and sent her back into the Port. The next morning, Brunhilda was horrified to find Frigga sit-ting in Antonian Hall with her boyfriend, talking and laughing. She pulled Frigga aside. “What’s wrong with you?” she demanded. “I thought you were depressed. I thought you were going to see a counselor.” “I decided to talk to my con-fessor instead,” said Frigga. “He told me I didn’t sound very de-pressed, just under a lot of pres-sure. Then I asked my roommate to pray over me, and I felt so much better that I called my boy-friend and made up with him. Now I feel great!”

One sunny afternoon at Fran-ciscan University, Brunhilda no-ticed her friend Frigga crying in the Portiuncula. Brunhilda pulled Frigga out of the Port to ask her what the trouble was. Frigga looked ashamed. “I feel horribly depressed,” she said, “because I just got in a huge fight with my boyfriend, and now we’re not speaking to each other! I don’t know what to do. I wish I had someone to talk to.” Brunhilda told Frigga that she wanted to support her, but that depression was a very serious matter and that she ought to go to one of the school counselors. Then she gave her friend a hug

The GGGGadfly

Epidemic Strikes CampusEpidemic Strikes CampusEpidemic Strikes CampusEpidemic Strikes Campus

If someone cannot be both pro-choice and Catholic, then if understood correctly, we ought to infer that one cannot be both a Republican and a Catholic. Of course you will ask me to clarify, so please allow me to argue for the following: If you are able to say that someone is not Catholic because of one specific political stance or affiliation they may take which is not necessarily in line with Church teaching, then you cannot at the same time call your-self a Catholic if you also call yourself a Republican. As men-tioned above, I will use the exam-

ple I find on many bumper-stickers I come across that are wholeheartedly placed on cars throughout the parking lot or on computers lined across the li-brary that read: “You can’t be both Pro-Choice and Catholic”! To start, I will try to and explain what it is we mean by ‘pro-choice’. Many ardent pro-lifers will desire to say that someone who is pro-choice is necessarily ‘pro-abortion’. Surely you would agree that this is somewhat ab-surd as we realize that the holy Catholic Church is also ‘pro-choice’, is it not? Sure, she

chooses life, as do I, though it is a choice nonetheless. To say the church is not pro-choice, in this sense, would imply that we should have our Bishops do our voting for us, thus we would not have a voice. Pardon me if I have gotten off topic. By pro-choice, I suggest that someone is such if they are for the right of a woman to be able to terminate a pregnancy if she so chooses. I will not get in to the technicalities that some pro-choicers may disagree upon, such as, when the choice to terminate an abortion should be permissible

Continued on page 4

“To persuade and reproach” “To persuade and reproach” “To persuade and reproach” “To persuade and reproach” - Socrates, The Apology

Vol. XIV, Iss. II

March 1, 2011

You Can’t Be Both a Republican and a CatholicYou Can’t Be Both a Republican and a CatholicYou Can’t Be Both a Republican and a CatholicYou Can’t Be Both a Republican and a Catholic

Brunhilda sternly informed Frigga that this was getting to be more serious than she thought. “You sound like you’re having mood swings,” she said. “This is probably bipolar disorder or something worse! A priest is not the same thing as a counselor! You need to be seeing a coun-selor!” Frigga tersely replied that she would, and went back to her breakfast. The next day, Brunhilda saw Frigga studying in the Piazza and accosted her loudly. “I love you as a sister in Christ,” she said, “And I am very concerned about you. I don’t feel like I would be

Continued on page 6

St. Clare, pray for us! Page 2

Staff:

Keith Michael Estrada (K.M.E.) Maria Cecilia Rocha (M.C.R.)

Jeremiah Hahn (J.H.) Gillian LaMuro (G.L.) Alexander Pyles (A.P.)

Angelina Pierotti

Layout Editor: Kimberly Doudna (K.D.)

Editor in Chief: Daniel Romeyn Davis (D.R.D.)

