Why is a Planned Parenthood fundraiser being held on this Catholic campus?

Joe Bukuras   By Joe Bukuras for CNA

null / Glynnis Jones/Shutterstock.

CNA Staff, Nov 4, 2021 / 12:10 pm (CNA).

Loyola Marymount University says it will not block a student club from hosting a fundraiser Friday for abortion provider Planned Parenthood, despite a petition drive that says it’s an “egregious violation” to hold the event on the Catholic institution’s Los Angeles campus.

The student group, Women in Politics, is hosting the fundraiser Nov. 5 in Roski Dining Hall. The club describes the event on an online university calendar as “an opportunity for us to raise money for a cause we really care about and have fun at the same time!”

In a statement, the university told CNA that it is neither sponsoring nor endorsing the event.

“The events, actions, or positions of student organizations, including Women in Politics, are not endorsed by the university,” the statement reads.

“However, the existence of these student organizations and their activities are living examples that LMU embraces its mission, commitments, and the complexities of free and honest discourse,” the statement adds. The university says that it “remains committed to its Catholic, Jesuit, and Marymount heritage, values, and intellectual traditions.” You can read the university’s full statement below.

Statement from Loyola Marymount University regarding a student fundraising event for Planned Parenthood scheduled for Nov. 5, 2021. CNA
Statement from Loyola Marymount University regarding a student fundraising event for Planned Parenthood scheduled for Nov. 5, 2021. CNA

The on-campus fundraiser has triggered a petition drive by an organization called RenewLMU that calls on University President Timothy Law Snyder to cancel the event. The group describes itself as “an alliance of students, alumni, faculty, donors, and other LMU supporters who seek to strengthen LMU’s Catholic mission and identity.”

Students also plan to hold a rosary rally on campus in defense of the unborn Friday at 6:30 p.m. PST.

“A Catholic university should honor and defend the principles of Catholic Social Teaching, at the heart of which is the principle of human dignity,” alumna Samantha Stephenson, who is leading the petition drive for RenewLMU, told CNA.

“For the University to not only permit, but host and financially support a fundraiser for the country’s largest provider of abortion is shameful.”

Stephenson, a Catholic podcaster who has earned a bachelor’s degree in theology and master’s degrees in theology and bioethics from Loyola Marymount, said she was “deeply saddened” by the university’s refusal to stop the fundraiser.

Samantha Stephenson, a graduate of Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, is leading a petition drive calling on the Catholic institution to cancel an on-campus student-run fundraising event for Planned Parenthood scheduled for Nov. 5, 2021. Courtesy of Samatha Stephenson
Samantha Stephenson, a graduate of Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, is leading a petition drive calling on the Catholic institution to cancel an on-campus student-run fundraising event for Planned Parenthood scheduled for Nov. 5, 2021. Courtesy of Samatha Stephenson

“If this were a fundraiser for the KKK, a group seeking to marginalize the homeless, or an anti-immigration group, there is no way it would be tolerated,” Stephenson said. “It is deeply disturbing that the University refuses to extend the same defense of human dignity to the unborn.”

The petition calls Planned Parenthoood’s founder, Margaret Sanger, a eugenicist and “virulent anti-black racist,” and highlights the strong condemnations of abortion by Pope Francis, who said, “Is it right to eliminate, to take a human life to solve a problem? Is it right to hire a hitman to solve a problem? That’s what abortion is.”

Approximately 1,800 people had signed the petition as of Thursday afternoon, and another related petition drive had garnered thousands of additional supporters, Stephenson told CNA.

“We hope you see through rationalizations that ‘Planned Parenthood does more than just abortions,’” the petition says. “The mafia also produces olive oil.”

The petition urges the Women in Politics club to find another organization to support that is not at odds with Church teaching.

Women in Politics is “an organization created for the purpose [of] fighting for women’s equality on and off of campus,” according to the club’s website.

“We strive for a strong emphasis on intersectional feminism,” the website states. “We are committed to making racial justice and LGBTQ+ women, gender queer, and non binary individuals a priority in our fight.” The website displays pictures of students holding pro-abortion signs. The club did not respond to CNA’s request for a comment.

Stephenson told CNA that “part of LMU’s mission is education of the whole person; this is truly a missed opportunity to teach these young women that political action does not have to be divisive.”

“They could have chosen any number of recipients for their fundraiser that would have helped to build bridges in working together for women’s advancement rather than creating division and scandal,” she said.

Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider in the United States. According to its annual report, the abortion giant performed 354,871 abortions in 2019-20.

Philip Zampiello, a Loyola-Marymount alumni and founder of RenewLMU, says the university must take a strong stand in defense of Church teaching and the unborn threatened by abortion.

“Throughout its tenure, RenewLMU has heard from many students, parents, professors and alumni, who feel ostracized and marginalized as Catholics at LMU,” Zampiello said in a statement to CNA.

“We attempt to support those who feel ostracized and marginalized as Catholics at LMU, and anyone who seeks to encourage LMU to faithfully support its mission and identity as a Catholic University,” he said.

“As Pope Francis, a Jesuit, has made clear, abortion takes a human life. As Catholics we are required to serve and protect those at the periphery of society as encouraged by Pope Francis,” Zampiello said.

“The most vulnerable people at the periphery of our society are the innocent unborn children in the womb,” he said. “They must be protected and cannot be forgotten or discarded as Pope Francis has convincingly argued.”


If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!

Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.


About Catholic News Agency 10102 Articles
Catholic News Agency (www.catholicnewsagency.com)

5 Comments

  1. Behold the Jesuit school speaketh of a threefold mission: freedom of expression, inquiry and speech.

    But, yea verily, we read now of a fourth mission–a fundraiser for the extermination of preborn children–“an opportunity for us to raise money for a cause we really care about and have fun at the same time!” A chance to both raise money and sell the school for the same mess of pottage! Possibly for thirty pieces of silver…that would be so very “traditional”!

    Well, it’s not rape of Loyola Marymount, as an institution, so long as it’s consensual. The Administration didn’t say “no.”

  2. Complexities of free and honest discourse, complexities a euphemism for endorsement. What does free and honest discourse have to do with endorsing abortion? Nothing except an admission of pretense. Samantha Stephenson’s voice puts the Jesuit administration to shame, a lovely young woman that gives the older sometimes disheartened, as I’m affected by the present state of affairs that there’s hope for a tattered, once again bleeding body, the mystical Body of Christ. What was to inspire her, nothing to gain perhaps opprobrium if not a pure love inspired by Love itself. A flame that lives and fires within the heart to do what others will not, to remain in witness to a sordid world at the Cross with an abandoned God. Samantha’s face and smile has that rarely mistaken spiritual gleam we long to see more among us.

Leave a Reply to Daniel G Fink Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.

All comments posted at Catholic World Report are moderated. While vigorous debate is welcome and encouraged, please note that in the interest of maintaining a civilized and helpful level of discussion, comments containing obscene language or personal attacks—or those that are deemed by the editors to be needlessly combative or inflammatory—will not be published. Thank you.


*