Atheist Wilson Gives $22.5 Million for Catholic Fund

[DigitaLVampirE]

May 23 (Bloomberg) -- Philanthropist and retired hedge-fund manager Robert W. Wilson said he is giving $22.5 million to the Archdiocese of New York to fund a scholarship program for needy inner-city students attending Roman Catholic schools.

Wilson, 80, said in a phone interview today that although he is an atheist, he has no problem donating money to a fund linked to Catholic schools.

``Let's face it, without the Roman Catholic Church, there would be no Western civilization,'' Wilson said. ``Shunning religious organizations would be abhorrent. Keep in mind, I'm helping to pay tuition. The money isn't going directly to the schools.''

Wilson's donation is the largest the archdiocese has ever received. The money will be used to fund the Cardinal's Scholarship Program, which was started in 2005 to give disadvantaged students attending the archdiocese's inner-city schools partial or full tuition grants, Jacqueline LoFaro, the archdiocese's associate superintendent of schools, said in a phone interview today.

``It was a chance for a very modest amount of money to get kids out of a lousy school system and into a good school system,'' Wilson said.

An anonymous donor has given an additional $4.5 million to the archdiocese after learning that Wilson's gift would be announced today, church officials said.

Future Discussion

Edward Cardinal Egan, the head of the archdiocese, didn't reconsider the donation from Wilson because of his atheism, said spokesman Joseph Zwilling. Egan and Wilson, who was raised an Episcopalian, met for the first time today, he said.

``The Cardinal said that he and Mr. Wilson are both opera lovers, and the two of them will get together to talk about opera and `move on to other things,''' Zwilling said, referring to a future discussion about religion. ``The fact is that Mr. Wilson helping to give these children a chance is a good thing, and a chance to attend Catholic school is a good thing.''

In recent years, the New York archdiocese has faced declining donations, church attendance and parish memberships, forcing the closure of some schools and churches.

In 2006, the archdiocese closed eight metropolitan-area schools, Zwilling said.

About 44,000 of the archdiocese's 107,000 students are enrolled in its inner-city schools in New York, LoFaro said. Of that inner-city student population, more than half live below the federal poverty line, she said.

Generous Donor

``This kind of money will keep this kind of education available for kids who can't afford it,'' LoFaro said. ``And it logives the families a choice.'' Applicants don't have to be Roman Catholic to be eligible for the scholarships.

Wilson gave $147.2 million in 2006 to charities, making him the 12th most generous donor in the U.S., according to a survey by the Chronicle of Philanthropy. He has made gifts in the past to the Nature Conservancy and the World Monuments Fund.

Wilson started has career at First Boston Corp. as a trainee after graduating from college and spending two years in law school. He managed money from the late 1940s until he started a small hedge fund in 1968. He turned his initial $15,000 in investment into about $200 million. He invested in stocks that he expected to rise in value and also sold stocks short -- selling borrowed securities in the expectation their prices would decline and he could buy them back cheaper.

Opera, Modern Art

A former chairman of the New York City Opera, Wilson is on the board of the Whitney Museum of American Art. In an interview with the Associated Press in 2006, Wilson said he wants to give away 70 percent of his more than $500 million in assets before he dies.

With Wilson's donation, the archdiocese's scholarship fund has raised $97 million of the program's $158 million goal. LoFaro said the archdiocese wants to raise the remaining money by 2010 in order to fund 11,700 scholarships.

``This is a good time for donors to recognize the good work that we do,'' LoFaro said. ``Catholic education has long been recognized as being particularly successful in reaching at-risk, inner-city children.''

By Patrick Cole

[Polwarth]

Well done to the philanthropist for donating this money to education.

I do not believe in religious schools. I feel they breed division, as shown in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

[CreepingJesus]

This is a big setback for reason and education in New York.

Funding ignorant superstition is a step backward however you look at it, and religion is founded on ignorant superstition.

Why couldn't the money have gone to secular schools where invisible sky fairies aren't on the curriculum?

Let's face it, without the Roman Catholic Church, there would be no Western civilization,'' Wilson said.

Anyone who believes that is either completley ignorant of historical fact or is irredeemably stupid.