** Please note that the views held in the individual articles do not necessarily express the views

of the whole staff. **

~Mission Statement~ The Gadfly is an attempt to “bite the sleeping horse” in the spirit

of Socrates. It is a student publi-cation whose purpose is to facili-tate discussion concerning cam-pus and cultural issues as they

pertain to students of Franciscan University. It aims to be a forum for open, well-thought out, and honest discussion towards the

end of knowing and loving truth in its most robust sense.

Dr. John White Advisor Extraordinaire

Advisor:

Interested in joining our staff? Email us at

notestothegadfly@gmail.com

From the Editor’s Desk

Dear Gadflyians, Some people may ask why the Gadfly exists, while others may assert that it would be better if the Gadfly did not ex-ist. To these people, I wish to respond. The Gadfly does not seek to promote controversy for the sake of controversy. Rather, the Gadfly has a very specific purpose for its existence. Our purpose is thus: we (the Gad-fly) seek to benefit the stu-dents of Franciscan Univer-sity by being a medium for ideas and debate relevant to the lives of the students of this fine institution. We do, at times, encourage controversy. However, this controversy al-ways has a purpose of pro-moting open dialogue and de-bate about issues that matter. This does not mean that I, as the editor, expect you the readers to necessarily agree

with the arguments and asser-tions of our writers. Rather, I hope that you will be drawn into the dialogue and will con-tribute your own opinions to the Gadfly. In this way, I want to encourage our readers to en-ter into the spirit of Socrates and to “bite” their own sleep-ing horses. If there is an article that you, as the reader, particularly dis-agree with - rather than just harboring your discontent for what was written, I strongly encourage you to contribute your own side of the argu-ment. In this participation in the living spirit of Socrates, I hope that you may grow in your ability to effectively communicate with others so that you may have deeper re-alization of your personal out-look on the world. In Christ, Daniel Romeyn Davis

Are you experienced? As a writer, that is.

Join the Gadfly!

St. Martha, pray for us! Page 3

Professor Quotes

of the Week:

What a man and a woman do to

become mother and father.

~Dr. Asci

Don’t be Squished.

Have your say.

notestothegadfly@gmail.com

maggots—alive. Then a par-son was found buried headfirst in sand with his feet doused in kerosene and set aflame, his head next to a bag of money. A merchant was found hung, “the nose was sliced cleanly, all the way from the bridge to the mustached lip, causing skin to fold over…a straight line of blood was drawn between the heavily indented chin and the reproductive organ of the man…” (Matthew Pearl, The Dante Club) which itself was sliced in two, as were the arms, legs, cheeks, and ears. Dante weaves into his work the theme of the contra-passo. We have no exact Eng-lish translation, but it is a sort o f “counter-passion” , a “counter-sorrow.” Each soul in the Inferno has chosen his own Hell. For example, the first circle of Hell is reserved for the Lustful, where Dante encoun-ters two adulterers. Their hell is to now be with each other forever and find no fulfillment, no joy, in each others’ company because they would not order their love rightly. This is the contrapasso. It is a profound ex-perience of the punishment be-ing the crime. In The Dante Club, the poets are being thrown into agoniz-ing realization that by translat-ing Dante, they have played a hand in the murders that have taken place. Longfellow and his friends are attempting to catch this “Lucifer” and are failing

Continued on page 7

To begin, I have a passion for murder mysteries. Murder mys-teries have a jolting effect on your perception of real-ity. What you were comfortable believing is a lie. They are a struggle to find the truth, no matter how unpleasant it may be. When life and death are at stake, one cannot remain com-placent. As such, I was thrilled to be assigned The Dante Club in my English class and to have the excuse of calling it “homework.” It is a novel about the literary politics of the American transla-tion of Dante’s Inferno by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and other notable poets. Yet they quickly realize that something more sinister is afoot in Boston of 1865. A rash of murders had bro-ken out over the city. Each of these gruesome murders was in imitation of the punishments of Dante’s damned. In the Inferno, the Neutrals, who refused to make a choice between good and evil, are forced to run forever, following a blank banner, while maggots and flies feed on their flesh. The Simonatics, those who have taken money for the Church’s spiritual gifts, are bur-ied with their head next to their “ill-gotten goods.” The Schis-matics who broke apart families, communities, and the Church are sliced in two. In The Dante Club, a local judge was found by the bank of a river, naked, and being eaten by blowflies and

