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 John-Henry Westen / LifeSiteNews

BERGEN COUNTY, New Jersey, May 4, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) – Immaculate Heart Academy, an all-girls Catholic high school owned by the Archdiocese of Newark, is promoting an alumna’s “marriage” to another woman.

Newark’s Cardinal Joseph Tobin has a history of promoting homosexuality and heterodoxy. In 2017, Tobin personally welcomed actively homosexual “pilgrims” to his cathedral. In a 2019 interview, Tobin called the Catholic Church’s teaching on homosexuality “unfortunate” and “hurtful.”

In its 2021 Winter magazine, Immaculate Heart Academy published updates on various alumni. Page 41 of the magazine features a short blub about a former student, Cristin Keegan, who recently entered into a “marriage” with another woman, Kate Disare. The magazine also published one of their “wedding” photos.

“We were fortunate enough to have several IHA alumnae join us for the celebration…” Keegan told the magazine. She continued to name various alumni who partook in her “wedding.”

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Blurb on page 41 of Immaculate Heart Academy's magazine promoting homosexual 'marriage'

On its website, Immaculate Heart Academy states that its mission is to “provide quality Catholic education to young women in an atmosphere characterized by respect for the individual, Christian community, and a high level of family involvement.”

“By both cultivating the traditional Christian values of the Roman Catholic Church and upholding exceptional college preparatory standards, IHA offers a unique and unmatched private educational experience,” the website advertises.

The Catholic Church teaches that marriage is a lifelong sacrament between one man and one woman ordered toward the procreation and education of children. It also teaches that homosexual acts are one of the four sins that cry to heaven for justice. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states 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’. They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.” (CCC 2357)

The Catholic Church further teaches that the homosexual inclination is also “objectively disordered,” since God created sexual attraction for the purpose of drawing a man and a woman together to become husband and wife in marriage. In other words, the Catholic Churches teaches that God does not make anyone a homosexual.

LifeSiteNews reached out to the Archdiocese of Newark and the school for a comment regarding the publication and promotion of homosexual “marriage.”

The archdiocese claimed that the magazine is under the jurisdiction of the school (which the archdiocese owns and operates), and they have nothing to do with its publication. In a telephone interview, the director of communications for the Archdiocese of Newark, Maria Margiotta, told LifeSiteNews that the Academy’s newsletter “has nothing to do with me.”

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Meanwhile, John O’Neil, associate superintendent for Catholic schools in the Newark diocese,  told LifeSiteNews that he was not aware that homosexual “wedding” was promoted in the magazine.     

Neither Margiotta nor O’Neil has responded to LifeSite’s additional questions on whether the diocese will take action against the school for its clear defiance of Church teaching.

LifeSiteNews also reached out to Immaculate Heart Academy principal Jason Schlereth, but he failed to respond by the time of publication.

Commenting on the situation, Cardinal Newman Society President Patrick Reilly told LifeSiteNews, “The Vatican recently explained why the Church cannot bless sin – and neither should Catholic education celebrate it.”

“The clear teaching of the Church” is “the foundation of any authentic Catholic education,” he added.

Contact information for respectful communication:

Cardinal Joseph Tobin
Archdiocese of Newark
171 Clifon Avenue
P.O. Box 9500
Newark, NJ 07104
973.497.4000

Immaculate Heart Academy
500 Van Emburgh Ave.
Township of Washington, NJ 07676
201.445.6800