Gender-Neutral at Notre Dame?

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The University of Notre Dame is a Catholic school, most famous for its Fighting Irish football team and, uh, “gender-nonconforming people.”

Gender-neutral Bathrooms
Easy access to a bathroom without fear of harassment is a privilege that is often taken for granted. Transgender, genderqueer, and other gender-nonconforming people often feel uncomfortable and are subject to harassment and violence when using male- or female-specific bathrooms.
If you know of a gender-neutral bathroom on or around campus, let us know by filling out a brief Bathroom Survey so that we can make Notre Dame a safe and inclusive environment for everyone.
The most recent list of gender-neutral bathrooms can be found here.

About 8,500 students attend Notre Dame, where the tuition is $47,929 a year. How many Notre Dame students are “gender-nonconforming people”? Do these students not have parents or high-school guidance counselors who can advise them that, you know, if you want to be “gender-nonconforming,” maybe Notre Dame isn’t the best place to do it?

Alas, the advocates of “progress,” “equality” and “diversity” insist that every institution must be equally diverse and progressive, including Catholic universities. Here’s a headline from December 2012:

Notre Dame concludes comprehensive review
of GLBTQ student services and support
After a five-month review process, University of Notre Dame President Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., has accepted recommendations from the Office of Student Affairs to expand and enhance the support of and services for students who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and questioning (GLBTQ), including the creation of a University recognized student organization.
The recommendations are part of a comprehensive pastoral plan that includes an array of initiatives grounded in the Catholic mission of the University.
“I appreciate the careful and thoughtful work of this review that considered both the needs of our students and the teachings of the Catholic Church,” Father Jenkins said. “As articulated in the University’s ‘Spirit of Inclusion’ statement, Notre Dame’s goal remains to create and sustain a welcoming and inclusive environment for all students, and I am confident that this multi-faceted, pastoral approach represents the next step in advancing our efforts toward this aspiration for our GLBTQ students.”
The plan, titled “Beloved Friends and Allies: A Pastoral Plan for the Support and Holistic Development of GLBTQ and Heterosexual Students at the University of Notre Dame,” was crafted by members of the Student Affairs staff. It follows a study of Catholic doctrine and teaching, listening sessions with Notre Dame students and an examination of student clubs and structures at other Catholic universities. Rooted in Catholic teaching on sexuality and gender identity, the plan emphasizes the “respect, compassion and sensitivity” due to all, and calls all Notre Dame students to cultivate chaste relationships and to support one another in a community of friendship. A document detailing the review process, relevant Church teaching and specifics of the implementation of the plan is available online at friendsandallies.nd.edu.
After requests last spring by Notre Dame students for a gay-straight alliance or similar club, Father Jenkins asked for a review of the breadth of structures and support for students who identify as GLBTQ. While respectful of the education and awareness work of the University’s Core Council for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Questioning Students, students voiced a desire for services that provide greater community and support.

You see that once Notre Dame decided to appease the forces of “progress,” “equality” and “diversity,” complete surrender was inevitable.

The “Gender Relations Center” at Notre Dame now offers a plethora of services to the, uh, “gender-nonconforming” community:

 

LGBTQ 101
LGBTQ 101 is a two-hour long interactive presentation, designed to provide participants with a basic understanding and greater awareness of issues faced by students who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or questioning (LGBTQ) within today’s culture. This presentation includes an overview of the Catholic church’s teachings on sexual orientation, definitions related to sexual orientation and gender identity, introduction to the concepts of homophobia and heterosexism, as well as common myths and misunderstandings about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender identities. Please contact Maureen McKenney, Assistant Director for LGBTQ Student Concerns ([email protected]), for more information or to sign up for a session.

 

PRISMND
Founded in 2013, PrismND is Notre Dame’s first official student organization dedicated to serving the LGBTQ and ally community on campus. The organization provides programming dedicated to fostering the development of the community, and raising awareness on campus as to the community’s needs.
In the Notre Dame family, intolerance against some of us intolerance against all of us.

