Villanova University is a Catholic institution, so one would expect that its Campus Ministry would follow teachings at least vaguely related to Catholic theology.

One would be wrong.

As a Catholic convert, although a rather modestly devout one, I was catechized a bit more recently than most people my age. I also keep up with what is going on in the Church to the extent that I can, and last I checked there is nothing in Catholic teaching that is reflected in this recent Instagram post from Villanova’s Campus Ministry, which is a key part of the institution.

Chances are good that the text in this screenshot is a bit small, so I will quote some of it here along with my discussion.

The beginning of the post is quite anodyne, being both reflective of Catholic teaching and appropriately honoring Villanova’s Catholic heritage.

As a Catholic, Augustinian community, we are called to recognize that each person has immeasurable worth and inherent dignity gifted to them by our loving God. We recognize and celebrate the dignity and worth of those in the LGBTQIA+ community.

Everybody has worth and dignity, and simply because the Church does not endorse and even categorizes sex outside of marriage as sinful, the Church does not deny the dignity and worth of any human being. We are all sinful, and while the Church calls on all of us to desist from sin, I think we can all agree that it does so because each of us is a child of God and should seek to become closer to Him.

It is from there that the post goes off the rails, not only deviating from Catholic teaching but essentially establishing a new theology that elevates LGBTQ+ people above others.

Pride month gives the LGBTQIA+ community a dedicated time to embrace the beauty and depths of the human experience, and it gives those who are joining them an opportunity to appreciate the aspects of their identity that are equally as beautiful and sacred as they are.

LGBTQ+ identities are sacred.

Sacred in any context is a loaded term, and in the context of Catholic theology it is a particularly loaded term, and it doesn’t apply in any way to how people identify themselves. And it certainly doesn’t apply to people whose identity is built around what the Church and most readings of Christian theology consider a sin.

SACRED

The holy or divine. The sacred is that which pertains to God, as distinguished from what pertains to human beings; that which is eternal, in contrast with the temporal; the heavenly as opposted to the earthly; the mysterious and therefore not the rationally explainable; the infinite and not the finite. In all religions, the sacred is the Absolute, which does not change, whereas the profane is the relative, whose essence is to change. (Etym. Latin sacrare, to set apart as sacred, consecrate.)

Our sexual preferences, how we dress, or even our good works are not sacred, although in some cases they can be inspired by reaching for the divine.

Dressing provocatively, adopting identities that are explicitly at odds with the ones gifted to us by God as we are embodied, or identifying as furries or infants can in no way be described as “sacred.” This would be true even if the Church encouraged such behavior, which it manifestly does not.

The use of the term is neither accidental–it is repeated in this message–nor can it be ignored as simply being used due to ignorance of theology. This is, after all, from the Campus Ministry of an explicitly Catholic University. If they are ignorant of the weight of the term the University should be closed simply due to its having proved to be staffed by stupid, ignorant dolts.

Through radical welcome and hospitality, students supported by OIA embrace and celebrate the aspects of their identities that are often not regarded as sacred (as they truly are) by greater society

“Aspects of their identities that are often not regarded as sacred (as they truly are) by greater society.”

They really, truly are sacred.

One doesn’t have to disapprove of the alphabet identities to see how screwed up this assertion is.

Choosing your pronouns is never going to become the 8th sacrament of the Church, and even Pope Francis is not Leftist enough to suggest it ever will become so.

It is unlikely the Church will ever embrace LGBTQ+ “identities” to begin with since the only “identity” of relevance to the Church is “child of God.”

In the modern West, though, as society has dropped its Christian character a new religion has been developing, and sexual identity is at its core. Sex is the new sacrament. Declaring your sexual identity and your pronouns are the new baptism.

It’s sad to see that even Catholic institutions have dropped their Christian identity in favor of this new religion.