The Dark Wood

St. Etheldreda, pray for us! Page 4

Continued from page 1

or legal, seeing as this is not a treatise on the differences of pro-choicers. The idea here is that a pro-choicer would disagree with what exactly the Church specifi-cally encourages as the view that one should take when in the vot-ing-booths, when it comes to abortion, the termination of a human being’s life. (Whether or not the being may or may not have a soul, this is debated upon, nevertheless, we believe, as Catholics, that the human being has a soul from conception.) To say one is pro-choice is not to imply anything other than the fact that the person—though not necessarily willing to choose an abortion themselves—stamps his seal of approval on someone’s right to chose differently. If, because of this, the person objectified into a group of ‘anti-life bigotry’ cannot be called a Catholic, it follows that if you put yourself into the group of 'College Republicans', you should not call yourself a Catho-lic, specifically if you take this former view regarding pro-choicers not being able to call themselves Catholic. How ex-actly does being a Republican conflict with being a Catholic? The Republican Party has not been entirely in line with the pro-life stance of Catholicism. Examples? My pleasure. The Republican Party found it 'okay' for the Boy Scouts of America to ban gays. The Republican Party has found that being homosexual is not compatible with military service. The death penalty, ac-cording to the Republican Party, is not only acceptable, but makes law-enforcement easier while providing an excellent deterrent to crime. Should we be good stewards of the environment?

Not if you’re a Republican! Don’t let the government try and do any-thing; it’s all in the hands of pri-vate property owners, no help from above. A just war on 'terror'? Nay, we have a Just war doctrine (as Christians) which has been fol-lowed neither in Iraq nor in Af-ghanistan. Both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI have con-demned the wars and our involve-ment therein. We have an excuse: it’s not necessarily a war on terror, but on terrorists, right? Nay! Hun-dreds of thousands of civilians have been killed by our bloody hands in the last decade alone. Unarmed human beings being killed by other rational beings in a setting pro-vided by the great Republicans; unarmed rational innocent beings being killed out of fear? Sounds like Republicans are sponsoring their own form of abortion. New paragraph means more exam-ples: let’s make sure we can keep our guns, we need them! Though, this is surely not the Catholic way, is it? If I remember correctly, my patron saint, John Paul II, was not carrying a glock when he was shot. Instead, he dropped to the ground, using prayer as his defense, and made the Sign of the Cross. After being released from the hospital, he went on to forgive his aggres-sor. I can’t recall him begging for his gun rights as he lived a life of fear like the rest of us gun-hoggers. If the death penalty isn’t enough to prevent crime, even a crime like migrating to our coun-try, the Republican Party wants to include missile defense systems, which doesn't have biblical founda-tions either. Lastly, the Republican Party wants to make the US of A the center of all trade in the world. Yes the jobless, debt-filled, foreclo-sure and capitalist abuse center of the world! Maybe if we didn't have military occupation in over 100

countries, we wouldn't be as hated as we are. You would now then wonder why we have clubs on campus like the 'Young Americans' and 'College Republicans', who affili-ate themselves with such non-Catholic approaches to life and society. Well, you can think of it as a group of spoiled brats who always pick on your kids. At one point you get frustrated and de-cide to find their parents in or-der to determine why they have such a spoiled and disgraceful way of life, after all, you've seen them at Mass and know that they call themselves Catholics. Then you find out that they not only learned this way of life at home, but their parents con-tinue to endorse and encourage such behavior. Now, to close, as I have given

you some examples of what be-

ing a Republican includes, and

how it may not be necessarily

pro-life/Catholic, you would

understand why I would say

that, if you take the original

stance on pro-choicers not being

able to call themselves Catholic,

you cannot be both a Republican

and a Catholic. It's not about

being a Conservative or a Re-

publican. It's not about being a

Liberal or a Democrat. Being

pro-life and God-fearing is

about Jesus Christ, not any po-

litical party.

~K.M.E.