Certainly, alumni of Notre Dame University and parents of prospective students will want to learn more about the inclusive agenda of diversity, equality and progress at the university’s “Gender Relations Center.”

 

The rhetoric of “Beloved Friends and Allies” cannot disguise what actually happened, i.e., Notre Dame’s abject surrender to the totalitarian demands of an anti-Christian movement which is ruthlessly determined to destroy the Church, insofar as it cannot control the Church. When you see what “The Radical Theology of Feminism” has done to the liberal Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), don’t you realize that if the Church refuses to cling to truth, and instead becomes “conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2), eventually there will be no Church at all? My Catholic friend Pete Da Tech Guy had a big “I told you so” at the expense of the Lutherans, but what does Notre Dame’s surrender portend?

What we are witnessing in the 21st century is the revival of an ancient heresy, a postmodern version of Gnosticism. The theologian Peter Jones first described this weird phenomenon in his 1992 book The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back: An Old Heresy for the New Age. Jones further explored the neo-Gnostic trend in his 1997 book Spirit Wars: Pagan Revival in Christian America. This steady drift toward syncretism suggests that many Christian “leaders” and institutions are now “giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron” (I Timothy 4:1-3 KJV).

“Truth is great and will prevail if left to herself . . . she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.”
— Thomas Jefferson, Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, 1786

If leaders of Christian institutions will not stand up for the truth now, eventually Christians will no longer have liberty to speak the truth.





 


63 comments

  1. From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

    2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,140 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.

    2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

    2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.

    It’s simple, perhaps too simple for the highly edumacated priests and professors at Notre Dame: homosexuality is a condition, which is not sinful, but homosexual activity is always sinful. Homosexuals are required by God to remain celibate.

    The mutilation planned by the ‘transgendered’ is also sinful. A truly Catholic university would recognize these things and say these things, clearly and unambiguously, and not pander to today’s ‘morality.’

  3. Touchdown Jesus weeps in the shadow of the golden dome. Knute Rockne turns over in his grave. Never mind “win one for the Gipper”, It’s “win one for the Rump Rangers” The 21st century four horsemen; sodomy, depravity, moral insanity, and political correctness in South Around the Bend, Indiana.

  4. So that means that a person born as a woman can now claim a male identity and therefore become a Catholic priest?

  6. Gnosticism: you’ve hit the nail on the head here Stacy, but here’s the thing. This growth of Christian mysticism is not even limited to the liberal side of the spectrum. Some Christians on the right throw in Montanism if they like emotional charismatic stuff, and others use semi-Pelagianism to convince themselves that they can be sanctified to the point of godliness in this life. Some go for broke and use both!

    One thing that is weird is seeing the rift on Trump and Cruz. It’s the first time I can remember the “religious right” (apologies for borrowing lefty phrase) with such a major division.

    “Ye shall be as God’s” may have been Satan’s first lie, but oh he is more clever than that. First he invited man to lie to himself: “Did God REALLY say?”

  14. I know a gay guy who is a Catholic priest.

    That is, his inclinations are homosexual but as a priest he is celibate. And he sees no contradiction at all. For that matter, neither do I – celibate is celibate.

  15. I wonder how it is that Notre Dame is still permitted to have the Fighting Irish as their mascot.

    Not that any Irish give a rip… or if they do, they look at it with pride. But that isn’t the point – If there is one thing SJWs will not tolerate (and there is… more than one thing) it’s people doing or watching something they enjoy. The misery must be spread, only then will justice be achieved!

  18. “These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.”
    Since being a homosexual means you are engaging in the depravity of perverted sex, it also means that you can’t be a Christian. Habitual sin does not characterize a Christian. It is the domain of sinners, and never the twain shall meet.
    The canard about celibacy is simply false. If they are celibate, then they aren’t homosexuals. they may have those inclinations, but refusing to act them out takes them out of that realm.

