the effect that religious houses of studies were the origins of the University and the University would end as religious houses of study.  The Benedictines have gone, the Franciscans have gone, one must pin such hopes on Blackfriars.  There are the Jesuits at Campion Hall, but given the experience of this Pope....