Spokane, Wash., Feb 19, 2020 / 05:08 pm (CNA).- Gonzaga University’s plan to become the first Jesuit university to open a law clinic focused primarily on LGBT advocacy has raised “serious concerns” for Spokane’s Bishop Thomas Daly.
“While the Catholic tradition does uphold the dignity of every human being, the LGBT Rights law clinic’s scope of practice could bring the GU Law School into conflict with the religious freedom of Christian individuals and organizations,” the Spokane diocese said Feb. 19 in a statement to CNA.
“There is also a concern that Gonzaga Law School will be actively promoting, in the legal arena and on campus, values that are contrary to the Catholic faith and natural law.”
“Bishop Daly and the diocese are studying the issue further and will be discussing these serious concerns with the university administration,” the diocese added.
The diocese told CNA it was not consulted before the university announced the creation of the clinic.
The Lincoln LGBTQ+ Rights Clinic at Gonzaga was developed in partnership with the school’s Center for Civil and Human Rights, the university said in an announcement Feb. 14.
The clinic “aims to advance the equal rights and dignity of individuals who identify as LGBTQ+ through education, programming, advocacy, research, and legal representation.”
It will also provide “a special opportunity for Gonzaga law students to help protect and advance the rights of the LGBTQ+ community,” the university added.
Gonzaga’s law school dean, Jacob Rooksby, told CNA that the LGBTQ+ Rights Clinic fits within the Catholic identity of the university because “it allows our students the chance to learn firsthand how law and the work of lawyers can further respect for individual dignity.”
The university noted that Harvard, Cornell, Emory, and UCLA— all secular institutions— have developed LGBTQ+ law clinics.
Father Bryan Pham, S.J., a civil and canon lawyer and chaplain for the Gonzaga School of Law, told CNA that the goal of the clinic is to create a space that helps students understand the viewpoints of a broad range of clients.
“I don’t think there’s anything that the law school or the clinic will be doing that would be in opposition to the Church’s teaching, other than the fact that we want students to engage in this in a civil context of a law setting,” Pham told CNA in an interview.
He said the clinic is not “about converting people or trying to get them to believe one way or another.”
“The law in this country is pretty clear about discrimination, so how do we expand that conversation in a much broader context?” he said.
The Lincoln LGBTQ+ Rights Clinic will “offer legal services to members of the public” with the help of second- and third-year law students, under the direction of a full-time faculty member, the university’s announcement explained.
Pham said it will be up to individual professors to decide whether or not to present the Church’s teaching in the classroom. He said “when it’s my turn to be part of the conversation, I will definitely bring it up, absolutely.”
Concerns mentioned by Daly about religious liberty seem rooted in litigation some Catholic institutions have faced in recent years.
In the United States, various Catholic schools and dioceses have faced lawsuits from employees who have been fired after contracting civil same-sex marriages in violation of the diocesan or school policy.
In some states, such as Illinois, California, and Massachusetts, Catholic adoption agencies which do not place children with same-sex couples have been forced to close their doors after losing legal challenges.
In addition, Catholic hospitals have faced lawsuits from people who identify as transgender and wish to recieve surgery or hormone therapy to change their sex.
CNA asked Gonzaga whether students participating in the clinic might find themselves representing clients who are suing Catholic institutions.
“We are in the early stages of this initiative, working to hire a director and launch the clinic in the fall. Given that we are early in our development in the clinic, it is premature on our part to respond to hypothetical circumstances,” university spokesperson Chantell Cosner said in an email response to CNA.
“We anticipate being in a position to speak more specifically about the work of the clinic later this fall.”
But Pham said even if the clinic advocates for same-sex marriage, “the Church won’t recognize that, so this really isn’t an issue.”
In 2003, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said that “in those situations where homosexual unions have been legally recognized or have been given the legal status and rights belonging to marriage, clear and emphatic opposition is a duty.”
“One must refrain from any kind of formal cooperation in the enactment or application of such gravely unjust laws and, as far as possible, from material cooperation on the level of their application. In this area, everyone can exercise the right to conscientious objection,” the CDF added.
According to Pham, more basic issues are likely to be the clinic’s focus.
“For us, it’s more about how people are discriminated against. So in places of employment, housing, bank loans— you know, they won’t give a loan to a couple because they’re a same-sex union— so those are really basic human issues,” the priest said.
