null / Credit: Screenshot of Pontifical University of Comillas website
ACI Prensa Staff, Mar 2, 2023 / 17:00 pm (CNA).
The Pontifical University of Comillas in Spain has sent a survey to its former students asking them to specify their “gender” as male, female, or “other,” in contradiction with Christian anthropology.
The alumni department of the Comillas Pontifical University sent out the survey in order to improve its service.
The survey collects information on different aspects such as age, place of residence, degree, employment situation, or areas of interest of Comillas alumni.
The second question asks: “What is your gender?” Three response options are then offered: male, female, or “other.”
The use of this language appears to be a statement contradicting Christian anthropology and the institution’s Identity and Mission Declaration, which says that it is “a university established by the Holy See, whose governance has been entrusted to the Society of Jesus. This reality is essential to our mission and confers on it a specific profile.”
The institution “assumes, with all its consequences, the Christian conception” of the human being. Thus “there can be no university formation that succeeds in being integral and establishes authentic values, if it is not governed by a certain conception of man.”
Pope Francis has affirmed that gender ideology “presents a society without gender differences and voids the anthropological foundation of the family.”
In his apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia, the pope states in section 286 that the biological nature of the human being cannot be evaded. “It is true that we cannot separate the masculine and the feminine from God’s work of creation, which is prior to all our decisions and experiences, and where biological elements exist which are impossible to ignore,” the pope asserted.
In a written request, ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, asked the Pontifical University of Comillas yesterday afternoon local time if it is an official position of the university to accept that there is a plurality of “genders.”
Information has also been requested on whether they consider the “other” category incorrect or inappropriate and if the form in question will be changed.
As of press time, no response had been received from the university.
Comillas University
The Pontifical University of Comillas has its origins in the seminary erected in 1890 by Leo XIII in that town, which is located on Spain’s northern coast.
It was entrusted to the Jesuits and its initial purpose was the formation of candidates for the priesthood from Spanish, Latin American, and Filipino dioceses. The Philippines were under Spanish rule at that time.
In 1904, St. Pius X conferred on the institution the power to grant academic degrees in philosophy, theology, and canon law.
In the late 1960s, the institution was transferred to Madrid, authorized by St. Paul VI. Then their classrooms were also opened to the laity. Since the 1970s, both ecclesiastical and secular courses have been available there.
The Catholic Institute of Arts and Industries, also run by the Jesuits, underwent a similar process. Both institutions merged canonically in 1978.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
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Rome, Italy, Oct 1, 2020 / 06:00 am (CNA).- While the U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged the Church to speak out about human rights abuses in China Wednesday, the Vatican’s top diplomats chose to focus their remarks at the same conference … […]
Pope Benedict XVI arrives in St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican for the Oct. 21, 2012, canonization ceremony for Jacques Berthieu, Pedro Calungsod, Giovanni Battista Piamarta, Maria Carmen Salles y Barangueras, Marianne Cope, Caterina (Kateri) Tekakwitha, and Anna Schaffer. / Photo by Franco Origlia/Getty Images
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jan 2, 2023 / 14:00 pm (CNA).
During his pontificate, Pope Benedict XVI beatified 870 people and canonized a total of 45 saints. Though his papacy was relatively short, spanning from 2005 to 2013, the 45 people whom he declared saints are models of faith and holiness, celebrated by Catholics all over the world.
Here are seven of the best-known saints Pope Benedict XVI canonized:
St. Kateri Tekakwitha
St. Kateri Tekakwitha, or “Lily of the Mohawks,” was the first Native American saint to be canonized. Born in what is today New York state, she was the daughter of a Mohawk father and a Christian Algonquin mother. She was baptized at age 21 and fled persecution to St. Francis Xavier Mission near Montreal, Canada, joining a community of Native American women who had also converted to Christianity. She is remembered for her suffering, devout faith, courage, and her purity. St. Kateri died on April 17, 1680, at age 24.
Statue of St. Kateri Tekakwitha with lily. Shutterstock
She was canonized by Benedict XVI on Oct. 21, 2012. He said: “Kateri impresses us by the action of grace in her life despite the absence of external help and by the courage of her vocation, so unusual in her culture. In her, faith and culture enrich each other! May her example help us to live where we are, loving Jesus without denying who we are.”
