The following is a Catholic Action League of Massachusetts news release…
The President of the Jesuit administered College of the Holy Cross — the oldest Catholic institution of higher education in New England — has criticized Bishop Robert J. McManus and the Diocese of Worcester for upholding Catholic teaching, and biological reality, in diocesan schools.
In an email message to the College community, Vincent D. Rougeau said: “Recently, the Diocese of Worcester announced a new policy on gender, sexuality and sexual identity across its 21 schools. This policy does not apply to Holy Cross. It not only challenges our deeply held values, it targets specific identities and people in our community and surrounding county.”
Rougeau then added “I look forward to next Friday’s Welcome Back BBQueer and to meeting with leaders from Outfront and Pride in September.”
The Diocese of Worcester instruction on sexuality and sexual identity for Catholic schools, announced on August 15th, exhorts students to the virtues of modesty and chastity, prohibits expressions of same sex attraction, and expects students to conduct themselves at school in a manner consistent with their biological sex.
The Bishop’s instruction only applies to elementary and secondary schools, not Catholic colleges. Rougeau’s statement was issued, apparently, on his own initiative, and was not in response to media inquiries.
Identified on the college website as “the first lay and the first Black president in the College’s history,” Rougeau is an advocate of racial discrimination in academic admissions, who wrote a column last May for The Boston Globe, in which he rebuked Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas — a Holy Cross alumnus — for his opposition to affirmative action.
In addition to his leadership of Holy Cross, Rougeau serves on the Board of Directors of Newton-Wellesley Hospital, a Mass General Brigham affiliate which performs abortions, distributes contraceptives, installs IUDs and does in vitro fertilizations.
The Catholic Action League called Rougeau’s statement “another scandalous milestone in the institutional apostasy of the once Catholic Holy Cross.”
Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “Rougeau’s remarks reflect the highest values of the now thoroughly de-Christianized College of the Holy Cross: cultural conformity, theological modernism and institutional fundraising targeting affluent Catholic liberals.”
“At a time when the Bishop of Worcester is being savaged in the mainstream media for upholding Catholic beliefs, the leading Catholic college in his diocese, instead of defending him, has joined the chorus of critics.”
“Holy Cross is one of the most corrupt Jesuit institutions in America. In March of 2022, the college had an actual abortionist, Anna Lowell, who has brutally and violently ended the lives of hundreds of unborn children, participate in a panel discussion on women’s health.”
“The faculty includes Tat-siong Benny Liew, a Professor of New Testament Studies. In 2018, he was rebuked by Bishop McManus for his vile, depraved and blasphemous assertions that Our Blessed Lord and Savior — the Second Person of the Holy Trinity — experienced impure and unnatural desires.”
“While their own Catholic bishop is unwelcome at Holy Cross, the College invited, last November, an ex-Catholic, Episcopalian lesbian, who pretends to be a bishop, to speak in the college chapel.”
“There was a time when bishops were expected to instruct Catholic colleges about preserving their Catholic identity. Now, ‘Catholic’ college presidents take it upon themselves to instruct bishops on the need to be subservient to elite opinion, and maintain secular, post-Christian attitudes in Catholic institutions. The inmates, it would seem, are running the asylum.”