Da Techguy's (no longer backup) Blog

It is a good thing that St. Mary’s Catholic College for Women in Indiana has reversed their decision to admit men who identify as women to their college after huge pressure from alumni and their Bishop who noted that both Pope Benedict XVI:

No doubt Saint Mary’s College desires to promote love, inclusion, and acceptance within the community. But it does not do so authentically when it separates love from truth. In his encyclical Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth), Pope Benedict XVI wrote: “Only in truth does charity shine forth, only in truth can charity be authentically lived. Truth is the light that gives meaning and value to charity… Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality. Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way. In a culture without truth, this is the fatal risk facing love. It falls prey to contingent subjective emotions and opinions, the word ‘love’ is abused and distorted, to the point where it comes to mean the opposite” (#3).

And Pope Francis

Pope Francis also teaches about the intimate connection between truth and love in his first encyclical, Lumen Fidei (The Light of Faith). He writes: “Love requires truth. Only to the extent that love is grounded in truth can it endure over time, can it transcend the passing moment and be sufficiently solid to sustain a shared journey. If love is not tied to truth, it falls prey to fickle emotions and cannot stand the test of time. True love, on the other hand, unifies all the elements of our person and becomes a new light pointing the way to a great and fulfilled life” (#27).

note that you can’t separate “love” and “Truth”.

Despite this reversal I recommend asking for the resignation of both the President of the college and the current board of trusties and if they don’t resign, their dismissal.

Why, well despite the Bishops charitable description of their initial decision’s motives let’s look at the initial announcement of their now reversed policy.

Conboy said in the email that the Board “fully supports” the new policy.

“This confidence from our Board underscores their commitment that as an employer, Saint Mary’s must stand firm in its position as an inclusive community leader, and that as educators, we should continue to create an environment where all women belong and thrive,” Conboy wrote.

By definition the president of a Catholic college and such a college’s board should be both defenders of the faith and examples of how the faith should be practiced and imparted to young people who are to be educated at their school.

Yet not only did the president of said college celebrate this change but noted that the board “fully supported” it. No sign of dissenters, no sign of objections, no members of the board threatening to resign or making a public declaration that this is contrary to the faith. None of those things moved them.

But the backlash sure did:

As this last month unfolded, we lost people’s trust and unintentionally created division where we had hoped for unity. For this, we are deeply sorry.

Forgive me for saying this but I submit and suggest this is a lie, I think the truth is more like what this member of the Alumni said about the reversal:

“When this admissions decision became public hundreds of alumni banded together to stand for the Church and her teachings,” said Clare Ath, who graduated from the college in 2018. “While I would hope the reversal is because administrators realized we must teach the truth with love, my guess is the reversal is because alumni banded together, pulled their donations, notified their diocese and media, and said we will not let Our Lady’s college be corrupted by secular gender ideology.”

Put simply they’re not sorry they did it, they’re sorry that they received pushback and faced the loss of donation and support.

This suggests that if some time in the future a less vigilant Bishop is in place they will try something like this again. My thought is “why take a chance?” There are no shortage of faithful Catholics who actually believe what the Church teaches who are qualified for both the board and the presidency.

So I humbly suggest for the good of the future of the college that the president and the board resign en masse to make room for people who will be dedicated to keeping this particular Catholic college Catholic.

Closing thought: This post gave me Anna Maria College Visit flashbacks. I suspect his decision to not go there is a contributing factor for him remaining a devout #catholic into his 30’s.