The Roman Catholic Church stood in the way of the progress of Western Civilisation for hundreds of years .

It stifled science and it tortured and exterminated anyone who disagreed with its ridiculous teachings.

Its obsession with the "moral" issues of people's reproductive behavior is killing multitudes even today. These clowns think that using a condom is worse than dying of AIDS, and they actively campaign against condom use among the most vulnerable people on the planet.

Words cannot describe how angry this makes me.

All these deaths in the name of utter stupid ignorance and this idiot's giving them money to spread their evil!

The man's an ill informed fool.

That money would be better used by other organisations which aren't founded on laughable mythology.

[DigitaLVampirE]

Originally Posted by CreepingJesus

Anyone who believes that is either completley ignorant of historical fact or is irredeemably stupid.

The Roman Catholic Church stood in the way of the progress of Western Civilisation for hundreds of years .

It stifled science and it tortured and exterminated anyone who disagreed with its ridiculous teachings.

I have a hard time agreeing with stupid people also:

Saint Luke (c.72) - Catholic patron saint of physicians and surgeons (himself being a physician, iconographer and evangelist)

Bede, the Venerable (c.672–735) - Catholic monk who wrote a work On the Nature of Things, and several books on the mathematical / astronomical subject of computus, the most influential entitled On the Reckoning of Time. He made original discoveries concerning the nature of the tides and his works on computus became required elements of the training of clergy, and thus greatly influenced early medieval knowledge of the natural world.

Pope Silvester II (c.950–1003) - A scientist and book collector, he influenced the teaching of math and astronomy in church-run schools, and raised the cathedral school at Rheims to the height of prosperity.

Hermannus Contractus (1013–1054) - Wrote on geometry, mathematics, and the astrolabe. He was also a monk who composed Marian antiphons and was essentially beatified.

Robert Grosseteste (c.1175–1253) - Bishop of Lincoln, he was the central character of the English intellectual movement in the first half of the 13th century and is considered the founder of scientific thought in Oxford. He had a great interest in the natural world and wrote texts on the mathematical sciences of optics, astronomy and geometry. He affirmed that experiments should be used in order to verify a theory, testing its consequences.

Pope John XXI (1215–1277) - He wrote the widely used medical text Thesaurus pauperum before becoming Pope.

Albertus Magnus (c.1193–1280) - Patron saint of scientists in Catholicism who may have been the first to isolate arsenic. He wrote that: "Natural science does not consist in ratifying what others have said, but in seeking the causes of phenomena."

Roger Bacon (c.1214–1294) - He was an English philosopher who emphasized empiricism and has been presented as one of the earliest advocates of the modern scientific method. He joined the Franciscan Order around 1240, where he was influenced by Grosseteste. Bacon was responsible for making the concept of "laws of nature" widespread, and contributed in such areas as mechanics, geography and, most of all, optics.

Theodoric of Freiberg (c.1250–c.1310) - Dominican who is believed to have given the first correct explanation for the rainbow in De iride et radialibus impressionibus or On the Rainbow.

Thomas Bradwardine (c.1290–1349) - He was an English archbishop, often called "the Profound Doctor". He developed studies as one of the Oxford Calculators of Merton College, Oxford University. These studies would lead to important developments in mechanics.

Jean Buridan (1300–1358) - Catholic priest and one of the most influential philosophers of the later Middle Ages. He developed the theory of impetus, which was an important step toward the modern concept of inertia.

Nicole Oresme (c.1323–1382) - Theologian and Bishop of Lisieux, he was one of the early founders and popularizers of modern sciences. One of his many scientific contributions is the discovery of the curvature of light through atmospheric refraction, he also showed that the reasons proposed by the physics of Aristotle against the movement of the Earth were not valid. Oresme strongly opposed astrology and speculated about the possibility of extraterrestrial life.

Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464) - Cardinal and theologian who made contributions to the field of mathematics by developing the concepts of the infinitesimal and of relative motion. His philosophical speculations also anticipated Copernicus’ heliocentric world-view.

