They Won a Battle in a Long War

St. Mary's College (Bettag/WSJ)

St. Mary's College, a 180-year-old Catholic college for women in Indiana, had announced that transgender women would be admitted in 2024. Several undergraduates started a petition to reverse the decision, then alumnae and parents signed on. Finally the Church weighed in.

“Saint Mary’s departs from fundamental Catholic teaching on the nature of woman and thus compromises its very identity as a Catholic woman’s college,” Bishop Kevin Rhoades of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend wrote in a Nov. 27 statement. The bishop added that his duty is to “promote and assist in the preservation and strengthening” of the college’s Catholic identity. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that “each of them, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his/her sexual identity.”

The Board of Trustees and President Katie Conboy rescinded their original decision, making St. Mary's one of the few women's colleges that has refused to bow to Progressive theories about gender.

Commitment to Catholic teaching on sex is what distinguishes St. Mary’s from nearly all colleges across the country. Twenty-three women’s colleges admit “at least some” transgender-identifying male students, according to Campus Pride, a national pro-transgender organization, while only three don’t. The outcry over the policy shows there’s demand for a school that’s different because it’s firm in its faith and principles.

One has to admire the two undergraduates, Macy Gunnell and Claire Bettag, who brooked the opposition of many students, most faculty, and the dominant trans-women-are-women ideology to stand up for what they felt was right. They won this battle because there are enough stakeholders at St. Mary's who adhere to Catholic teachings, but it's only a battle in a long war.