Pham said his main concern is people’s assumptions that the clinic will advocate for positions contrary to Church teaching.
“My concern is people jumping to conclusions, and just looking at the name of the clinic, and then making an assumption about it,” Pham commented.
“This is something that we’re aware of, when we were thinking about doing this clinic. We are a Catholic Jesuit school, our foundation is within Catholic social teaching, so I think my main concern is people hearing about this and often jumping to conclusions without finding out.”
Pham said the university uses a 1997 document from the United State Conference of Catholic Bishops, “Always Our Children,” as a guide for how “we work with our students and with community members who are of that community.”
“Always Our Children” was, at the time of its release, criticized by groups who say they are faithful to Church teaching, such as Courage. It was largely embraced by groups critical of Catholic doctrine, such as DignityUSA. The document was not voted on by the full body of bishops, nor even discussed by them before its issuance, according to the National Catholic Register.
“Always Our Children” was revised and reissued in 1998, again, without a full vote of the U.S. bishops. One of the changes was the addition of a footnote to a 1992 letter from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith regarding legislative proposals to address discrimination against people who identify as gay.
“There are areas in which it is not unjust discrimination to take sexual orientation into account,” the document says, “for example, in the placement of children for adoption or foster care, in employment of teachers or athletic coaches, and in military recruitment.”
“‘Sexual orientation’ does not constitute a quality comparable to race, ethnic background, etc., in respect to nondiscrimination,” the document continued.
“Including ‘homosexual orientation’ among the considerations on the basis of which it is illegal to discriminate can easily lead to regarding homosexuality as a positive source of human rights, for example, in respect to so-called affirmative action or preferential treatment in hiring practices.”
In 2006, the USCCB issued an new document, Ministry to Persons with a Homosexual Inclination. That document, which was approved by a vote of the bishops, cited the CDF’s 1992 letter more explicitly.
“As human persons, persons with a homosexual inclination have the same basic rights as all people, including the right to be treated with dignity. Nevertheless “‘sexual orientation’ does not constitute a quality comparable to race, ethnic background, etc., in respect to nondiscrimination,” the 2006 document said.
“Therefore, it is not unjust, for example, to limit the bond of marriage to the union of a woman and a man. It is not unjust to oppose granting to homosexual couples benefits that in justice should belong to marriage alone,” the document continued.
The Catholic Church teaches that while homosexual inclinations are not sinful, homosexual acts “are contrary to the natural law…under no circumstances can they be approved.”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that people with “deep-seated homosexual tendencies” should be “accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.”
For its part, the Diocese of Spokane said it will approach talks with Gonzaga with hope for a positive resolution to points of disagreement.
“Bishop Daly is a strong supporter of Catholic education and hopes that Gonzaga will continue to be a partner in the Catholic mission of faithful education in the Church,” the diocese said.
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So. A cardinal of the Holy Roman Church can’t even properly interpret the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Cardinal Muller was right. These guys are third-rate theologians.
Or not theologians at all.
This is why faithful Catholics are leaving; some to Orthodoxy; others to evangelical churches. This cardinal along with other cardinals and bishops, and Pope Francis, are destroying the Church for this generation and the upcoming generation.
And doesn’t “intrinsically disordered” offend the “human dignity” of each person…just like the death penalty (which for a practical purposes can be justified almost never?) …and the refusal to allow “death with dignity” for the terminally ill?
IMO, this shift started with JPII’s provisos for capital punishment…despite Veritas Splendor…a kind of workaround, a supra-Good in “the person” which makes little reference to particular goods such as “justice” really…but presents a card in moral theology that trumps natural law and Scripture…and ends all discussion?
What world does Cardinal Tobin live in that he thinks Catholics mistreat gay people? In the presence of our Lord, we are encouraged in the CCC to worship with proper disposition and decorum. Do you think that unmarried heterosexual couples, who also have a disordered attraction, and same-sex couples should display their relationships in the house of our Lord? It is unfortunate that a apostolic descendant cannot stand by the Church of the God he took an oath to completely obey.
“Tobin said of the book that “in too many parts of our church LGBT people have been made to feel unwelcome, excluded, and even shamed.”
Anybody who is committing a mortal sin *should* be ashamed.