Ignazio Danti (1536–1586) - Bishop of Alatri who convoked a diocesan synod to deal with abuses. He was also a mathematician who wrote on Euclid, an astronomer, and a designer of mechanical devices.

René Descartes (1596–1650) - Descartes was one of the key thinkers of the Scientific Revolution in the Western World. He is also honoured by having the Cartesian coordinate system used in plane geometry and algebra named after him. He did important work on invariants and geometry.

Giovanni Battista Riccioli (1598-1671) - Italian astronomer. He was a Jesuit who entered the order in 1614. He was also the first person to measure the rate of acceleration of a freely falling body.

Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680) - German Jesuit scholar who published around 40 works, most notably in the fields of oriental studies, geology and medicine. He made an early study of Egyptian hieroglyphs. One of the first people to observe microbes through a microscope, he was thus ahead of his time in proposing that the plague was caused by an infectious microorganism and in suggesting effective measures to prevent the spread of the disease. Kircher has been compared to Leonardo da Vinci for his inventiveness and the breadth and depth of his work

Nicolas Steno (1638-1686) - Contributions to paleontology and geology

Roger Joseph (1711-1787) - Physicist, astronomer, mathematician, philosopher, diplomat, poet, and Jesuit. He is famous for his atomic theory, given as a clear, precisely-formulated system utilizing principles of Newtonian mechanics. This work inspired Michael Faraday to develop field theory for electromagnetic interaction, and was even a basis for Albert Einstein's attempts for a unified field theory, according to Einstein's coworker Lancelot Law Whyte. Boscovich also gave many important contributions to astronomy, including the first geometric procedure for determining the equator of a rotating planet from three observations of a surface feature and for computing the orbit of a planet from three observations of its position.

Maria Gaetana Agnesi (1718–1799) - Linguist, mathematician, and philosopher. Agnesi is credited with writing the first book discussing both differential and integral calculus. She was an honorary member of the faculty at the University of Bologna.

Augustin Louis Cauchy (1789–1857) - French mathematician. He started the project of formulating and proving the theorems of calculus in a rigorous manner and was thus an early pioneer of analysis. He also gave several important theorems in complex analysis and initiated the study of permutation groups. A profound mathematician, Cauchy exercised by his perspicuous and rigorous methods a great influence over his contemporaries and successors. His writings cover the entire range of mathematics and mathematical physics.

Gregor Mendel (1822–1884) - Augustinian priest and scientist often called the "father of modern genetics" for his study of the inheritance of traits in pea plants. Mendel showed that the inheritance of traits follows particular laws, which were later named after him. The significance of Mendel's work was not recognised until the turn of the 20th century. Its rediscovery prompted the foundation of genetics.

Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) - French chemist best known for his remarkable breakthroughs in microbiology. His experiments confirmed the germ theory of disease, and he created the first vaccine for rabies. He is best known to the general public for showing how to stop milk and wine from going sour - this process came to be called pasteurization. He is regarded as one of the three main founders of bacteriology, together with Ferdinand Cohn and Robert Koch. He also made many discoveries in the field of chemistry, most notably the asymmetry of crystals.

Francesco Faà di Bruno (1825—1888) - Italian mathematician most linked to Turin. He is known for Faà di Bruno's formula and being a spiritual writer beatified in 1988.

Armand David (1826–1900) - Catholic missionary to China and member of the Lazarists who considered his religious duties to be his principle concern. He was also a botanist with the author abbreviation David and as a zoologist he described several species new to the West.

Pierre Duhem (1861–1916) - He worked on Thermodynamic potentials and wrote histories advocating that the Roman Catholic Church helped advance science.

E. T. Whittaker (1873-1956) - Converted to Catholicism in 1930 and member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. His 1946 Donnellan Lecture was entitled on Space and Spirit. Theories of the Universe and the Arguments for the Existence of God. He also received the Copley Medal and had written on Mathematical physics before conversion.

Georges Lemaître (1894-1966) - Catholic priest, honorary prelate, professor of physics and astronomer. Lemaître proposed what became known as the Big Bang theory of the origin of the Universe, although he called it his 'hypothesis of the primeval atom'. He was a pioneer in applying Einstein's theory of general relativity to cosmology: suggesting a pre-cursor of Hubble's law in 1927, and publishing his primeval atom theory the pages of Nature in 1931.

