By Hilary White
BOSTON, December 7, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In an editorial condemning the cancellation of a homosexual dance, the student newspaper of Boston College has called on the Jesuit administration to come clean about their loyalties: “BC should follow Jesuit values, not Catholic doctrine.”
The flap started when the college cancelled a dance to ‘celebrate’ homosexuality and other forms of fashionable sexual deviancy. The “safe zone” dance organized by the college’s own “GBLT” (“gay, bisexual, lesbian and transgendered”) student group was cancelled by the college because it purportedly conflicted with the college’s Catholic affiliation.
In making this open declaration, the Heights has said aloud what many exasperated Catholics have long wished the Vatican would acknowledge: that much of the Jesuit order, at least in the US, is no longer a recognizably Catholic organization.
The college issued a statement that has many on both sides asking when the college administration – and by extension the Jesuit order itself – is going to make up its mind and pick a side. Boston College, the statement said, “cannot sanction an event that is exclusive and that promotes a lifestyle that is in conflict with church teaching and the Jesuit, Catholic mission and heritage of Boston College.”
The students, however, have reason to be angry at the apparent hypocrisy since the college has not hesitated publicly in the past to oppose Catholic teaching on sexuality and the sanctity of life. Guest speakers, faculty, and campus events have all openly advocated secularist mores over Catholic teaching – albeit, invariably with the Jesuitical caveat of acting in the service of “dialogue.”
The college has hosted an influential GBLT student activist group since 2003 and the college website includes a GBLT ‘resources’ page that invites students and alumni to become involved in the homosexual political activist movement and explore “gay-friendly” career options.
Boston College has been a particularly active venue recently for Jesuit attacks on morality. Earlier this year the college adopted a non-discrimination policy that states that Boston College “commits itself to maintaining a welcoming environment for all people and extends its welcome in particular to those who may be vulnerable to discrimination on the basis of their race . . . religion, color, age . . . or sexual orientation.” The college, along with Boston’s Jesuit Urban Center, was featured on a homosexual activist website that featured “gay friendly” parishes.
In 2001, African Bishop Kevin Dowling told a packed auditorium at Boston College that the Church’s teaching on the sanctity of human sexuality was a “death-dealing code,” in the face of the AIDS epidemic. Boston college distinguished itself as a centre of Catholic support for euthanasia last year by allowing three of its most prominent theology professors publicly to support the killing of Terri Schiavo by court-ordered dehydration.
Boston College is not unique, however. Jesuits have taken the lead in undermining Catholic teaching at many of their other institutions since the 1960’s. Gonzaga University in Spokane Washington and University of San Francisco are, for instance, two that have been under fire in the last year for, respectively, suppressing Catholic opposition to the homosexual ‘lifestyle’ and providing abortion referrals through its website.
To express concerns:
Zenon Cardinal Grocholewski,
Prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education
Palazzo della Congregazioni,
00193 Roma, Piazza Pio XII, 3
Phone: 06.69.88.41.67
Fax: 06.69.88.41.72
Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life
Archbishop Franc Rodé, Prefect
Palazzo della Congregazioni,
00193 Roma, Piazza Pio XII, 3
Phone: 06.69.88.41.28
Fax: 06.69.88.45.26
Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Jesuit Editor of America Resigns after Years of Promoting Opposition to Catholic Moral Teachings
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/may/05050906.html
South African Bishop Calls for Catholic “Theology” of Condoms for AIDS
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/nov/05111507.html
Catholic University of San Francisco Provides Abortion Referrals on Website
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2002/dec/02120503.html