  19. Actually I may have gotten semi-Pelagianism backwards. I thought it was God’s will in the first part (justification), and a synergistic combo of God and man’s will in the second part (sanctification).

    I was really trying to get at these kinds of man made doctrines: http://www.gotquestions.org/Word-Faith.html

    Apologies for trying to use the big words before reading enough books on the matter.

  20. “Do these students not have parents or high-school guidance counselors who can advise them that, you know, if you want to be ‘gender-nonconforming,’ maybe Notre Dame isn’t the best place to do it?”

    I think the point is perversely and purposely to force Catholic schools to proceed over the cliff; remember Sandra Fluke?

  21. It has long been a pet theory of mine that homosexuals are actually attracted to the priesthood because they understand that homosexual activity is sinful, and they hope that, with the grace of God, they can be stronger in remaining celibate by becoming priests. Obviously, such doesn’t work in all cases.

    There’s no way I can prove my theory.

  22. No, being homosexual is a condition, and it may be one you cannot help; it is acting on homosexual impulses which is sinful.

    It’s like being an abstemiousness alcoholic: the sin of drunkenness is avoided, while the condition of being an alcoholic remains.

  25. I think that viewpoint ignores the teachings of Christ on iniquity. You don’t get a pass by keeping your wicked thoughts on the inside. To think hate is as the sin of murder. To lust is as adultery. When we get saved, we are a new creature. Old things pass away. We now have the mind of Christ. Confessing your sins means agreeing with God they are sins. Repentance means turning away and going in the opposite direction. This teaching that we can harbor these old feelings and God will “understand” is myth and not based in the Bible.

  26. Best kind of theory to have.

    Anyway, I can’t argue with it. And as with all questions of human motivation, impulse, and constancy, one size does not fit all.

  28. I’ve thought about this. That they want equality in the sense of everyone being equally unhappy.

    But then I realized that what they really want is for those who are currently happy to become miserable, then the currently unhappy SJWs will become happy.

    So they are actually passive-aggressive sadists. And because they are all narcissistic, too, the combination makes them sociopaths. They should be locked up. We should wall off California, since so many of them are there already, and put the rest there, too. And the normal people can have the rest of the country.

  29. The Bible teaches that the desire is sinful even if you don’t act on it: Lust in the heart = adultery.

    But, the correct teaching is neither “God will understand” nor “I will turn away from that sin now that I am a new creature.”

    Rather, like Paul in Romans 7, we realize that no matter how hard we try, we are never going to erase our old Adam, and that’s why we rely on grace by faith alone, not on our own progress in living the holy life.

    I think.

  30. Absolutely. Romans 6. We’re crucified with Christ, therefore we are resurrected with him. But God still expects us to be holy. It’s not a matter of choice. It’s a command. We have to walk in the Spirit and not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. which is still by faith. That teaching is covered in Galatians.

  33. I love the way these folks always use the word “ally” rather than “peers.” There’s a reason for that: you aren’t one and never will be in this Oppression Olympics. There is only one goal here, and that is to hector, harass and segregate straight white males into a moral ghetto even while whining about “inclusion.” Cortes had “allies” too, which he later enslaved.

  34. Then every priest is a sinner, just as I am a sinner, because, being heterosexual, I still have occasional, unacted upon thoughts, concerning some of the lovely ladies in this world who don’t happen to be my wife.

    And we all are like that: if a celibate homosexual is unqualified to be a priest, then so is a celibate heterosexual, so is anyone who ever gets angry, and so is anyone who ever gets greedy or covetous, regardless of whether they act upon those impulses.

  36. Try statistical zero. Or do you really believe there’s 2.5 million transgender in the U.S.?

  37. I don’t want to sidetrack the discussion, but I do have to point out that you and I have different definitions of priests. Revelation 1:6 says Jesus Christ has made us kings and priests. All saved people are in the priesthood of God. Just like those priests, when we enter the holy place to work (and we don’t stop until we die) we are required to wear our priestly robes and keep ourselves clean.

