University of Notre Dame to host ‘Queer Holiness’ event; critic calls it ‘revolt against God’
The University of Notre Dame will host an event titled "Queer Holiness: An Experiential Christian Anthropology" even though Catholic Church teaching labels homosexuality as a sin.
Notre Dame's John J. Reilly Center will host the event, which features Anglican priest and author the Rev. Charles Bell, on the evening of March 23 at Haggar Hall. The event is also being promoted by the university's Gender Studies Program.
Bell wrote the 2022 book Queer Holiness: The Gift of LGBTQI People to the Church.
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"For millennia institutional churches have told LGBTQI people what God expects them to be and how to act. In parts of the church, LGBTQI people remain the subject of hostile questions, rather than being embraced as equal children of God," reads the event's description.
"Charlie Bell faces these issues head on. His thesis is simple — to reject the overwhelming scientific and experiential knowledge about LGBTQI people is no longer valid."
The Christian Post reached out to Notre Dame University for this story, however, a response was not received by press time.
John Ritchie, director of the conservative Catholic organization TFP Student Action, told The Christian Post that the event sounded like "an act of revolt against God, an insult to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and a mockery of 2,000 years of Catholic moral teaching."
TFP Student Action is the campus outreach ministry of the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property.
"The centerpiece of Notre Dame's golden dome is a beautiful statue of the Virgin Mary, a model of purity," said Ritchie. "This event is disgraceful because it favors sins of lust and impurity and thus insults the holy purity of the Mother of God. It's impossible to serve God faithfully, and at the same time wave the rainbow flag."
Ritchie also told CP that Notre Dame has a history of allowing "pro-homosexual activities and events that undermine its Catholic identity" while also having "stifled young Catholic voices."
"I personally witnessed campus police shut down a display that promoted traditional marriage as the sacred union between one man and one woman," he continued.
"Back in 2014, Notre Dame police were ordered to shut down a TFP Student Action table designed to promote God's marriage. There was no inclusion, no sensitivity, and no academic 'safe zone' to accommodate moral values."
In response to the event, Ritchie said that volunteers with TFP intend "to offer up sacrifices and prayers of reparation to God" and "encourage as many students as possible to practice the angelic virtue of purity."
Notre Dame was founded in 1842 and was originally governed by priests belonging to the Congregation of Holy Cross, a missionary order, until 1967, when it was decided to shift leadership to a board comprised of lay and religious leaders.
