|
Post by longsuffering on Aug 11, 2021 11:19:02 GMT -5
If you praise President Biden for getting a bipartisan infrastructure bill this far through this cantankerous Congress with the far left and right slamming it as too much or too little, you have to praise Father B. for making this slight imagery change without significant casualties.
Father Markey and the rest of us are still Crusaders.
|
|
|
Post by longsuffering on Aug 11, 2021 12:00:49 GMT -5
The Purple Knights who spoke so passionately about the Crusader undoubtedly prevented us losing the name altogether. Take a bow.
|
|
|
Post by Crucis#1 on Aug 11, 2021 13:47:53 GMT -5
Valpo’ Beacon Video
|
|
|
Post by Ignutz on Aug 11, 2021 14:10:21 GMT -5
Point #1 - I am a Crusader, and always will be.
Point #2 - If you want to read about a team that has essentially created its success by marketing its brand, imagery, mascot and logo, Google the Savannah Bananas. A fun story, and a true marketing case study.
|
|
|
Post by timholycross on Aug 11, 2021 17:20:09 GMT -5
I've got no real skin in this game, but I think that you guys are missing the more salient aspect of this story. Instead of focusing on the name Valpo gave up, consider the name they are adopting. BEACONS??? And, yes, I am shouting. I hope they didn't pay a marketing firm for this one. Is Valpo on the ocean*? If not, why are they using a fnnng lighthouse as a nickname? *the ocean would be Lake Michigan, "ocean" being an homage to Oil Can Boyd's statement after a Sox game at Municipal Stadium in Cleveland was postponed/suspended due to fog. "That's what happens when you build a stadium next to the ocean".
|
|
|
Post by res on Aug 11, 2021 18:02:52 GMT -5
Valpo, shedding light unto the world.
|
|
|
Post by princetoncrusader on Aug 12, 2021 7:56:49 GMT -5
I distinctly remember Fr. B. at a president's reception in NJ in the Spring of 2017 (I think) at the Canoe Brook club in Summit saying that he did not vote on the matter of the Crusader issue. Rather, he left it entirely in the hands of the trustees. He felt it was best that they make the decision since many of those trustees were alums.
As for fallout from this decision, a well-placed employee at HC told me recently that the giving percentage to the annual fund for the just completed fiscal year came in at 42.6%, up only marginally from the prior year. This is a far cry from the days when 50% was the norm. SO while absolute dollars were up, it seems like a number of alumni are voting with their small dollar donations to show their displeasure with this decision and perhaps the leftward lurch of the College in the last few years.
|
|
|
Post by sader1970 on Aug 12, 2021 8:35:32 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by sader1970 on Aug 12, 2021 9:24:28 GMT -5
Princeton, now despite, what I was told, have some doubts about what I posted above but here is the initial announcement which may have colored my memory (emphasis mine):
So, the direction to "the Administration" (i.e. Fr Boroughs) was how it would be best for the Crusader align with their interpretation - not get rid of it. A shield with "HC": on it is not any visual representation of a Crusader.
|
|
|
Post by sader1970 on Aug 12, 2021 9:50:58 GMT -5
Really, really hope this is my last comment on this subject. This was the announcement of the Crusader mascot removal. Note well that this communication, unlike the one that announced retention of the name "Crusader," is only from Fr. Boroughs and not a joint communication with the BoT chair.
|
|
|
Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Aug 12, 2021 10:03:11 GMT -5
I have a distinct recollection of the chair of the BoT sitting next to Fr. B. during a webinar announcing the decision, and saying that the college wanted to get away from medieval crusaders. In that context, consider the crusades in Spain. www.medievalists.net/2019/03/iberian-crusades/www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/13847.htmlJoseph F. O'Callaghan is Professor Emeritus of History at Fordham University. bolding mine. The spiritual benefits were indulgences, those things that M. Luther railed against, and prospective absolution.
|
|
|
Post by rgs318 on Aug 12, 2021 10:06:50 GMT -5
It has been a while for me, but didn't Martin Luther rail against the "sale" of indulgences (and other aboses), not against the idea of indulgences themselves?
|
|
|
Post by Crucis#1 on Aug 12, 2021 10:55:11 GMT -5
I am still befuddled why men in their 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and 80’s care about a cartoon character that represents several misadventures by a marauding group that failed to execute their ultimate mission.