“Father Martin’s brave, prophetic, and inspiring new book marks an essential step in inviting church leaders to minister with more compassion, and in reminding LGBT Catholics that they are as much a part of our church as any other Catholic.””
“LGBT” is an evil term, identifying a person with the sins he is tempted to commit and acting as if he has no will and no self-control. Catholics who are committing those sins are indeed as much a part of the Church as any other Catholic, and like any other Catholic who is committing mortal sin is called to repent and to stop sinning, not to celebrate his sin.
Unfortunately the reasons for calling anything immoral or intrinsincally evil are not addressed in any article I have ever seen. The reason is, it takes ones soul away from love and union with its creator which is what it even exists for and HIS truly holy and wholesome purposes. One stops off at the wrong station and becomes involved deeply and may never move on with eternal consequences. Who knows what lies ahead if you love God and HIS WORD which the catechism beautifully teaches. Personally I would not trust the one who says differently. (It has been tried so boringly often.) Careful what you give your power into. I stand with St. Michael who says “Who is like God?” I would seek union with HIM. Biology doesn’t lie either.
No matter how you slice it, it always comes down to the homosexual act. Tobin and Martin choose to look away. But as long as the homosexual community is unwilling or unable to separate the state of temptation and the conscious choice to act on that temptation, the Church has nothing more to say.
The best thing I can say relative to Archbishop Tobin is that he is at least not in the Indianapolis Diocese any longer.
It’s disturbing, to say the least, how the “LBGT” acronym is now being bandied about in the highest places as if it’s spumoni in relation to a *vanilla* Church teaching.
Has any Catholic moral theologian given a cogent argument as to what it means to “welcome” someone who practices B[isexuality], for example, other than to direct them to the confessional?
Too many prominent prelates have allowed themselves to be led into an intellectual sinkhole, unable to perceive today’s popular falsehood that opposes the clarity found in both the natural sciences and the Bible: that various and sundry sexual behaviors occur because people have/develop “identities” different from what’s evidenced by the obvious functional design of their God-given anatomies.
Perhaps the term “disordered” is not “unfortunate” but inadequate. Unnatural, irrational, hedonistic, self-destructive, are more fitting.
No one ever said that fighting for the truth would be easy.
St. Athanasius, pray for us.
Every time a member of the clergy makes a statement like this, they are effectively stating that they no longer believe in Christ, His teachings, the Bible or the Church. When it is coming from a Cardinal during Holy Week, we can be pretty assured of their lack of faith……. In this case, another of Pope Francis’s new Cardinals, it only enforces the thought that Francis too has walked away from the Lord. He can kiss all the feet he wants to, but as long as he is stacking the deck with his cadre of homosexual clergy, he cannot be believed as one who follows Christ. May the Lord have mercy upon their souls.
So I think the fundamental problem is that our Holy Father and company in their sentimentality have already ‘blessed’ contraception which opens the door to all the other sexual sins. Sex is no longer restricted to the procreative act.
Who is really surprised that Cardinal “Nighty Night Baby” Tobin does not believe same sex relationships are intrinsically disordered?
Nighty night baby!!! Give me a break. This is no Roman Catholic Bishop. Man of no faith. The Sodomy is an Act Of pure lust..please. Remove him from the priesthood. I am worried.
This is why faithful Catholics are leaving; some to Orthodoxy; others to evangelical churches. This cardinal along with other cardinals and bishops, and Pope Francis, are destroying the Church for this generation and the upcoming generation.
Could there be anything more hurtful, harmful, and demeaning, than identifying persons according to sexual desire/inclination/orientation in order to justify the engaging in of sexual acts that are hurtful, harmful, and demeaning no matter who is engaging in said acts, including a man and woman united in marriage as husband and wife? How can identifying persons according to sexual desire/inclination/orientation justify the engaging in of sexual acts, that by their very nature deny the inherent Dignity of the human person as a beloved son or daughter? How could anyone who Loves their child, dismiss the physical, psychological, emotional, and spiritual harm, that occurs, when engaging in demeaning sexual acts, that can never serve for the Good of one’s beloved or oneself? Apathy is always the result of a failure to Love; what is unfortunate is how apathetic a multitude who profess to be followers of The Christ have become because they no longer believe that Christ’s teaching in regards to sexual morality, serves out of respect for the inherent Dignity of all persons.