November 13, 2015 (CardinalNewmanSociety) — The Society of Catholic Social Scientists (SCSS) called for an end to federal funding of Planned Parenthood in a recent statement, with the group’s president urging other Catholic academic groups to follow suit, following the release of a series of undercover videos that shocked the public and led to investigations of America’s largest abortion business for potentially illegal activity.
The recent revelations of Planned Parenthood’s involvement in the harvesting and selling of aborted baby organs and body parts “must finally awaken us to the horrific reality of the actions of this government-supported organization,” the SCSS statement read.
Dr. Stephen Krason, president of the SCSS and political science and legal studies professor at the Newman Guide-recommended Franciscan University of Steubenville, spoke to The Cardinal Newman Society about academic groups’ responsibility to speak out about such issues.
Academic organizations guided by Catholic principles “bring much credibility to the consideration of public issues, because its members have competence and have conducted research,” he explained.
The SCSS statement called on “all persons of good will to protect the dignity of the most vulnerable members of our society by working toward creating a culture that respects life from conception until natural death. The Congressional de-funding of Planned Parenthood is a very public way to begin creating that culture.”
The abortion giant is currently being investigated by the U.S. House of Representatives.
Krason is unaware of other Catholic academic groups that have similarly taken a public stand on defunding Planned Parenthood, but he stressed the important role these groups can play in “furthering the cause of truth.” The SCSS in particular, with its focus on social sciences, has a responsibility to weigh in on the “barbaric practices of Planned Parenthood.”
“The social sciences, to have any integrity, must operate according to the evidence — according to the truth,” said Krason. “The facts about unborn life are clear, not disputable.”
Krason provided a response to social science scholars who may argue that preborn humans do not have the same rights as born humans. “People in the scholarly community need to get back to being scholars, not ideologues,” he urged.
“Ideology and ideological imperatives are trumping true scholarship, so that people want to discard the evidence — the hard facts, the results of sound scholarly inquiry — when it goes against or shows the falsehood of predetermined conclusions forged by ideology.”
The SCSS’ mission is to utilize research and credible scholarship “to obtain objective knowledge about the social order, provide solutions to vexing social problems and further the cause of Christ.” Catholic organizations such as these can uniquely impact the culture by utilizing sound research and Catholic principles to challenge an academic field that has become largely secularized.
“A Catholic organization like ours that is scholarly and evangelical aims at promoting sound social morality and advancing the cause of Christ in the social sphere, so it is difficult for us not to see the grave implications” present in the “Planned Parenthood revelations,” said Krason.
This past October, the SCSS hosted its annual conference at Franciscan University, which brought together faithful Catholic social scientists and academics from many universities to share and produce faithful Catholic scholarship to evangelize the culture.
“The Catholic academy today is largely secular, with only a nominal connection to the Catholic faith,” Krason noted in a September interview on the conference. This is why it remains crucial for Catholic academic groups to “use our expertise to help advance the cause of a good social order; that is part of our evangelical effort.”
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In August, The Cardinal Newman Society published a report revealing 63 connections between Planned Parenthood and Catholic colleges.
“Planned Parenthood’s positions… are so contrary to Catholic moral teaching that those Catholic universities who have any involvement, direct or indirect, with that organization ought to be ashamed,” Krason told the Newman Society.
Among these many egregious connections, the report drew attention to universities that touted faculty members for their past employment or volunteer work with Planned Parenthood or affiliated organizations. Krason noted that universities ought to “start hiring faculty who will further or at least uphold and respect their Catholic character.”
“When [universities] hire and retain faculty who have or are unrepentant about past ties to Planned Parenthood, they necessarily compromise their commitment to Catholic moral teaching, which, implicitly, is also a commitment to the Natural Law — to moral positions which by their nature are sound and true.”
“These institutions need to stop being concerned about being accepted and ‘affirmed’ by the secular academic community and be concerned, simply, about being fully Catholic,” said Krason.
Reprinted with permission from The Cardinal Newman Society.