As I have studied and given thought, if I lived in the period of the crusades from 1095 to 1291, the knights on crusade, upon encountering me in their escapades, would have either killed me or captured me with an outcome not pleasant for my well being.
Now I will venture down a path that I have refrained from discussing. Having had an office in the building on the corner of Boylston and Exeter in Boston in the early 2000’s, when that dark day occurred in April of 2013, as I was sitting in a building on New Hampshire Ave in Washington DC, I was thankful, that for the grace of God, and a different year, I would have been impacted by the events of the day.
The term crusade, and the personage of the crusader is not embraced, but is reviled by a large segment of the population here in the US and across the globe. Some will say I am being hyperbolic, but I am concerned that the continuing identification as a Crusader, has caused and will continue to present security issues to all colleges and universities in their campus community. No sense playing ostrich, this is not the 1950’s with John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles running the show. The identification with the Crusades and the Crusaders in the 21st Century has a negative geopolitical impact.
It’s time for either the elimination of a mascot, or find a symbol that present a positive image of Holy Cross and the Catholic Church. Here is an random idea, since the motto is “Men and Women for Other”, and HC has a sizable presences in the Jesuit Volunteer Corp, The “Volunteers” would seem appropriate in fitting with the mission of the College. It is altruistic in nature.
|
|
|
Post by Crucis#1 on Aug 12, 2021 10:57:38 GMT -5
It has been a while for me, but didn't Martin Luther rail against the "sale" of indulgences (and other aboses), not against the idea of indulgences themselves? I found this citation regarding Martin Luther... “Luther became increasingly angry about the clergy selling 'indulgences' - promised remission from punishments for sin, either for someone still living or for one who had died and was believed to be in purgatory. On 31 October 1517, he published his '95 Theses', attacking papal abuses and the sale of indulgences.”
|
|
|
Post by rgs318 on Aug 12, 2021 11:20:36 GMT -5
Thanks. I know he opposed the sale of indulgences (as I would have and would even today). He also eventually renounced a belief in Purgatory (not found anywhere in scripture). I do pray daily for others (both living and dead) but I don't try to "buy" them anything...like admission to Paradise. [Of course, I also oppose the "sale" of annulments that the Church still carries on even today.] PS: I also like that he married a former nun (referred in some writings of others as a "runaway" nun) and had 6 children. I am in favor of married clergy.
|
|
|
Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Aug 12, 2021 11:23:55 GMT -5
An emissary of the Pope was in Germany offering plenary indulgences in exchange for contributing to the building of St. Peter's. Those who secured such indulgences then went and told Luther they no longer needed to go to confession because they had been granted a plenary indulgence. (A get-out-of-jail card that was good forever.) That set Luther off. I had never heard of the Spanish crusades until reading the biography of an ancestral distant relative, William de Montreuil, a Norman, and head of the Pope's heavy cavalry at the Battle of Barbastro in 1064. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusade_of_Barbastroen.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_of_Montreuil
|
|
|
Post by rgs318 on Aug 12, 2021 11:34:02 GMT -5
An emissary of the Pope was in Germany offering plenary indulgences in exchange for contributing to the building of St. Peter's. Those who secured such indulgences then went and told Luther they no longer needed to go to confession because they had been granted a plenary indulgence. (A get-out-of-jail card that was good forever.) That set Luther off. That shows how, even back then, they misunderstood what they were "buying." A plenary indulgence only effects past misdeed - not future ones. That is why many in the mafia used to hit until almost the moment of death to receive the sacrament of last anointing with its plenary indulgence.
