'Witty' religious studies instructor retires

Religious studies professor Mary Jo Weaver has not always been a popular figure.\nBecause of her criticism of the Roman Catholic church's positions on the role of women, abortion and birth control, religious leaders have refused to speak with her. Some of those angry with Weaver threatened to kill her. Others turned to throwing garbage at her.\nBut her colleagues' treatment of her starkly contrasted that of her detractors Friday afternoon. \n"We know her for her tireless Irish wit, humor and forthrightness," said former chair of the religious studies department Richard Miller. He introduced Weaver at her retirement lecture titled, "As Much Fun Learning as Teaching."\nThe crowd seemed to agree with Miller about the embattled instructor, as her lecture drew laughs from faculty and students.\n"She's a very unique individual," said Emily Cheney, a sophomore in Weaver's American Catholicism class this semester. "I told one of my friends I had her as a professor and he said, 'she's a pistol.'"\nJunior Emily Crouch, also in the class, said Weaver was the best professor she ever had.\n"She challenges why you believe what you believe," she said. "I wanted to be here for her send-off."\nWeaver came to IU in 1975 when the IU Department of Religious Studies was still in its infancy. Her early work dealt with Catholic reform and feminism in the church.\nShe has made no secret of her opinion that the church makes a concerted effort to keep women subservient. She titled a portion of her lecture "If you can't pee like Jesus, you can't be like Jesus."\nBut Weaver's most prominent work is the books she edited on conservative and liberal Catholics, respectively titled "Being Right: Conservative Catholics in America" and "What's Left? Liberal American Catholics."\nWeaver said that when she started teaching she noticed that most of her Catholic students were progressive and not afraid of questioning papal authority. But since the early '90s, she says, more students have come to her with old-fashioned views of the church. Some students expressed a desire to go back to a type of church service performed in Latin, common before reforms in the '60s.\n"I've come to the conclusion that the default mode of religion is conservative and any progressive liberal movement within is generally aberrant," she said.\nIn the last few years Weaver has received even more national attention for teaching the course titled "Star Trek and Religion," borne from a joke she made at a faculty meeting. The class is quite successful, she said, introducing students to religious studies who might otherwise avoid such classes.\n"I show students a video about this pre-modern primitive Vulcan religion and say it has something to do with (famous 18th century philosopher) David Hume," she said. "They believe it because I'm old. I give them 25 pages from this dreadful argument 'From Design,' give them a quiz about it and it works."\nFormer students from as far away as California came to the lecture, something Weaver said speaks louder for her teaching ability than any award or grant she has received.\n"I invited 70 former students and 60 of them came," she said. "Their presence here is the single best statement I can make about myself"