(LifeSiteNews) — At least 19 Catholic colleges will hold LGBT-themed “Lavender” graduations this spring in defiance of Church teaching on sexuality and the human person.
Prominent Catholic-in-name-only universities will hold separate commencement ceremonies to celebrate students who identify as gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer, according to The Cardinal Newman Society, in what has been a growing trend since the “Lavender Graduation” was founded in 1995.
The Lavender Graduation Legacy Project explains that these ceremonies are designed to “celebrate LGBTQ+ identity and achievement” and act as “inclusive” spaces where students can use their chosen names and pronouns. Therefore, they implicitly endorse homosexual acts and the adoption of identities contrary to God’s male-female design that are gravely sinful behaviors.
As the Catechism of the Catholic Church (n. 2357) teaches, “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered” and “contrary to the natural law.”
Moreover, the celebration of an “LGBTQ+ identity” alone is contrary to Catholic teaching because human beings do not find their identity in their disordered inclinations. The Church teaches that while sexual attraction to persons of the same sex is not itself a sin, such attractions are “objectively disordered.”
Georgetown University, Boston College, Fordham University, College of the Holy Cross, and Albertus Magnus College are among the institutions holding “Lavender” graduations this year.
Seattle University’s Lavender Graduation will feature a performance by Sativa the Drag Queen “underscoring how far these celebrations can depart from a Catholic understanding of the human person,” the Cardinal Newman Society noted.
The Catechism teaches that those experiencing same-sex attraction “must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity.” But charity also requires that Christians do not encourage gravely sinful behavior or affirm that a disordered inclination is a source of identity.
The departure of Catholic universities from their faith-based values and mission is widely attributed to the Land O’ Lakes statement, a document approved by presidents of various Catholic universities across the U.S. that declared independence from formal Church authority and doctrines.
A list of Catholic colleges faithful to the teachings of the Church is found in The Newman Guide.