In this morning's Real Clear Religion, Mark Judge has an article, unbiasedly titled "How Catholic University Rid Itself of Father Curran." (N.B. My use of the adverb "unbiasedly" should be read a drenched in derision.)
That article, among other flaws, contains this sentence: "Something of a con man and obviously obsessed with sex, he made the authorities at Catholic University look like doddering saps."
I had Father Curran as a professor in 1986. He was, hands down, the toughest, most demanding professor I had. I did not always agree with his views, but he was a wonderful professor. When he finished his lecture on Lutheran ethics, you were convinced that the last words on ethics had been stated. Until the next week when, presenting class ic Thomistic teachings on ethics, you understood that they had rendered the last word on ethics. He had that gift, essential but increasingly rare in the modern academy, of being able to sympathetically present views other than his own.
Certainly, Father Curran was no "con man." Nor was he "obsessed with sex." Such charges, you would think, demand something in the way of evidence before finding their way into so prominent a website as Real Clear Religion. People are free to agree or not about Father Curran's views on a range of topics and I have friends who supported his removal from CUA and other friends who deplored it. But, this kind of smear against the man, not his views, is unworthy of Real Clear Religion.