    That being said, yes. Everyone sins. But to stand and say, “Those are just my thoughts, I can’t do anything about them.” is to call God a liar. To continue to claim to be a homosexual is to deny the rebirth. Wicked thoughts are sin. You confess them and ask God to forgive them and clean you up and go on. You stop putting wicked things into your mind. You don’t dwell on those thoughts. If you don’t believe God can remove those sins from you, how can you believe he can save you?

  40. Holiness is a command, but God knows it is a command that we cannot keep. That is why He sent His Son in atonement for our sins. Indeed our efforts to ‘not fulfill the lusts’ are only by faith, because our efforts will in reality fail. That is why we are not justified by our works, but by grace thru faith alone.

    My whole life, I was putting the “works” cart in front of the “faith” horse. What a needless burden. Just focus on faith in Christ’s redemptive work on the cross, and your own works will necessarily follow your faith. Not because you are trying to follow a command, but b/c the tree of faith cannot help but produce fruit, any more than an apple tree cannot help but produce apples.

  41. I’m in agreement with you on this: if celibacy means never breaking the law (where even lust = adultery), neither hetero nor homosexual humans can fulfill it. Nevertheless, because I have noticed a tendency for homosexuals to prey on younger people, and because a priest has a special position and access to younger people, I cannot approve of the idea of a homosexual priest. But I’m non Catholic, so grain of salt and all that.

  42. “if you don’t believe God can remove those sins from you, how can you believe he can save you?”

    I believe that God can do anything He wants. Scripture tells me, though, that He chooses to save me, NOT by removing my sins, but by atoning for my sins thru the gracious, redemptive act of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

  43. That’s John MacArthur’s website. He has some serious problem theologically. It all begins with his Calvinism. Plus, the man thinks anyone that disagrees with him is a heretic.

  44. The problem with MacArthur’s metal ruminations is that he is wrong when it comes to Sanctification. Like it or not, practical sanctification IS synergistic. Scripture is pretty bald about that. There are seveal stages in the ordo salutis and some are monergistic, others are synergistic. Regeneration and Glorification, for example, are monergistic.

    MacArthur thinks Arminian theology is either Pelagian or Semi-Pelagian. The man has no idea what he is talking about because he is blinded by his Calvinistic philosophy.

  46. Oh we have delicious theological differences, you and I. Yet we are nevertheless brothers and sisters in Christ.

    Semi-Pelagianism and Arminian are strikingly similar. I mistakenly thought semi-Pelagians got justification thru God alone, but sanctification thru synergism. But instead, they do the opposite. As a Lutheran, I adhere to neither Arminianism nor Calvinism. Here’s a broad brush explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plAw_JlQMAM

  47. The two are similar only to the uninformed. They are entirely different.

    having gone round and round with Calvinists in the past,I’ve no need for broad brushes. I am aware that Luther began as a firm believer in Augustinianism, but he later moderated and held Melancthon’s position on the matter.

    Historically, the position on election held by Luther, Calvin and Augustine were aberrant. Augustine never recovered from his Manicheeism, or his days as a Neo-Platonist. The result was that their Theology had much more in common with Philosophy than it did scripture. Calvin’s Institutes, for example, is a Philosophical treatise with a very thin veneer of scripture. Modern Calvinists suffer the same problems and are utterly unwilling to admit it as they are blinded by their ideology.

    Calvinists had little use for Lutherans. R.C. Sproul, as one example of a hard core covenant Calvinist, liked Luther’s “Bondage of The Will,” but little else. Also, to him, Arminians are Pelagians which is simply the mark of a blind man. I am inclinded to call people like him and Piper liars as they have been corrected so many times that there is no excuse for what they say.

    The core of Pelagianism is that man has a natural ability to be sinless, grace is not needed. That is also true of Semi-Pelagianism. Arminian Theology holds nothing like that, contra idiots like Sproul, White, Piper, and MacArthur. The biggest difference between Arminianism and Calvinism is the character of God.

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