St. John, pray for us! Page 5

ter what you do is communication and honesty with your girlfriends. If that fails in a situation like this you may just end up with hissy girl-fights and ripped out earrings. Second, in response to his invite, my hippie instincts tell me that you should say no. Let me give a disclaimer that I don’t know your complete situation and thus could be making a premature judgment. My main reason is the fact that you don’t know if you really like him as much as your other friends do. That gives me the feeling that you are uncertain and that you are not ready to be dating this person. I do not see any great reason for you to go out with this person as opposed to you waiting and get-ting to know him better as a friend. This is not an easy ap-proach but it prevents a lot of heartbreak. Holy Jane: Honey, relax, you sound stressed about this one. Re-member this is just a date; this guy is not down one knee outside the Port asking for your hand in marriage. But the hippie I am dat-ing gives some great advice to all of us giggly girls who have crushed on a boy: if you are not sure…don’t go. You have got your head on straight by putting your galfriends first. Rule num-ber one girls, you cannot like the same guy, it’s against girl code. It just might be time to detach from those emotions and let Jesus take the wheel over your love life. Remember: the course of true love never did run smooth,

gle late at night about you. Per-sonally, a gentleman is very at-tractive; every Franciscan girl likes a holy, guitar playing, flip-flop, hippie-Jesus-lovin’ dude; so really this issue of emotions/crushes is something we girls need to be aware of and place in their proper place. So call us women out on this one, we need to mature in handling our emo-tions and relationships with the opposite sex. Hippie Joe: But if it turns out that you are just that guy who makes false complainants just to get attention, then you need more help than we can give you. The fact that you say that you want to become a priest does not imply that you don’t like female atten-tion and that you won’t have a girlfriend within a week. Remember: the course of true love never did run smooth,

Dear Emma My friends all have huge crushes on this guy, but he has asked me out. I don't know what to do be-cause I am not sure that I like him as much as they do and I don't want them to be angry with me, but I kind of like him. But my friends are more impor-tant to me than him. What should I do? Catch 22 Hippie Joe: I am going to step down from my masculine hill of sarcasm and attempt to give you some legitimate advice. The most important thing no mat-

Dear Emma, It is so hard being a man here at Franciscan! Girls are constantly coming on to me and I am like, "hey, I like you and all, but I am becoming a priest." I think they only like me because I am being a gentleman and respectful. Should I just stop? What can I do to make girls stop falling in love with me? Simply Irresistible Dear Simply Irresistible, Emma has left this holy hill, aka graduated and so…you are stuck with us: the simply irresisti-ble cutest couple on campus, Hip-pie Joe and Holy Jane. Holy Jane: Wow, count your-self lucky because there are some countries out there that don’t have beautiful girls around like we have here at Franciscan. Listen, I am going to disregard my better instincts and give you the benefit of the doubt that you are not one of those suave, axe-wearing men that flirt with all the ladies, and then complain about the attention you get. Remember there is a warning on the back of that Axe container. A thought pops into my head from my favorite Disney movie: “Be true to your heart.” (Mulan, anyone?) Please do not stop being a man just be-cause girls appear to fall all over you. You really should take this to prayer because let’s face it, God chooses the cutest to be priests and you probably will have to deal with this for the rest of your life. Do not stop being a man after God’s own heart just because girls will immaturely gig-

Dear Emma

St. Thomas Aquinas, pray for us! Page 6

Continued from page 1

loving you enough if I didn’t ask you again to talk to a counselor.” “I appreciate the advice,” said Frigga, “but I’ve found other ways to deal with my problems, and they worked. I don’t need a counselor. I feel fine.” “You may feel fine,” said Brun-hilda, “But you have to accept that you’re mentally ill!” Frigga was so embarrassed that she didn’t speak to Brunhilda for weeks. Frigga likely would not have been so hard on her friend, however, if she’d known that Brun-hilda was suffering from Advice-centered Solipsistic Syndrome, a serious personality disorder. Don’t laugh! Advice-centered Solipsistic Syndrome is affecting more and more Franciscan University stu-dents every day—and it’s not lim-ited to the student body. Professors, friars and even counselors are fal-ling victim to this cruel disease. At the rate it is currently spreading, Advice-centered Solipsistic Syn-drome will soon surpass Excessive-Compulsive Social Hug Disorder (ECSHD) as the number one most common illness on this campus. Worst of all, Advice-centered Sol-ipsistic Syndrome has very few warning signs before it develops into a full-blown, highly contagious infection.

