Notre Dame Announces Homosexual-Themed Events for Easter Week

The announced agenda for the week indicates no effort to teach students about Catholic teaching on homosexual activity as gravely sinful.

MANASSAS, VA (Cardinal Newman Society) - "Christianity is under attack from within our own Catholic universities," said Patrick J. Reilly, President of The Cardinal Newman Society. "The bad news continues, perhaps appropriately on the day when we recall Christ's terrible agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. We need Catholics worldwide to draw the line, here and now, by joining more than 255,000 witnesses for the Faith at NotreDameScandal.com."

"StaND Against Hate Week," to occur April 14 through 17, is co-sponsored by Notre Dame's Gender Relations Center, student government and University Counseling Center.

The week includes a screening of the film Prayers for Bobby, which portrays Mary Griffith, a faithful Christian mother who seeks spiritual healing for her homosexual son, as the cause of her son's suicide. According to a review at ReligionDispatches.org, the film biography ignores the real-life Bobby's drug use and "stint as a gay prostitute." The real Mary Griffith has renounced her faith and champions homosexual rights, including same-sex marriage.

Notre Dame also will participate in the national "Day of Silence" on April 17, an event to oppose harassment of homosexual students in schools. Despite the worthy goal, the national event is used by the sponsoring Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network to promote school curricula that equate "sexual identity" with racial and ethnic differences, without clarification about the moral and health consequences of homosexual activity.

The announced agenda for the week indicates no effort to teach students about Catholic teaching on homosexual activity as gravely sinful.

April 17 is the one-year anniversary of Pope Benedict XVI's address to Catholic educators in Washington, D.C., during which he called Catholic colleges and universities to a stronger Catholic identity.

"We observe today a timidity in the face of the category of the good and an aimless pursuit of novelty parading as the realization of freedom," Pope Benedict said. He continued, "[P]articularly disturbing, is the reduction of the precious and delicate area of education in sexuality to management of 'risk,' bereft of any reference to the beauty of conjugal love."

Meanwhile, Notre Dame's plan to bestow an honorary law degree on President Barack Obama on May 17 has been protested by students and alumni, 31 Catholic bishops, 10 Holy Cross priests and more than a quarter million Catholics at www.NotreDameScandal.com, which was established by The Cardinal Newman Society.

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The Cardinal Newman Society is dedicated to renewing and strengthening Catholic identity at America's 224 Catholic colleges and universities.This article is used with permission.