More today from the mediums in re: High-profile Wheeling Jesuit alum-lobbyist-former-WVa gubernatorial cabinet member Steve Haid’s withdrawing $650,000 in pledged bequests to protest August firing of President Julio Giulietti SJ:

* Charleston State Journal, subheading, “Interim President J. Davitt McAteer said he is not worried about fund raising efforts,” has this from Wheeling Jesuit’s McAteer:

“Haid is one of 10,000 graduates of Wheeling Jesuit University and our fund raising efforts are continuing.  . . . Since Aug. 6 [day of the firing], nearly 500 alumni has [sic] made donations. In fact, the number of pledges to the President’s Circle, which had declined over the past two years, have increased over the past three months.”

The President’s Circle includes legacy givers and givers of $1,000 and up in a range of four “societies,” the most generous of which is for givers of $25,000 and up, according to the WJU web site.

* Wheeling News-Register, relying in part on AP, has this:

The Rev. James Shea, provincial of the Maryland Province of the Society of Jesus, stressed that Bransfield played no role in the firing.

This without saying it talked to Shea, which is odd.

* West Virginia public radio gives beaucoups de time and space to the current WJU administration, with barely a nod to its critics:

Officials at Wheeling Jesuit University say they are moving forward in the right direction since the Board of Trustees at the college decided to change leadership in August.

Enrollment and giving are up, says interim President McAteer, citing donations from “nearly 500” alums and a rise in President’s Circle pledges, as above.

Noting “public fallout from friends of Giulietti over how the change in leadership was handled,” the station could not reach Haid but did reach “vice chair of WJU’s Board of Directors, Mimi Helm,” who simply denied Bishop Bransfield’s role in decision-making:

“I have attended every meeting over the last year for the entire meeting every single time. The Bishop has nothing to do with the workings of the board. We had meetings and discussions, we made some decisions, not the Bishop.”

She also described the recently suspended search for a new president attractively:

“We have the people in place so we can take our time and do a really thorough job. The search this time is . . . unique in the history of the school because we are able to look for a Jesuit or non-Jesuit candidate as the number of the Jesuit’s [sic] decline in the United States and it becomes more of our lay people’s mission to carry the Jesuit spirit forward and to do that with the next president.”

More more more as items arise . . .