ST. LOUIS, Missouri (LifeSiteNews) – In recent weeks, religious and lay affiliates at a Catholic university have shown dissident support for transgender ideology in direct opposition to the teachings of the Catholic Church.
The conservative youth organization Young America’s Foundation (YAF) has drawn attention to St. Louis University (SLU), a Jesuit-founded institution, for pro-LGBT views and hosting a drag show despite protests from members of the school’s community.
On October 17, YAF posted a recording of a conversation in which a nun and a priest affiliated with SLU express personal support for gender ideology and suggest that the Catholic Church could also evolve into accepting transgenderism.
In the recording, a nun identified as Sister Nancy Corcoran claims that a mother of an 18-month-old “thought she had a girl,” but that the child allegedly announced at a young age that she was a “boy.” At five years old, when the girl received confirmation from her mother that she would grow breasts, Sister Corcoran said that the child “threw herself on the floor and said, ‘then I will kill myself’.” YAF confirmed Corcoran’s identity to LifeSiteNews.
JUST IN: Father Charlie and Sister Corcoran of St. Louis University openly discuss that God maybe telling us something new in regards to the gender spectrum that wasn’t revealed before and how a 5 year old girl identified as a boy pic.twitter.com/mGZRJzbZDi
— YAF (@yaf) October 17, 2022
Sister Corcoran, who identified herself in an earlier portion of the conversation recorded by YAF, was joined by a priest whose last name is unknown to YAF and has not yet been discovered by LifeSiteNews. The conversation took place at the university’s “Interprofessional Transgender Health Education Day.”
“From our perspective, I think the big issue is whether God’s Revelation continues beyond the Bible,” the priest, identified as Fr. Charlie, added. “Clearly, that’s a privileged source. But then as we learn and understand things, is that a way in which God is revealing more things about His plan to us.”
He said that “if you come across a scientific truth which is not treated in the Bible, or which seems to conflict with the Bible,” it is possible that the truth is evolving with society, contrary to Catholic teaching that homosexuality and LGBT ideology are sinful and wrong because they defy nature, truth, and life. The priest added that he was “not saying what the answer is” but that the “big question” is whether “God [is] telling us something new.”
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As LifeSite has reported, biological sex is rooted in an individual’s chromosomes and reflected by hundreds of genetic characteristics, and leading medical experts have strongly refuted claims that transgenderism has any basis in science.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that “By creating the human being man and woman, God gives personal dignity equally to the one and the other. Each of them, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity.”
Regarding the popular trend to have medical intervention to “affirm” one’s “gender identity,” the Church teaches that “except when performed for strictly therapeutic medical reasons, directly intended amputations, mutilations, and sterilizations performed on innocent persons are against the moral law.”
The Church also teaches that “Sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture, and the teaching authority of the Church, in accord with God’s most wise design, are so linked and joined together that one cannot stand without the others.”
When asked if gender ideology simply wasn’t an issue when the Bible was written and therefore the Catholic Church did not have the full picture with which to teach on homosexuality, Fr. Charlie replied that the LGBT push is “new information that we never had about what it means to be human.”
“If it’s true, is this something that God is revealing to us through human experience? [This] is how Catholics can look at it.”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that “Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that ‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.’”
Neither Sister Corcoran or Fr. Charlie can be found in the university directory.
Drag queen show at SLU
Previously, on October 12, YAF posted a video of a school-sponsored drag show featuring one of the university’s faculty members.
“Hundreds of students gathered in the Wool Ballrooms to observe a bizarre performance by scantily clad men dancing inappropriately and collecting money,” YAF wrote.
RELATED: Cardinal Müller: Transgender ideology is ‘self-mutilation,’ promoting it is a ‘serious sin’
According to another article by YAF, the school official who authorized the event, Thomas Patterson, identifies as a “drag baby who goes by the stage name ‘Misty Terrain’.” Patterson is the program coordinator for the SLU Student Involvement Center.
The drag performer’s Instagram and Facebook pages show him dressed in dozens of obscene costumes and advertise a “Miss Gay US of A” pageant which took place over the summer.
Following the drag show, the YAF noted that Patterson no longer appears on the university’s website, although the organization verified that he is still employed.
However, they also reported that “university officials declined to respond to YAF’s request for comment seeking to learn why administrators at a Catholic university feel that this type of programming is appropriate.”
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