Notre Dame’s First-Year Sex Ed
Today we bring you deeply disturbing portions of a video about the University’s diversity policy that was shown to this year’s first-year students and that radically undermines the Church’s teaching on sex and gender. It speaks for itself, so we will add but a few introductory comments.
The video is introduced by Rev. Gerry Olinger, C.S.C., Notre Dame’s Vice President for Student Affairs, whose collar represents religious authority, whose title represents institutional authority, and whose office administers the standards of conduct applicable to all Notre Dame students.
As images of the rotunda and the Sacred Heart of Jesus roll in the background, Father Olinger declares that “Church teaching is at the heart” of university policy on diversity.
What follows, then, is purportedly invested with the imprimatur of Church, University, and Order.
Instead, what follows Fr. Olinger’s deceptively incomplete presentation of Catholic teaching is a palpable rejection of Church doctrine on biological sex and gender along with testimony that implies indifference to sexually immoral behavior — all packaged in an exhortation to avoid discrimination against LGBTQ students.
Thus, whereas the Church teaches that sex and gender are inseparable and condemns the propagation of “gender theory” in academic institutions, Notre Dame tells first-year students:
A person’s gender identity may not match a person’s biological sex.
The gender theory definitions dispose of Church teaching:
Gender identity is a person’s inner sense of being a male, female, or differently gendered person.
Transgender refers to someone whose internal gender identity doesn’t match their biological sex.
Gender Expression is how a person behaves, appears, and presents themselves with regard to societal expectations of gender.
Questioning refers to someone in the process of discerning their sexual orientation or gender.
(The reference to genders in addition to male and female refers to synthetic gender identities such as “non-binary,” “pan-sexual,” and “genderqueer.”)
Students are advised to use “inclusive language,” which has to do with “preferred pronouns” and much more, as we fear they will learn. For a mind-numbing introduction to the “inclusive language” landscape with its minefield of potential micro-aggressions, go here.
The rejection of Church teaching on homosexual sexual acts (“acts of grave depravity” that “under no circumstances can be approved”) is not so explicit but is clear enough. Father Olinger’s video features a bi-sexual female student “who has had a same-sex partner in the past” and who calls upon students to “treat it like it’s no big deal.” “No big deal” aptly describes the administration’s (including the Alumni Association’s) attitude toward same-sex marriage in episodes that we have catalogued here and here and here and here and here and here. For example.
The Irish Rover may report on this lamentable episode, whereupon we may have more to say. For now, we urge those who have not signed the Open Letter to Dolly Duffy to do so now. Its significance becomes more and more apparent as the administration’s pro-LGBT policy unfolds.
Open Letter to Dolly Duffy
These developments underscore the gravity of our Open Letter requesting Dolly Duffy to explain NDAA’s actions. We urge all who have not joined the letter to do so now.
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Thank the Lord Olinger wasn’t made the President of UND!