A Catholic college betrays the Church.

Toronto -- On July 22, 2002, the St. Michael's College governing body, the Collegium, issued a statement on academic freedom. A central paragraph said "St. Michael's is committed to doing everything it can do to ensure that people of all backgrounds regardless of colour, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, social, or economic class, and nationality will find welcome in its midst" (See C.L, Nov. 2002, p.32). What was new in this sentence was the addition of the words 'sexual orientation.'

On November 8, as David Elliot reported in the national pro-life monthly The Interim (March 2003), SMC Students for Life sponsored a lecture by one of the most widely read orthodox Catholic authors of our time, Professor Peter Kreeft of Boston College. However, his talk was not welcomed by the college administration. Homosexual students surrounded it by controversy, including denunciations, ending with the homosexual lobby actually demanding that the college terminate such talks as "hate speech." They had protest cards printed even prior to the talk.

In his lecture, Kreeft talked about the sacredness of sexuality. When it came to the topic of homosexuality, he insisted that Christians do not have the power to change Revelation: if we start throwing away bits of the cargo, then we've made ourselves the captain. "And then we simply have another god and another religion."

Homosexuals had prepared for his talk. One of them accused him of saying that homosexuality is deviant; Kreeft answered that "Catholics believe that homosexual persons are good things and that homosexual acts are bad things. So they accept homosexual persons, but they don't accept homosexual acts."

"Encountering everything from the heartfelt, to the offensive, to the grossly absurd," Elliot reported, "Kreeft was both brilliant and prophetic." He was not offensive, and when he finished, he received thunderous applause. Some of the questions put to him were notable for their intolerance; one questioner even argued that the Aztecs' human sacrifices in Mexico in the 16th century could have been "a very beautiful ritual."

After the talk, the U of T Graduate Student Union requested a hate speech investigation and the University Student Administrative Council (SAC) passed a resolution to declare the talk as hate.

Rather than supporting the pro-life students and defending the lecture, on January 31, 2003, Principal Mark McGowan of St. Michael's issued an open letter in which he said that the lecture delivered by Kreeft contained remarks which were broadly perceived as crude and insulting, and that the talk fell short of the high standards set by the college. However, students and others including Catholic Insight who have listened to the tape since, can't find anything wrong with it.

On February 28, the Students for Life group were forced to issue an open letter declaring that their members have been systematically harassed and insulted by individual students and student organizations. "Before transcripts of his talk were even available," they pointed out, 'SAC (the Students' Council) passed a resolution condemning the hate speech of Dr. Kreeft."' They pointed out as well that as Catholics bound by fidelity to the Magisterium, they had the obligation to express Catholic teaching to those who might otherwise not hear it. They had hoped for support from college authorities, but "the administration has turned away, without even the courage to say that they agree with the fundamental principles to which we are witnessing."

The students did get support from a dozen distinguished University of Toronto professors and alumni who, in an open letter, charged that the principal's letter failed "to meet the high standard of academic freedom set by the University's Statement of Purpose" and that they were "deeply concerned by the chilling implication" of the statement by Principal McGowan and his advisory committee on sexual orientation on freedom of speech. The authors accused the principal of actively "undermining Catholic moral principles."

Comment:

The source of the troubles is in the Collegium, St. Michael's governing council. By adding the phrase "sexual orientation," the Collegium surrendered to homosexual pressure in line with its parent institution, the University of Toronto. The university's academic calendar even lists a B.A. minor in lesbian and "gay" culture. While the U of T has long since caved in to the demands of this destructive, anti-social lobby, a Catholic institution has higher standards to uphold than a secular one, which the college's Collegium has abandoned.

"Sexual orientation" has never been defined by any authoritative legal entity. Homosexual activists, on the other hand, insist it covers any and all sexual relationships in addition to homosexual activity itself, such as so-called bisexualism, transvestites, bestiality, man-love-boy-love-man relations, polygamy, pedophilia, and any other sexual aberration that a twisted mind can think of. Not surprisingly then, the atmosphere at St. Michael's College has deteriorated rapidly.

Meanwhile, Professor Kreeft remains an outstanding Catholic speaker in demand by Catholics everywhere, as witnessed by a full-page advertisement in the B.C. Catholic for the annual dinner of Focus on the Family with Archbishop Adam Exner as one of the speakers and another one by name of Peter Kreeft.

For other problems at St. Michael's College, see the article "Decline of St. Michael's College," C.I., June 2002, pp. 18-21.