[Catholic Caucus] Catholic university presidents host leading LGBT advocate Rev. James Martin

Washington Post ^ | February 2, 2020 | Michelle Boorstein

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[Catholic Caucus] Catholic university presidents host leading LGBT advocate Rev. James Martin

The key group for Catholic college and university presidents on Sunday hosted the Rev. James Martin, a globally famous advocate for the LGBT community, who urged the hundreds of school leaders to take new steps to promote inclusion, such as allowing students to pick their pronouns and holding up openly gay staff as role models.

Some longtime attendees of the annual meeting of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities (ACCU) said the invitation to Martin was striking and reflects a new generation of Catholic college presidents as well as the influence of Pope Francis, who emphasizes making all feel welcome.

More than 150 of the association’s nearly 200 school presidents were at the meeting at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Washington. In addition, an additional 250 senior school leaders were in attendance, the ACCU said.

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Jim Towey has been to most of the annual association meetings in recent years as past president of St. Vincent College and Ave Maria University — both more conservative Catholic schools. He said the appearance by an LGBT advocate wouldn’t have happened under previous popes. “The ACCU leadership has avoided this subject in the past because it was a lightning rod with the bishops,” he said, noting that Holtschneider has been in the job less than a year.

Whether that, or the “perception by some of Pope Francis’s openness on LGBT outreach, it seems to me, there is a shift underway. . . . Martin’s talk could signal the beginning of a larger debate on these contentious issues.”

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Ping

[faithhopecharity]

at least the State University has the integrity not to pretend to be Catholic