St. Mary’s College, an all-girls Catholic school, said it is accepting trans women as part of its commitment to diversity and inclusion.
An all-girls Catholic college has changed its admissions policy to admit men who identify as women.
Saint Mary’s College, which first opened its doors in 1844 in the conservative reaches of Notre Dame, Indiana, announced it has adopted a policy that will “now consider admission for undergraduate applicants whose sex is female or who consistently live and identify as women.”
In a statement on the new transgender admissions policy, College President Katie Conboy said that admitting men who identify as women “encompasses our commitment to operate as a Catholic women’s college.”
Indiana Bishop Kevin Rhoades of the Fort-Wayne South Bend Diocese does not agree.
In a Nov. 27 statement posted on the Diocese website, he called the new policy “at odds with Catholic teaching” and asked the school to “correct” the policy and reject ideologies that contradict the teachings of the Catholic church on “human person, sex, and gender.”
“The desire of Saint Mary’s College to show hospitality to people who identify as transgender is not the problem. The problem is a Catholic women’s college embracing a definition of woman that is not Catholic,” the bishop wrote in a Nov. 27 letter posted on the Diocese website.
Bishop Rhoades also said he was disappointed that he wasn’t consulted or informed about the policy, saying “Bishops have a particular responsibility to promote and assist in the preservation and strengthening of the Catholic identity of the Catholic colleges and universities in their dioceses.”
He also said the school violated its obligation to abide by the teaching authority of the Church “in matters of faith and morals.”
“In this new admissions policy, Saint Mary’s departs from fundamental Catholic teaching on the nature of woman and thus compromises its very identity as a Catholic woman’s college,” he wrote.
Bishop Rhoades made several references to an email Mrs. Conboy sent out to students, parents, and faculty announcing the new policy.
Of them was Mrs. Conboy’s naming of Pope Francis’s “revised non-discrimination clause” to advance the LGBTQ+ community in the church as an inspiration behind the decision to enroll transgender students.
