MATT LAMB - ASSOCIATE EDITOR •MARCH 21, 2024
‘Anyone who doesn’t know how to define what a woman is, should not be employed’ at the school
A group of Saint Mary’s College affiliates want to take back their school from the administration who they say have betrayed the Catholic faith.
The newly formed Loretto Trust does not want the college to be just another secular institution, but rather remain distinctly Catholic.
A letter, sent on March 19 to the administration, comes after the Catholic college in South Bend, Indiana announced and then retracted its new policy to admit males who falsely claim to be female.
The group, affiliated with the Sycamore Trust, a group of alumni that want to keep the University of Notre Dame authentically Catholic, identified five areas for improvement after discussions with students, alumni, and parents.
One is a simple hiring test – define what a woman is. Since President Kate Conboy thinks men can become women, that would eliminate her from being hired.
The letter states:
Universally the survey participants said anyone who doesn’t know how to define what a woman is, should not be employed by SMC. It’s simple, and for those who think it’s not simple, perhaps they would be suited better teaching at another institution. This is an all-women’s college. Students and alumnae are women. It really is that simple.
The college belongs not to Conboy or professors who push dissident views. “This college belongs to women. This college belongs to the Catholic Church,” the petitioners write.
The petitioners have other suggestions to clean up Saint Mary’s College, such as increasing the number of professors who are actually Catholic. They want to see professors take the Oath Against Modernism. It used to be required of not just priests, but also professors.
It is not a complicated oath – it says someone pledges to hold true to what the Catholic Church teaches. The oath would be out of place at a public agricultural university, but is necessary at a Catholic institute.
That might cause irreligious free-speech advocates to shutter, but it is actually good for colleges to have missions, dogmas, and doctrines.
The Loretto Trust does not hold back in its views of President Conboy, calling her “the most anti-Catholic president in the history of SMC.”
“Catholicism interferes with President Conboy’s agenda,” they also wrote.
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The college’s curriculum needs an overhaul, too.
Its general ed curriculum, called the Sophia Program, has twice as many gender studies classes as it does religion classes, according to Claire Bettag.
“There are 113 gender and women’s studies classes offered and 56 religious classes.. at a so-called ‘Catholic’ institution,” Bettag, a campus activist, told The College Fix via email.
Sophia “is a good program” but “highlights some of the woke ideology that some girls are forced to face on campus.
For example, a gender and women’s studies class might be required for some students because it falls under the ‘Women’s Voices’ requirement to teach women that anyone can be one,” Bettag said.
The school also hosts programming contrary to the Catholic faith, while banning Bettag’s Turning Point USA group (because national CEO Charlie Kirk says there are only two sexes. Pope Francis, and the Catholic Church throughout its history, has also held this view).
The path forward is simple.
“Get the college on the right path starting with new leadership. Invest in the faithful. Encourage those without faith to see examples of Catholic leadership and faith in action,” the letter states.
“Hire faculty and leaders who will fight for and defend women and our Catholic faith. You have the chance to be heroes and heroines,” they wrote.
“Please do NOT fail us. We know the 180-year-old mission of SMC. It will not be abandoned but will be championed because of those who fought before us. We will continue to press on until we see our beloved SMC restored to the
One of the real ironies of this story is that these leftist College Professors do not want the doctrines of the Catholic Church adhered to- the doctrines upon which those before us were motivated to create this College. If not for their beliefs this school would never have been created. NOW they want to destroy the beliefs that are the bedrock of this school and insist that THEIR doctrines of radical gender ideology and leftist, and often contrary to Catholic teaching, leftist political ideology of L G B T Q sexuality and leftist abortion politics...In their view the Catholic Church is too rigid....but in reality they are more radically zealous with their religion of leftism.
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