St. Hildegard of Bingen
St. Hildegard of Bingen was an abbess, artist, author, composer, mystic, pharmacist, poet, preacher, and theologian from Germany. Born in 1098, in her late teens she became a Benedictine nun at the Monastery of Saint Disibodenberg. From the age of 3, she experienced visions of God and was asked by her confessor to write them down in what became the influential illustrated book “Scivias.”She founded two monasteries and was a prolific writer of poetry, theology, and sacred music. She died on Sept. 17, 1179.
A sculpture of Hildegard of Bingen by Karlheinz Oswald at Eibingen Abbey in Hesse, Germany. . Gerda Arendt (CC BY-SA 3.0).
St. Hildegard was canonized on May 10, 2012, and declared a Doctor of the Church by Benedict XVI on Oct. 7, 2012. He said: “In Hildegard are expressed the most noble values of womanhood: hence the presence of women in the Church and in society is also illumined by her presence, both from the perspective of scientific research and that of pastoral activity.”
St. Damien of Molokai
The bronze cast of Marisol Escobar’s ‘Father Damien’ in the National Statuary Hall (detail). public domain.
Joseph de Veuster, later to become St. Damien of Molokai, was born in 1840 in rural Belgium. At the age of 13, he was forced to leave school to work on a farm but later decided to pursue a religious vocation with the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. As a priest, he served victims of leprosy quarantined on the Hawaiian island of Molokai. He eventually contracted the disease, losing his eyesight, speech, and mobility. St. Damien died of leprosy on April 15, 1889. Benedict XVI said of St. Damien, whom he canonized on Oct. 11, 2009: “Following in St. Paul’s footsteps, St. Damien prompts us to choose the good warfare, not the kind that brings division, but the kind that gathers people together. He invites us to open our eyes to the forms of leprosy that disfigure the humanity of our brethren and still today call for the charity of our presence as servants, beyond that of our generosity.”
St. Marianne Cope
St. Marianne Cope was born in Germany in 1838 and entered religious life with the Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis in Syracuse, New York, in 1862. Mother Marianne served as an educator and opened two of central New York’s first hospitals. She was sent to Kalaupapa on the island of Molokai in Hawaii at age 45 to care for leprosy patients and established an education and health care system for them in the years she was there.
Painting of nun Saint Marianne Cope and images with lepers and her team on Molokai Island at Mary, Star of the Sea, Catholic Church, Kalapana, Hawaii. Claudine Van Massenhove / Shutterstock
Benedict XVI canonized St. Marianne Cope on Oct. 21, 2012. Of her legacy, he said: “At a time when little could be done for those suffering from this terrible disease, Marianne Cope showed the highest love, courage, and enthusiasm. She is a shining and energetic example of the best of the tradition of Catholic nursing sisters and of the spirit of her beloved St. Francis.”
St. Jeanne Jugan
St. Jeanne Jugan was born on Oct. 25, 1792, during the French Revolution. At age 25, she joined the Third Order of St. John Eudes, a religious association for laypersons. After some time serving as a nurse caring for elderly women, she acquired an unused convent building that would hold 40 people and established the Little Sisters of the Poor. At the time of her death on Aug. 29, 1879, 2,400 members were serving internationally.
Portrait of St. Jeanne Jugan (1792–1879), foundress of the Little Sisters of the Poor, by Léon Brune 1855. Public domain
At St. Jeanne Jugan’s canonization on Oct. 11, 2009, Benedict said: “Jeanne lived the mystery of love, peacefully accepting obscurity and self-emptying until her death. Her charism is ever timely while so many elderly people are suffering from numerous forms of poverty and solitude and are sometimes also abandoned by their families.”
St. Pedro Calungsod
St. Pedro Calungsod was born in 1654 in the Philippines. In 1668, at the age of 14, he was among the young catechists chosen to accompany Spanish Jesuit missionaries — among them Blessed Diego Luis de San Vitores — to the Marianas Islands to spread the Catholic faith. St. Pedro was responsible for converting many people, especially through the sacrament of baptism. On April 2, 1672, he was killed, along with San Vitores, while they were conducting a baptism. He is now recognized as a martyr.