Carlos Chagas Filho (1910-2000) - A neuroscientist from Rio de Janeiro who headed the Pontifical Academy of Sciences for 16 years. He studied the Shroud of Turin and his "the Origin of the Universe", "the Origin of Life", and "the Origin of Man" involved an understanding between Catholicism and Science.

Yup, i see how the Catholic Church has stood in the way of science indeed.
It is however, sad to watch an Atheist bash another well-known Atheist for his brains and hard-earned money to fund schools that will benefit the less-priviledged. Oh well...i guess you cannot make everyone happy.

[Polwarth]

I'm sorry, DV - but I'm with CJ.... WHY give JUST to religious educationalists? And of only one denomination? Don't the Jews, the Protestants etc deserve a fair crack of the whip in the inner cities of the USA?

And, before you question it - I WAS educated within the RC religion, at a very expensive Catholic convent school in Edinburgh. However, I educated myself out of the religion by the age of 16.

[DigitaLVampirE]

Originally Posted by Polwarth

I'm sorry, DV - but I'm with CJ.... WHY give JUST to religious educationalists? And of only one denomination? Don't the Jews, the Protestants etc deserve a fair crack of the whip in the inner cities of the USA?

Simple answer: I'm not Mr Wilson. Only he knows why he decided to fund Catholic schools. Besides, i think Mr Wilson already mentioned that: "It was a chance for a very modest amount of money to get kids out of a lousy school system and into a good school system.'' His reply is very obvious.

Also, consider another Atheist's response from Daylight Atheism:
"Although I always prefer to support secular organizations over religious ones, I understand Wilson's decision and can find little fault with it. The desire to help needy students from poor families get a quality education is a great and praiseworthy act of compassion, and in Catholic schools, at least, the degree of religious indoctrination is likely to be minimal. At least these schools do not discriminate against prospective students who hold a different faith, and teach good science unpolluted by superstitious notions like creationism. In any case, I hope these students remember that though they are attending a Catholic school, it is an atheist who put them there."

Polwarth, being educated in a Catholic school, does not make you a bona-fide Catholic. Especially if you were born a cradle-Catholic but had no interest in the religion since young. But i think you know that already.

[DigitaLVampirE]

"This was the most delightful day in my seven years as archbishop of New York," Edward Cardinal Egan told me in an exclusive interview following the press conference announcing the $22.5 million gift from Robert W. Wilson to an archdiocesan inner-city scholarship program. "Our schools are among our best charities. We give our students hope. We give them the tools to succeed. We give them the best spiritual guidance, which has been the basis for the schools' wonderful achievements," he said.

I asked the cardinal how this gift to his scholarship program came about. "Mr. Wilson has been a generous supporter of our schools for some time. When we presented a statement last year indicating the availability of 8,000 seats in the inner-city schools, he asked if that figure was accurate." Susan George, the executive director of the Archdiocese's Inner-City Scholarship Fund, assured him that it was, the cardinal said.

"He's a statistician and he can probably explain it better than I can," the cardinal said. "3,000 students will be accommodated this September, another 3,000 next year and the next 2,000 by 2010."

Cardinal Egan expressed heartfelt gratitude to Mr. Wilson and disclosed that following the news of his generosity, other donations had come through in the amount of $4.5 million, bringing the total gifts to $27 million for the program.

Mr. Wilson's gift was described as the largest in the history of the archdiocese.

When I asked if that gift would stop the school closures, he asked, "What closures? The media has come up with that term, but what we have done is merged the nearby schools so that students can attend the schools with the best facilities, the best chemistry labs, etcetera." Only two schools were closed two years ago, he added, and enrollment was up last year by 480.

I wondered whether the students who are already attending the parochial schools will be eligible for these scholarships. "Alicia," he said, "as you well know, tuition costs will be kept down if the school has full enrollment. Otherwise, tuition costs will continue to rise." The cardinal knows that I've sent all six of my children to parochial school and I certainly could not have afforded the rising tuition costs without some form of scholarship assistance.