University Daily Kansan / Wednesday, November 5, 1986
15
Professor discusses experiences at KU
By PAMELA SPINGLER
Staff writer
Francis Heller lights his cigar and comfortably puffs it in his office in Green Hall.
The smoke wafts around walls filled with law books ranging from "Cannibalism and the Common Law" to "Courtts and the Constitution in the 20th Century."
The smoke also drifts around the more than 50 owls made of wood, metal, ceramic and glass that call his office home.
But Heller, the Roy A. Roberts distinguished professor of law and political science, is also comfortable in the classroom. For his dedication to teaching, last month he received the 1986 Chancellor's Club Teaching Award from the Kansas University Endowment Association.
"It's the finest thing I could have asked the University to do for me." Heller said recently.
Heller started his KU teaching career 39 years ago in a one-year assistant professorship in the political science department.
"I liked the people I met here." Heller said, adding they were one of the reasons he decided to stay.
But what really sold KU to Heller was teaching his first political science class.
"It was a stimulating experience," he said. "I still keep in touch with some of the students."
In fact, Heller married one of his first students.
Donna Heller said her husband was one of her best teachers at the University.
"He was excellent," she said, adding that what impressed her the most was his grasps on the subjects he taught.
She described him as easy-going, patient and intelligent with a dry sense of humor.
Heller said he thought one of his strengths in teaching was that he didn't lecture from notes.
"It instills confidence in the students because they know I'm in command of my subject," he said. "In my first class, they didn't quite believe it and they started a question me and stumped me.
But as hard as they tried, they never stumped him, he said.
Heller, who was born in Austria,
decided to become a professor
when he was 15. He studied law
and political science and received
a doctorate at the University of
Virginia before he came to KU.
His role at the University changed over the years. Besides teaching law and political science, he also has served in a variety of teaching and administrative positions.
Heller was drafted into the Army in World War II. Instead of being sent to an officer training school, he was sent overseas.
The error changed his life.
In his unit were men who had never graduated from high school and who hadn't had jobs, Heller said.
"I spent the entire war with these men," he said. "Living together in combat conditions, they became my friends and I saw the world in totally new eyes.
In 1954, Heller met former President Harry Truman and worked
Francis Heller
with him for a year and a half on Truman's memoirs.
But his greatest accomplishment is being himself, Heller said.
"I don't see myself as a superman," he said.
"But I think whatever I've had the opportunity to do, I tried to do as well as I could. I hope I can say that I've been the best I can be."
Vatican guidelines anger homosexuals
By COLLEEN SIEBES
"A bunch of hogwash" is what a pastor at the Metropolitan Community Church in Kansas City, Mo., calls new guidelines from the Vatican that define what is acceptable behavior for homosexual Roman Catholics.
The Vatican last week issued a set of guidelines that said it was acceptable for Roman Catholics to have homosexual tendencies as long as they don't engage in homosexual relations.
"It makes no difference who you are or what you are," John, a pastor at the church, who requested that his last name not be used, said this week.
John, who is gay, said he and his mate have shared a happy and spiritual life in the church for many years.
John united with another man in a bond of Holy Union a few years ago at the church. The sacrament of Holy Union is equivalent to the sacrament of marriage in other churches, he said.
Objectively, homosexual activity is immoral and considered a mortal sin by the Roman Catholic Church, said Dave Gottschalk, a priest at the St Lawrence Catholic Center, 1631 Crescent Road.
In the Catholic Church, a mortal sin is an act that severs a person's relationship with God.
However, homosexual activity is not automatically a mortal sin, he said. Different situations elicit different responses. The church never judges who will and who will not be admitted to heaven, he said.
Gottishck said the guidelines were not new. The church has always taken this position on homosexuality, which follows the basic teaching of the church that sex outside of marriage is immoral, he said.
The church, although recognizing that homosexuality is inmate and is a condition that cannot be changed, considers homosexuality a disorder.
Gottschkai compared the church's problem concerning homosexuals to one about people who are born with a propensity for anger and violence. Murder is not then sanctioned for them because they were born that way, he said.
Therefore, being gay is not a sin but homosexual acts are he said.
Allan, a homosexual Kansas City Mo., resident and former Catholic, said he thought the Roman Catholic back homosexuality had set the church back.
"It's wrong for them to make you feel as if you don't belong within the realm of God," he said. "God created me this way."
Allan, who also requested that his last name not be used, was raised a Catholic and attended Catholic school for 12 years. Allan said he tried for years to deny his homosexuality. He married, but divorced four years later.
"I was living a lie," he said. "It tome me up emotionally. I finally had to completely excommunicate myself."
Allan said he had received counseling from priests, but they tried to help him.
"They made you feel that much worse about yourself," he said.
ARENSBERG'S SHOES
Dennis Dailey, professor of social welfare and adviser to the Gay and Lesbian Services of Kansas, said the new guidelines didn't represent a major change in the church's position.
Allianz is now a member of the Metropolitan Community Church.
Dailey said he thoroughly disagreed with the church's stand on homosexuality.
825 Massachusetts Open Sun.
Downtown Lawrence 1-5 p.m.
Since 1958.
Midwest
BUSINESS
SYSTEMS, INC.
Office Products • Office Supplies
Copy Service • Blue Print Service
810 Massachusetts Ave.
New York, NY 10024
913/365-
*BARGAIN SHOW
FACTS
CRUCIFIXION:
OR
AHMED DEEDAT
Famous Muslim Scholar Specialized in Comparative Religion
FICTION
VS
DR. ROBERT DOUGLAS
Ph.D. in Religion
Director of the Christian Zwimer
Institute for Muslim Studies
(Spent 10 years in the Middle Eastern World)
TIME: 7:00 p.m. Thur., NOV. 6,1986
PLACE: Ball Room, Kansas Union, Univ. of Kansas, Lawrence Kansas For more information, call: (913)841-9768