At first, the symptoms of Advice-centered Solipsistic Syndrome may mimic Christian charity—the sufferer listens (or pretends to listen) to others for short periods, professes love, gives reasonable advice, and may even offer to help in some fashion. However, the disease quickly manifests itself in the sufferer’s obsession with mak-ing friends over into her own image and likeness. Persons suffering from Advice-centered Solipsistic Syndrome are unable to listen for protracted periods, support effectively during real crises, or think creatively about a friend’s difficulties. They are not even satisfied when a prob-lem is solved unless it has been solved according to their own advice, no matter how ill-informed this advice proves to be. In its final stages, Advice-centered Solipsistic Syndrome sufferers may resort to lies, in-sults, gossip or intimidation in order to get their way, all while feeling that they are only acting in their friends’ best interests. There is no known cure for Advice-centered Solipsistic Syndrome. In the past, public humiliation was suggested as a viable treatment option. Re-

search, however, has demonstrated that this treatment, while satisfying, is not an effective cure. Fortunately, Advice-centered Solipsistic Syndrome is easily pre-ventable. The first step toward pre-vention is a high dose of humility, which is readily available through prayer and frequent reception of the sacraments, although it must be practiced daily to remain effective. Respect for the autonomy of other human beings should also be ac-quired by the same method. Gain-ing knowledge, listening skills, and a few ounces of common sense are also rumored to be helpful. Also, it is extremely advisable to stay away from all persons suffering from Ad-vice-centered Solipsistic Syndrome. Few conditions are so contagious. And in closing, remember: your friends will never tell you if you have Advice-centered Solipsistic Syndrome. They may, however, call you by its initials! ~Mary E. Pezzulo

Pop Culture Seminar Quote:

Moses: The Lord, the Lord Jehovah has given unto you these fifteen…

[drops one of the tablets] Moses: Oy! Ten! Ten commandments for all to obey!

The History of the World, part 1 (1981)

St. Teresa of Avila, pray for us! Page 7

Continued from page 3

miserably. Longfellow turns to an old mentor, Professor Ticknor, for advice. Like Longfellow, I was completely consumed with finding this grotesque mastermind. I was eager to meet this creature who was the lord of Hell. Ticknor had this to say to Longfellow and to me: “I am too old to help anyone, Longfellow…But shall I give you this advice? You are not after a Lucifer—that is not the culprit you describe. Lucifer is pure dumbness when Dante finally meets him in frozen Cocytus, sob-bing and mute. You see, that is where Dante triumphs over Mil-ton—we long for Lucifer to be astounding and clever so we may defeat him, but Dante makes it more difficult. No. You are after Dante—it is Dante who decides who should be punished and where they go, what torments they suffer. It is the poet who takes those measures, yet by making himself the journeyer, he tries to make us forget: We think he too is another innocent witness to God’s work.” These words fell like a thunderclap around my ear, my mind was sent reeling and I felt sick. I stretched out my hand to steady myself on the concrete blocks of my dorm’s wall. But my hand did not touch concrete. My hand landed on my Crucifix. I heard a calm, sad Voice inside my head proclaim, “Observe in Me the Contrapasso.”