Pope Francis and Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle before a mosaic of catechist St. Pedro Calungsod in St. Peter’s Basilica on Nov. 21, 2013. Credit: Kerri Lenartowick/CNA.
He was canonized on Oct. 21, 2012. Of St. Pedro’s hardships, while visiting the Marianas Islands, Benedict said: “Pedro, however, displayed deep faith and charity and continued to catechize his many converts, giving witness to Christ by a life of purity and dedication to the Gospel. Uppermost was his desire to win souls for Christ, and this made him resolute in accepting martyrdom.”
St. Alphonsa
St. Alphonsa was born in Kerala, India, on Aug. 19, 1910. As a young woman, she rejected all suitors who came her way, as she was determined to enter religious life. In 1923, she suffered an accident that left her burned, disabled, and partially disfigured. She joined the Franciscan Clarist Congregation, and until her death suffered from physical ailments and problems associated with her disability. In her love for God, she embraced her sufferings until her death on July 28, 1946.
1996 stamp of India with photo of St. Alphonsa. India Post, Government of India via Wikimedia Commons
St. Alphonsa was canonized by Benedict XVI on Oct. 12, 2008. She is the first Indian woman to become a saint. In a Vatican statement released on the day of her canonization, she is described as “a victim for the love of the Lord, happy until the final moment and with a smile of innocence always on her lips.”
London, England, Jun 20, 2023 / 09:15 am (CNA).
A Christian mother of two who was fired from her role as a school pastoral assistant for social media posts concerning sex education has won a legal appeal against the school’s dec… […]
6 Comments
This is a puzzling state of affairs.
Until you find out that the school is run by the Jesuiticals. Once you realize that, it means perfect sense.
Largely because of their involvement in politics, the Jesuits were suppressed in 1773 by Pope Clement XIV. They were distrusted by too many because of their connection to the papacy. One wonders now whether the suppression was simply ahead of its time…
The issue now is not in the political domain, but the much more septic premise that everything is merely political. Marxism in a new suit…and Der Synodale Weg is the revolutionary vanguard: The male priesthood is a social construct (the Marxist “superstructure”). Sexual morality is a social construct. Binary marriage is a social construct. Sex (“gender”!) is a literary convention and social construct. The apostolic succession is a social construct. The Church, lacking a Germanic “new way,” is a social construct. Moral absolutes (as in Veritatis Splendor) are a social construct and the concept/reality of anything permanent is a social construct.
Only a decade ago in October of 2012, the Year of Faith (permanence?) was opened with this remark: “It is as if a tsunami of secular [and Marxist] influence has swept across the cultural landscape, taking with it such societal markers as marriage, family, the concept of the common good and objective right and wrong.”
Are we to believe that the self-compromised Cardinal Hollerich–a Jesuit! who opines that sexual morality/natural law and therefore the Catechism, should be washed away–will reconstruct the deconstruction?
So-called “experts,” Continental Drift, and the Synod on Synodality? Let us pray that the center holds, if there is a center.
I don’t keep up with every event going on in Spain, but it surely seems as though they have a demographic death wish. And for a Catholic institution to also be enabling that sort of demise seems especially tragic.
As the world becomes mentally unbalanced, our Church hastens to be just as crazy. “[It is true] we cannot separate the masculine and the feminine from God’s work of creation, which is prior to all our decisions and are impossible to ignore”. Here, Francis in Amoris 286, if we were to linguistically analyze is not saying anything more than biological difference cannot be ignored, he is not confirming that this fact cannot be subject to revision [why I bracket It is true, which anticipates ‘While’ it is true and the prospect of change].
For example, His Holiness has designed a platform, the Synod, in which persons who have ‘revised’ their gender, those called trans or transgender may be included within the Church’s sacramental life as is. What Pope Francis hasn’t condemned is one’s denial of their biological gender identity. Consequently, Synod relator Card Hollerich SJ, Card McElroy promote Church acceptance of a decision to trans and inclusion absent of repentance.
Card McElroy in his recent letter published in Jesuit mag America [addressed by Bishop Paprocki] speaks of a new moral approach in which the pastoral dimension is not excluded by the doctrinal [that they apparently coexist in some unspecified form]. This may appear merciful, a realistic approach to ‘the wounded’. Nonetheless it brackets repentance leaving the impression that metanoia and repentance are not required. Primary examples are Pres Biden and Nancy Pelosi.
