On July 5 the University of Papua New Guinea Council (UPNG) made a decision to terminate the 2016 academic year.

The decision comes after more than six weeks of protest and boycotts over the prime ministership of Peter O'Neill.

The Bishops' Conference recognises the difficulty of the situation.

However it thinks the UPNG has not looked into all possibilities in addressing the situation.

General Secretary of the conference Fr. Victor Roche said the closing the academic year and sending the students back home is a big financial loss to the students and the government.

Roche said if 5000 students go back to their villages and towns to do nothing for the rest of the year, there would be more likely social issues brewing over the recent issues and can go out of control.

The Bishops' Conference is appealing to the University Councils and administration to seek the help of the Chaplaincies or the Conference itself to assist with a process of reconciliation.

It has also called for a proper inquiry into the whole situation by a neutral party for a peaceful solution and a way forward.

The UPNG Council also suspended of the Student Representative Council (SRC) and for ordered students to leave the campus by Saturday.

Source

• news.pngfacts.com
• asiapacificreport.nz
• Image: asiapacificreport.nz

Though the announcement follows years of petitions for an official "gay-straight alliance" club on campus, the university has chosen a more radical idea: It envisages creating a permanent student organisation grounded fully in Catholic social and moral teaching.

This solution from Notre Dame's Office of Student Affairs "has both surprised and excited the campus and elicited praise from the local Catholic bishop", reports the National Catholic Register.

"I believe there is a need at Catholic universities to provide pastoral care and support to persons with same-sex attraction," said Bishop Kevin Rhoades of South Bend, Indiana. "This is what Notre Dame's 'Pastoral Plan' is attempting to do.

"This pastoral care should help the students not to feel unwelcome or alienated in the community, but also help them to lead chaste and holy lives."

"I think that people, especially youth, who feel isolated or alienated can be more susceptible to destructive unchaste behavior," the bishop said. "Isolation, alienation, insecurity, etc. can lead to pleasure-seeking in sinful behaviour that ultimately brings unhappiness."

However, Bishop Rhoades cautioned that pastoral plans and support groups for homosexual students and their friends cannot take a "morally neutral" position on homosexuality.

The Notre Dame plan declares that its "goals and objectives, as well as its programs and initiatives, are consonant with the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church".

It dedicates eight paragraphs to making this point, repeatedly citing passages from the Catechism of the Catholic Church dealing with marriage, sexuality, friendship and the life of chastity.

The plan repeatedly notes that the new student organisation will uphold "the challenging, even though beautiful and life-giving, call to chaste relationships" and that "Student Affairs neither condones nor supports sexual activity outside the marital relationship or any sexual activities that ‘close the sexual act to the gift of life' (CCC, 2357)."

Sources:

National Catholic Register

Text of Notre Dame pastoral plan

Image: The Blaze

As "of today there is no agreement on a comprehensive solution to the problems that exist," the university announced on its website April 9.

The university rector notified the Apostolic Nunciature in Peru on Monday that it would not convene an assembly to approve the reforms which were demanded by the Vatican as a condition for maintaining its status as a Catholic and Pontifical institution.

The Vatican had given the school until April 8 - later extending the deadline to April 13 upon the university's request - to comply, which marked the first time the Holy See has set such a deadline for a school to reform.

University officials have been refusing to accept the Church's guidelines for Catholic universities, which were laid out the papal document "Ex Corde Ecclesiae." The apostolic constitution was promulgated in 1990 by Pope John Paul II to clarify what is expected of an authentically Catholic university. Read more