|
|
|
Post by alum on Aug 12, 2021 11:58:51 GMT -5
I distinctly remember Fr. B. at a president's reception in NJ in the Spring of 2017 (I think) at the Canoe Brook club in Summit saying that he did not vote on the matter of the Crusader issue. Rather, he left it entirely in the hands of the trustees. He felt it was best that they make the decision since many of those trustees were alums. As for fallout from this decision, a well-placed employee at HC told me recently that the giving percentage to the annual fund for the just completed fiscal year came in at 42.6%, up only marginally from the prior year. This is a far cry from the days when 50% was the norm. S O while absolute dollars were up, it seems like a number of alumni are voting with their small dollar donations to show their displeasure with this decision and perhaps the leftward lurch of the College in the last few years.You couch your statement in "seem" and "perhaps" because you have no proof of cause and effect. We don't know why giving percentage is down and there are probably too many factors to figure it out. I can tell you that with the wild performance of the stock market and the growth in investment accounts of many Americans, it is not surprising that college advancement offices are concentrating on leadership and principal giving. That is short sighted, of course, because it is important to create a culture of giving.
|
|
|
Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Aug 12, 2021 14:19:05 GMT -5
An emissary of the Pope was in Germany offering plenary indulgences in exchange for contributing to the building of St. Peter's. Those who secured such indulgences then went and told Luther they no longer needed to go to confession because they had been granted a plenary indulgence. (A get-out-of-jail card that was good forever.) That set Luther off. That shows how, even back then, they misunderstood what they were "buying." A plenary indulgence only effects past misdeed - not future ones. That is why many in the mafia used to hit until almost the moment of death to receive the sacrament of last anointing with its plenary indulgence. Of those who went on the crusades, 20 percent of the monks were literate, five percent of the knights, and none of the soldiers-at-arms. So their understanding of indulgences and absolution was, shall I say, primitive. I was trying to find a link to Pope Innocent II's response to the sacking of Constantinople, ending the Fourth Crusade. (The Pope had commissioned the crusade.) The Pope excommunicated all the participating crusaders, inveighing against and inventorying the many sins and calumnies, including that of incest. This last was bewildering, like with who? Further research revealed in the medieval church, raping a nun, for example, was considered incest. In the course of this search of Innocent III' epistle of condemnation, I came across a 2004 review of two books in the New Yorker on the Crusades, particularly the First and the Fourth. The reviewer notes that the authors often speak of the crusaders favorably, but the books are largely about chaotic geo-politics, --less about spirituality and virtue, and mostly about power, dominion, and treachery. www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/12/13/holy-smoke
|
|
|
Post by rgs318 on Aug 12, 2021 14:21:40 GMT -5
Church leaders involved in power games and treachery? Surely you jest.
|
|
|
Post by Crucis#1 on Aug 12, 2021 14:33:30 GMT -5
And some want to be associated with those reprobates...... SMH 🤣
Father Brooks often said the following English Proverb, “A Man is known by the company he keeps”.
”Tell me with whom you associate, and I will tell you who you are” Johann Wolfgang von Goeth.
So upon reflection, The Holy Cross Crusaders appellation that was bestowed by a sports writer who was a 32nd degree Mason, May have been meant as an insult not a compliment that some have thought.
|
|
|
Post by CHC8485 on Aug 12, 2021 14:34:44 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by newfieguy74 on Aug 12, 2021 14:39:18 GMT -5
As far as HC's "leftward lurch" I submit that HC has managed to stay solidly in the middle. Did alums expect that it would never change or adapt? Jettisoning the knight mascot is not really crazy when you consider that the Crusades, centuries later, still tarnishes the Catholic brand. If there is one thing the Catholic Church could use it's "upleveling" ( a horrible marketing euphemism for "improving") it's reputation and brand. There have always been things about HC that chafe, but I will continue to contribute every year because of the enduring gifts I received from HC that continue to inform my life.
|
|
|
Post by Tom on Aug 12, 2021 14:44:34 GMT -5
On the other hand, much like Bob Feller will never be a Guardian and will always be an Indian, even if HC does someday go Valparaiso, most of us here will still be Crusaders. Some of the non-Crusaders among us (like NAD) are honorary Crusaders in my mind
|
|
|
Post by newfieguy74 on Aug 12, 2021 15:15:00 GMT -5
With the trend toward getting rid of mascots or adopting bland generic mascots HC could go in that direction. I use the Washington Football Team as an example. The members of that team are called, perhaps, Teammates? I give you the College of the Holy Cross Collegians. The logo could be someone in a cap and gown.
|
|