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.

In the Commonwealth of Marxachusetts Christmas has become one of the most vulgar swear words.  Towns and other localities go to extreme lengths to refrain from using a word that political left has deemed to be the most offensive word ever uttered.  It is so reminiscent of the lengths the wizarding community in Harry Potter went to to avoid naming Lord Voldemort.  Stores go to the same extreme level in all of their ‘holiday’ advertising. Store clerks are forbidden from wishing their customers the hated Merry Christmas.  I am sure it is the same all over this country, except in the reddest of red enclaves.

Banning the name of the Holiday That Must Not Be Named is not enough anymore.  Christmas trees have proved to be too offensive for fragile and pathetic progressives: Town Cuts Tree Lighting From Holiday Celebration To Appease Those ‘Offended’ By The Tradition (themix.net)

The town of Durham, New Hampshire finally submitted to the politically correct police this year by agreeing to remove the tree lighting from their annual holiday celebration. The decision was announced after the town received complaints about the tree lighting tradition.

CBS reported that the event which was previously known as the Annual Tree Lighting Ceremony will now be called Frost Fest. And the tree lighting at the center of the celebration will no longer be part of it.

While Santa will attend the event, he will not be in a town firetruck as he has in the past. In addition, the wreaths that traditionally adorned lamp posts on Main Street will not be put up this year.

Town Council member Sally Tobias explained that these changes were made after someone complained that they are “offended” by the Christmas themes in the ceremony.

“There was another private citizen that came forward and said that he had always had a problem with the Christmas tree, as he called it,” Tobias said.

Two whinny individuals complain and every single person who enjoys Christmas traditions is punished, how inclusive.

These delicate anf pitiable progressives can’t even stomach the name Jesus when they do go through the motions of carrying out traditional Christmas activities: Parents Furious When School Changes Christmas Carol Lyrics To Be ‘More Inclusive’ (themix.net)

Parents and staff at a London primary school are upset after the headmaster changed the lyrics to a popular Christmas carol “in the name of inclusion and political correctness,” according to a watchdog group.

Zakia Khatun, the headteacher of Whitehall Primary School in East London, told students they were not to sing “Lord” in “Away in a Manger,” and replaced it with “little baby” so “all pupils” could participate in an annual Nativity Tuesday.

The mythical separation of church and state is used as the primary justification for waging this war on Christmas.  The separation of church and state does not exist anywhere in the Constitution, nor is it part of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.  That clause only prevents the Federal Government from establishing an official state religion through laws passed using the formal legislative process.  Selling religious candy at army bases is not the same: Military exchange to stop selling ‘Jesus’ Scripture Candy after secular group complains | U.S. News (christianpost.com)

The Army & Air Force Exchange Service said it will stop selling Jesus-themed candy in response to a complaint filed by a secular legal organization warning that selling the treats at commissary and exchange stores is a violation of the U.S. Constitution. 

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation announced Friday that it received a response to a letter it sent recently to the AAFES objecting to the sale of “Jesus Candy” at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colorado. 

AAFES is the retailor found on U.S. Army and Air Force installations worldwide. 

The Establishment Clause most definitely does not apply to the states.  It did not when the Bill of Rights was ratified.  It was not extended to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment.  The Supreme Court concocted the entire incorporation doctrine in direct violation of both the 1st and 14th Amendments.  Only tyrannical and fragile progressives would ban school bus drivers from wearing Christmas themed clothing, decorating buses, and playing Christmas carols: Pennsylvania School District Does Damage Control After Memo to Bus Drivers Goes Viral (townhall.com)

A Pennsylvania school is attempting to do damage control after issuing a memo instructing bus drivers to remove Christmas decorations from their vehicles, stop wearing anything related to the holiday, and avoid playing Christmas music. 

“If you have decorated your bus with anything specific to the Christmas Holiday or any other decorations relating to a specific religion, please remove them immediately,” read the Dec. 15 memo from the Transportation Supervisor at the Wallingford-Swarthmore School District. “In addition, employees are instructed not to wear clothing related to Christmas or any other religious holiday.”

District offices and bus drivers are also “to refrain from playing Christmas music” or any music connected to a particular religion. 

Libs of TikTok pointed out the district took a different attitude toward “Pride Month.”

Last week I pondered the problem of who to put in charge of Gaza once Hamas is exterminated. 

Given the Gazans participation in the attacks of Oct 7th and their previous support of Hamas obviously Israel can’t allow Hamas to be replaced by Islamic Jihad or whatever new permutation of the “Let’s kill the Jews” lobby rises up. Democracy is a fine thing but it’s not a suicide pact.

Further given the indifference at best or complicity at worst of the various UN and other International NGO as Hamas prepared for their grand slaughter leaves them out.

And forget Egypt, the last thing they want is the Gaza population. Getting them off their hands was the one bright side to their losses to Israel.

And it goes without saying that the Palestinian authority shouldn’t be let anywhere near Gaza, remember the reason why the Gazans voted in Hamas is they knew the PA were a bunch of corrupt bastards (they had to find out that Hamas was the same but only more murderous).

So if Israel doesn’t want the spectacle of about 2 million Arabs being governed by Jews there is a only one solution.

I would make a special sub committee of the Israeli Knesset consisting only of Arab members and put them in charge, under the supervision of am Arab member of Israel’s supreme court.

This would thread the needle. The Arab Israeli’s have an incentive prevent terror attacks as their own families and people are not immune from such attacks while the people of Gaza whose hate for Jews has been the origin of all these troubles can avoid being directly governed by them.

If it works out then Gaza could actually thrive and prosper, furthermore this is basically the only way to I can think of to DeNazify the strip. Two or three generations of Arab Israeli rule just might be enough to wean Gazans from their insane hatred of Jews while giving them a chance to actually have a better life.

And if it fails, if the Israeli Arabs are either unable to govern or if it’s impossible to convince the people of Gaza that trying to kill Jews is a bad thing, then whatever happens next, it’s on them.

Via Hotair I saw a tweet that perfectly illustrates the dangers of a “post Christian” culture.

Odd how Canada has seemingly abandoned “decency” at the same time they abandoned “Christianity” isn’t it?

Canadians and Americans for that matter have to decide if they are going to be a free nation or slaves in their own land.

Furthermore they have a very limited time to decide it because in two generations they are going to be outnumbered by people who didn’t embrace abortion and birth control and thus will be making the rules.

Gee it’s as if the Church’s decision to follow God’s rules on abortion & birth control just might have an imbedded a social good for humanity with it as do all of the rules handed down for generations before the rise of the secular left.

Unexpectedly of course.