You-can’t-make-this-stuff-up dep’t

The Pope supports academic freedom, as long as professors are careful not to reach the wrong conclusions.

Pope Benedict XVI:

I wish to reaffirm the great value of academic freedom. In virtue of this freedom you are called to search for the truth wherever careful analysis of evidence leads you. Yet it is also the case that any appeal to the principle of academic freedom in order to justify positions that contradict the faith and teaching of the church would obstruct or even betray the university’s identity and mission.

Got that? “You’e perfectly free to think anything you like, as long as you wind up agreeing with me.”

Can you say “Orwellian”? Can you say “double-think”? Can you say “Freedom is slavery; ignorance is strength”?

Footnote And I suppose it would be unreasonable to expect a reporter, in detailing the Pope’s meeting with victims of priestly sexual abuse, to mention Benedict’s role, back when he was Cardinal Ratzinger of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in maintaining the decades-long cover-up by the Church of those abuses by threatening bishops with excommunication should they reveal the results of Church inquiries to the police until after the statute of limitations had run.

Author: Mark Kleiman

Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out. Books: Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken) When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993) Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989) UCLA Homepage Curriculum Vitae Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com

One thought on “You-can’t-make-this-stuff-up dep’t”

  1. How the academy works

    Left wing blogger and UCLA professor Mark Kleiman denounces the Pope's views on academic freedom, paraphrasing them as:"You'e perfectly free…

Comments are closed.