AmericanPapist Comments
Tom, I think you're right on. I happen to attend one of these universities right now--St. Edward's University to be exact (not for much longer, may I add). Aside from questionable student groups, such as a gay student group and the "Student Progressive Alliance" (now defunct due to the popularity of the College Democrats group), our campus has only ever invited speakers who are in open dissent with the Catholic Church. This last fall we hosted Charles Curran, and in years past we've had Richard Rohr, Margaret O'Brien-Steinfels, Mary Ellen Sheehan, Thomas Gumbelton (the school gave him an honorary degree!), and others. The campus is full of Obama posters, radical feminists teach freshman-level courses, and the student body resembles any other school of the same size--affluent, liberal, hedonistic, wordly.
I suspect we're not alone in our being led astray. Ex Corde Ecclesiae is rarely mentioned on campus, and when it is, the tone isn't pleasant. To be Catholic at a Catholic university is to live an underground existence.
We need to support those who strive to lead a chase life. It's a challenge for heterosexuals as well as homosexuals. For several decades the social trend has been much more towards accepting a homosexual lifestyle than a chase lifestyle and these universities are just amplifying this rather than searching for and making the truth known. The chase life really does have advantages that are largely hidden from the faculty and students alike on these campuses.
Nathan,
where is St. Edward's located? I'm curious as to whether local politics play a major role in the leanings of those who run your institution of "higher" learning.
Local politics? You betcha.
St. Edward's is located in Austin, Texas. Austin is a pretty well known liberal hotspot. In Texas, it's known as the "blueberry in the tomato soup".
Gee, no surprize to see the College I graduated from/work at listed.
I went to Marquette, and we are on the list...
It's a hard line for me to walk here because on one hand, I know the church's teaching and I must follow it. On the other hand, I know that the participants in these groups do not all share the same values system that we do. It is the job of the school, likely their respective Departments of Student Development, to determine, and determine consistently, what activities advance the school's mission.
I think it is unfair to condemn all of their actions as "subversive". I think many of their efforts to increase respect for the human person are admirable, and I try to remind myself to "love the sinner, hate the sin".
Life can be hard for homosexuals, and I think it's our job to help lift up these people in both our prayers and our works. For example - to do for GLBTQ individuals what Rachel's Group does for women who have had an abortion. Show them that their church supports them as human people, sin and all.
I know I've rambled, but what my feelings and my little novel here all boil down to is that I feel like an attack on this group would feel like an attack on the one place where GLBTQ individuals feel supported. Therefore, the Offices of Student Development need to step it up, read their mission statements, and not just stop things that are hurtful to the human person, but start things that are helpful.
God bless you all - American Papist is vital to my day as a young Catholic, and it does a world of good for me to come here and have this as a part of my life.
I agree with much of what you wrote, Steph, It is true that some conservative Catholics do seem to fail to distinguish between the sin and the sinner as well as between predilections and actions, but in my experience not most. Instead it is the liberal Catholics who seem to think that one cannot love the homosexual and treat him with respect and kindness without also endorsing homosexual conduct, gay marriage, etc.
That said, my experience may not be typical since I work in a professional environment in a city where gays have widespread influence and acceptance. Perhaps college students, even at a selective catholic (I'm genuinely uncertain as to whether Marquette considers it self *C*atholic) school, are more generally hostile and cruel, which unsurprisingly leads to unhealthy over-compensation by the more "enlightened." This would explain your ambivalence insomuch as you are torn between the community of the deliberately mean and the community of the deliberately heretical. Tough spot for a college student, but your only sensible and Catholic option is to accept friends in both communities being brave enough to uphold the teachings of the Church without self-righteousness. It's hard -- just do your best.
We do no person a favor by confirming them in their sin. We increase respect for the human person by treating them as mature adults who can handle charitable correction.
Heaven and Hell exist. A person's actions can result in going to one over the other. If we sincerely care about souls, we can not confirm them in mortal sin. From what I have been told by members of such organizations, not only do they confirm individuals in mortal sin, but they often serve as meeting places to facilitate more sinful activity
Two issues arise-- a place where individuals FEEL accepted, and where individuals are ACTUALLY accepted. Perhaps drawing out the example of Rachel's Vineyard fully would be helpful.
Rachel's Vineyard is contrasted with Planned Parenthood. Though a woman may feel accepted at PP, she is not actually accepted there. She is instead treated as an object. Though a person may feel accepted at a GLBTQ club, it does not mean the person is actually accepted. Instead, it reduces the individual to the level of a sexual object.
A series of serious questions must be asked: 1) Do individuals have power over their sexual urges? 2) Does the Church have the competency and authority to teach on moral matters? The very existence of these groups, by their own stated goals and objectives, answers the above questions with a resounding "NO." Such things are so contrary to Church teaching that one must legitimately wonder how they can exist on a Catholic campus.
What if a group were organized around the acceptance of all extra-maritial heterosexual activity? A bondage club? A simulated rape club? A drunken-hookup support group? A swingers society? Do not these people also need community support and acceptance. After all, they can't possibly help their disordered desires for kinky activity? Shouldn't we support their risky and immoral behavior, and let them know that anything they desire is good because, gosh-darnit, God made them that way?
When we carry these issues to their logical and reasonable conclusion, we recognize just how utterly absurd they are.
A Catholic University having a GLBTQ club for homosexuals is equiv. to a Catholic University having a Planned Parenthood club for women who are victimized by abortion. The very presence indicates a wholesale rejection of Church teaching on an institutional level.
I really wonder if one can say that Notre Dame has a homosexual student organization. At best, they have a joint administration-student committee that informs the administration on the needs of that subset of the student population. This is a far cry from a club. If memory serves, every attempt so far to organize a homosexual student organization has been soundly rejected by that university, which is also why Notre Dame ranks fairly high on Princeton Review's "alternative lifestyles not an alternative" list.
This makes me doubt the numbers presented by the study, as there could be several Catholic universities that have some sort of an apparatus to acknowledge that there are indeed homosexual students among their population without allowing them to create an organization that would press the agenda about which the study is worried. It seems that the study is including those schools when perhaps it shouldn't and is thus overestimating its numbers.
A series of serious questions must be asked: 1) Do individuals have power over their sexual urges? 2) Does the Church have the competency and authority to teach on moral matters? The very existence of these groups, by their own stated goals and objectives, answers the above questions with a resounding "NO." Such things are so contrary to Church teaching that one must legitimately wonder how they can exist on a Catholic campus.
Excellent point. My quote of the day.
I go to one of those "Catholic" colleges on that list (Aquinas College, Grand Rapids, MI). The sad thing is that the school supports a GSA but when the pro-life memorial is defaced by cliche clothes hangers and protested with signs like "Catholics for Free Choice" they say nothing. We need a good old fashioned crusade.
Do not fear though. There are still some faithful orthodox Catholics on campus. In fact, we are drafting a letter to the Bishop of Grand Rapids to appeal to him regarding this unfortunate mess. Prayers and advice would be a great help and much appreciated. : )
Glad to hear that the pro-homosexual speaker was canceled from delivering a speech at Aquinas College recently. Bravo to the Catholic students who spoke out and defended Catholic morality. Hat off to you brave students. God bless!
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