Ruth Institute Blog

by Joanna Hyatt

This past summer, I spent a fantastic weekend as one of about 40 international students who attended the Ruth Institute’s “It Takes a Family” 2011 conference (ITAF). While there, I met two students from the University of Pittsburgh, Joseph Petrich and Alex Souchuns. Both are involved in the Anscombe Society on campus, with Joseph the current president. The Anscombe Society is connected with the Love & Fidelity Network and seeks to educate and raise awareness on issues of life, fidelity, love, and sex within marriage. These groups are beginning to crop up on campuses across the country, and while they may go by any number of names, their purpose is the same. In a culture that seeks to remove all boundaries on sex and encourages college students to simply practice ‘safe’ sex, these students call their peers to something better, something higher, something that is the best for not only their body, but also their heart. Read more…

By Nicole Kay

Shortly after arriving Friday night, I was pleased to be able to address the entire conference of 250+ students and tell them about the Ruth Institute’s work supporting young adults. I told them about the mission of the Ruth Institute and about the Emerging Leaders program. Read more…

This used to be called prostitution–now it’s just debt reduction:

…There is a plethora of on-line dating sites, calling themselves arrangement sites, where young women looking to pay down college debt are matched to older, wealthy donors. What is not advertised, but is clearly understood by reading young women’s confessionals in a recent Huffington Post piece about “sugar daddies” and the financially beleaguered “sugar baby” girls, is that these arrangements are for paid sex, and the industry is booming. Read more…

from albertmohler.com

Mercer University and Shorter University represent opposite trajectories on the landscape of American education.

Shorter University and Mercer University are institutions of higher education in Georgia, and both have been historically related to the Georgia Baptist Convention — the state’s largest Baptist group. Both schools have been in the news in recent days over the issue of homosexuality. Seen together, the actions taken by the schools point backwards to critical decisions made in the past, forward to issues that will be faced by every college, and directly to the present, where the future is taking shape before our eyes. Read more…

Belmont Abbey College enters David-and-Goliath fight against the feds over mandate to cover contraceptives.

Early last month, President Obama bragged to a St. Louis crowd about the recent Health and Human Services’ regulations that will require thousands of religious employers to pay for contraception, sterilization and drugs that probably cause abortions. The crowd cheered the president’s contraceptive mandate. He joined their revelry, shouting, “Darn Tootin’!” to the crowd’s delight. Read more…

I’m writing this message from Provo, Utah, where I am spending the week contributing to an academic conference and a student symposium. Many of the Students for the Family Symposium organizers were graduates of Ruth Institute programs. This Symposium is unique in that it features a “Call for Papers” and gives students and young professionals the chance to present their work. As I was moderating one of the sessions, I thought to myself, “I have heard lots of this material before. “ Then I realized: these young people have learned from the Ruth Institute programs. This presentation is their chance to make these ideas their own, so they can feel confident expressing themselves in discussion or argument or debate. I was certainly gratified to see them growing in skill and competence. Your support makes it possible for us to continue educating these young people. Read more…

Cardinal Hall at Catholic University of America, Brookland neighborhood, Washington. Another school year is in full swing. Frat houses around the country are once again swollen with partygoers and intoxicated youth. Sunday mornings once again mark the regret of thousands of young women who hooked-up the night prior and either cannot remember what they did, or do remember and are trying to forget. Read more…

Advice to incoming freshmen — from someone with experience. Oct. 23 issue feature.

by ASHLEY CROUCH

By Taylor Pettit

A group of individuals have come together on campus with the intent of reminding Eastern of what they said is a forgotten value: marriage between a man and a woman.

The group, Love and Truth, was approved by Student Life two weeks ago and immediately began advertising and recruiting around campus several planned events this year. Read more…

What’s to keep students from lying for the sake of a scholarship?

by Bob Kellogg

Is being lesbian, “gay,” bisexual, or transgender a special talent? FRC’s Peter Sprigg says a church-affiliated college in Illinois apparently thinks so.

Elmhurst College in suburban Chicago has added to its application form a question regarding sexual orientation, making it the first school in the U.S. to do so. Reportedly in an effort to increase campus diversity, the 3,000-plus-student school is asking applicants: “Would you consider yourself to be a member of the LGBT community?” (See earlier story) Read more…

by Bob Laird

Backlash continues to mount against the August 1 decision by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to mandate that contraception be fully covered as “preventive” medicine by insurance companies – and thus, “free” for consumers. Most of the criticism has thus far revolved around the lack of real conscience protections for religious employers and the fact that the decision relegates pregnancy to a disease to be prevented. An additional consequence is coming to light which raises serious ethical questions: pharmaceutical companies will now be paid full price for contraceptives that they previously had to provide at a discount due to federal regulations. Read more…

by Jeremy Kryn

This article is based on the “I Commit” video found here.

SAN DIEGO, CA August 25, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – “It’s an opportunity to make the ultimate sacrifice. Lay your life down for someone else.” This is how one of many young people interviewed for a powerful new video about love and marriage produced by the Ruth Institute describes the purpose of marriage. Read more…

by Michael Cook

Who cares if the media ignored World Youth Day?

Read more…

by Sheila Liaugminas

We’d best pay attention to what’s really at the root of this violence and anarchy. It’s not just about Britain.

But that’s where the symptoms of social decay are vividly manifest at the moment. This article says a police shooting sparked the riots, just about everyone now blames a larger ‘system’. They’re just competing visions of which systems are culpable for the breakdown. Read more…

by Joanna Bogle

Will the mayhem in British cities this week finally convince doubters that family structure matters?

No structure to life, no moral values, no father, little or no ability to read and write, a passion for consumer goods fuelled by an upbringing focused on the fulfilment of immediate needs – all this plus physical strength, ferocious anger, and commitment to a strong gang – it all makes rioting a good way to spend a summer evening. Read more…

By Maggie Gallagher, Chairman of the National Organization for Marriage

John Garvey, the new President of Catholic University, announced last week that the university will return to single sex dorms. Many feathers were ruffled. It is a measure of the unisex madness in which we have become enmeshed that a Catholic university’s decision to house unmarried young men and women in separate dorms could be described as “controversial.” Read more…

by Francois Jacob

The UN wants young people to change the world. In Madrid the Pope will ask them to change themselves.

Today, a thousand or so youth activists from around the world gather at the United Nations headquarters in New York for a high level meeting on the theme of “dialogue and mutual understanding”. The two-day UN youth summitmarks the culmination of an international Year of Youth that began last August and ends on the annual UN World Youth Day, August 12th. Read more…

by Matthew J. Franck

After one year as president of the Catholic University of America in Washington D.C., John Garvey took to the pages of the Wall Street Journal to announce a change in his university’s policy for housing students on campus: a return to all-male and all-female residence halls, and the gradual elimination of mixed-sex buildings. According to the Washington Post, Catholic University first changed to “co-ed” housing over two decades ago and currently houses both sexes in eleven of its seventeen residence halls—though men and women remain in separate floors or wings, unlike the latest fashion of shared suites, bathrooms, and even sleeping quarters at some universities. Read more…

The ASCSM Student Senate held a meeting on Monday, April 18 proposing the impeachment of Associated Student Body President, Vivian Abellana. …

The fliers were spread in response to Abellana’s veto to proposals for funding two events: the AB-540 Teach-In event held by Latinos Unidos and a comedy show held by the Gay-Straight Alliance. Read more…