I then began to sob uncon-trollably. It was the answer behind the murder mys-tery. Lucifer, in the end, is a frozen worm. He is pathetic, puny, pitiable even. My prime suspect, the devil, was inno-cent and I finally saw the real culprit…myself. Dante se-duced me to forget, made me believe throughout the poem that I too was just “another witness to God’s work.” And then the mask was torn off. The Cross is the greatest murder of history and eternity, but I had become so accus-tomed to it. I see it every-where on campus. It almost looked beautiful. It isn’t. It is ugly, gory, the story of man’s—of my—hatred, of my sin. Did I think that the mur-der of the Son of God, that Sin, would be clean? It is rather a summation and encompass-ment of all of Dante’s Hell. Just as Dante chose how the sinners in Hell would suf-fer, so did man choose how God would suffer. Christ did not pronounce His own judg-ment—we did. Man declared their own appropriate contra-passo: we cried, “Crucify Him!” Dante’s presence in Hell seems almost accidental, as if God or the devil was the archi-tect of hell and he was merely the scribe. The po-ets’ connection with the mur-ders seemed almost acciden-tal. Longfellow was merely privately translating a poem. My participation in Christ’s crucifixion seems al-most accidental as well. I did

not ask to share in the sin of Adam; I was not literally at Calvary. Yes, I knew that sin was violating God’s com-mandments and hurting a personal relationship, but I had never thought of sin as so graphic and grotesque. He “who knew not sin be-came sin for us” (2 Corin-thians 5:21). At some point in my life, I have been a Neu-tral, a Simonatic, a Schis-matic. Yet He has taken on my contrapasso. He is my Contrapasso. Perhaps my theme is a familiar one, one of incre-mental daily conversion, but for me, it was the difference between knowing what a dead man was and embracing a corpse. The Gadfly’s aim is to “bite the sleeping horse.” Each of us is sleeping in some area of our lives. Each of us has, in Dante’s words, “wandered off the straight path… how I entered there I cannot truly say, I had be-come so sleepy at the moment when I first strayed, leaving the path of truth…” “ (Inferno). I thought I might tell you of a time when I was bit. ~Angelina Pierotti

I have an admission to make. I lie. This is entirely true. Let your brain explode over that one. Anyway, I lie quite a bit. But this is not any-thing grand or hugely devious perjury. It’s stupid things like when you are on the plane with an affable weirdo who asks you if you are familiar with the Lich King storyline from World of War Craft. I always say yes though I have no idea what the heck he’s talking about. I can’t help my-self sometimes. I think this all stems from a desire to be like—or at least that’s what I tell myself. Earnest young people will ask me if I like Greenday and I hate Green-day, but I will say something like, “Oh, they’re not bad.” Why? Why do I do this? It’s compulsive or something. This is also coupled with an unfortunate ability for BS. It would be embarrassing if I were actually caught in these fibs half the time. Maybe if I were caught more, like Pav-lov’s dogs, I would be trained to stop lying for heav-ens’ sakes, but no! For some diabolic reason, I breeze through life knowing abso-

Moonlighting Pinocchio lutely nothing at all about the Lich King, but am able to en-joy a half hour conversation with a complete expert without ever giving away this lack of knowledge. This is usually ac-complished by saying “I k n o w ! ” a n d “ W e i r d , huh?” quite a bit and praying that God does strike me down dead for the sake of the affable weirdo who has stolen my arm rest. What really seems to set my fibbing off is shy people. I love shy people, but for some reason, I make up elaborate falsehoods to make up for the drags in the conversation. But they are not usually interesting ones. They have to do with my bad experiences with slurpees and what not. I never lie about my love life or about my home-life at all, which is some-thing I should lie about and probably could with some suc-cess since any falsehoods would be hard to verify since I live overseas. (“Oh, yes, I do have a boyfriend. What’s his name? Uhh…Fritz…He’s an electrician. He’s 21 too. We enjoy World of War Craft to-gether. He lives in my home-town. Where do I live? Ger-

j|Çx? j|à tÇw jtzzxÜç

many!”) I think I don’t be-cause I know that these things aren’t true and that when people would ask me about Fritz I would never re-member these things. How-ever, no one cares about slur-pees and so I get lured into a false sense of security and create an elaborate web of deceit without even realizing it.

Usually, this session of falsification is followed by me banging me head against the wall and wondering “Why?” I can never lie about serious things. I turn red and pass out sometimes (low blood sugar, I’m told). Why am I compromising my im-mortal soul over the Lich King? I don’t know! It’s bi-zarre. I need help. So please if you are talking with me and the conversation starts to drag, just say something dang it, and please avoid the sub-ject of slurpees.

~G.L.