SOUTH BEND, Ind. (WPTA) – Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades of the Fort Wayne-South Bend Diocese is speaking out against a policy change to allow transgender students to attend Saint Mary’s College.
According to a post on the college’s website, its Board of Trustees approved a non-discrimination policy on June 23 to consider “admission for undergraduate applicants whose sex is female or who consistently live and identify as women.”
“We are by no means the first Catholic women’s college to adopt a policy with this scope,” President Katie Conboy said in a statement to student publication The Observer. “In drafting the language for this update, I have relied on the guidance of the executive team and others to ensure that our message is not only in line with best practices for today’s college students but that it also encompasses our commitment to operate as a Catholic women’s college.”
A report by Campus Pride shows Saint Mary’s joins 21 other historic women’s colleges that have changed their policies to admit transgender students.
The Observer says Conboy wrote the college must stand firm in its commitment to inclusivity and in creating an environment where “all women belong and thrive.”
Now, Bishop Rhoades is urging the college to “correct” this policy in order to “protect and to reject ideologies of gender that contradict the authoritative teachings of the Catholic Church regarding the human person, sex and gender.”
He says the college’s desire to show hospitality to transgender people is not the problem—he claims the issue lies in the Catholic college embracing a definition of woman he says is “not Catholic.”
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