Spain’s Pontifical University of Comillas reflects this ‘transition’ of morality centered on pastoral circumstances to the exclusion of doctrine.
Zechariah 4:6 Then he said to me, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts.
Hebrews 4:2 For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened.
Ephesians 3:20-21 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
Romans 5:5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
John 14:26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.
Today some wonder if Papa is in concordance with these verses! Others are more candid, questioning whether the Pope is Catholic! Whatever, God is in control and the church will prevail. Prayers for Papa.
Other???? Really?? Its a total disgrace for ANY catholic institution to offer “other” as a possible answer when asked to define one’s sex. The more we kow-tow to these insane liberal notions the more acceptance and normality they gain.
This is a puzzling state of affairs.
Until you find out that the school is run by the Jesuiticals. Once you realize that, it means perfect sense.
Largely because of their involvement in politics, the Jesuits were suppressed in 1773 by Pope Clement XIV. They were distrusted by too many because of their connection to the papacy. One wonders now whether the suppression was simply ahead of its time…
The issue now is not in the political domain, but the much more septic premise that everything is merely political. Marxism in a new suit…and Der Synodale Weg is the revolutionary vanguard: The male priesthood is a social construct (the Marxist “superstructure”). Sexual morality is a social construct. Binary marriage is a social construct. Sex (“gender”!) is a literary convention and social construct. The apostolic succession is a social construct. The Church, lacking a Germanic “new way,” is a social construct. Moral absolutes (as in Veritatis Splendor) are a social construct and the concept/reality of anything permanent is a social construct.
Only a decade ago in October of 2012, the Year of Faith (permanence?) was opened with this remark: “It is as if a tsunami of secular [and Marxist] influence has swept across the cultural landscape, taking with it such societal markers as marriage, family, the concept of the common good and objective right and wrong.”
Are we to believe that the self-compromised Cardinal Hollerich–a Jesuit! who opines that sexual morality/natural law and therefore the Catechism, should be washed away–will reconstruct the deconstruction?
So-called “experts,” Continental Drift, and the Synod on Synodality? Let us pray that the center holds, if there is a center.
I don’t keep up with every event going on in Spain, but it surely seems as though they have a demographic death wish. And for a Catholic institution to also be enabling that sort of demise seems especially tragic.
As the world becomes mentally unbalanced, our Church hastens to be just as crazy. “[It is true] we cannot separate the masculine and the feminine from God’s work of creation, which is prior to all our decisions and are impossible to ignore”. Here, Francis in Amoris 286, if we were to linguistically analyze is not saying anything more than biological difference cannot be ignored, he is not confirming that this fact cannot be subject to revision [why I bracket It is true, which anticipates ‘While’ it is true and the prospect of change].
For example, His Holiness has designed a platform, the Synod, in which persons who have ‘revised’ their gender, those called trans or transgender may be included within the Church’s sacramental life as is. What Pope Francis hasn’t condemned is one’s denial of their biological gender identity. Consequently, Synod relator Card Hollerich SJ, Card McElroy promote Church acceptance of a decision to trans and inclusion absent of repentance.
Card McElroy in his recent letter published in Jesuit mag America [addressed by Bishop Paprocki] speaks of a new moral approach in which the pastoral dimension is not excluded by the doctrinal [that they apparently coexist in some unspecified form]. This may appear merciful, a realistic approach to ‘the wounded’. Nonetheless it brackets repentance leaving the impression that metanoia and repentance are not required. Primary examples are Pres Biden and Nancy Pelosi.
Spain’s Pontifical University of Comillas reflects this ‘transition’ of morality centered on pastoral circumstances to the exclusion of doctrine.
Zechariah 4:6 Then he said to me, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts.
Hebrews 4:2 For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened.
Ephesians 3:20-21 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
Romans 5:5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
John 14:26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.
Today some wonder if Papa is in concordance with these verses! Others are more candid, questioning whether the Pope is Catholic! Whatever, God is in control and the church will prevail. Prayers for Papa.
Other???? Really?? Its a total disgrace for ANY catholic institution to offer “other” as a possible answer when asked to define one’s sex. The more we kow-tow to these insane liberal notions the more acceptance and normality they gain.