St. X High Continues Flirtation With Homosexuality
Truth becomes "hatred" for those who hate the truth
(Mar./Apr. 2000)

BY MICHAEL ARATA

DURING THE SEVEN YEARS I taught chemistry and coached swimming at Cincinnati’s St. Xavier High (1969-76), I suggested the school color-coordinated name for the fledgling student newspaper: Blueprint.

That title, still in use, turns out to have been rather prophetic, though not in a way I anticipated. As reported in the Jan./Feb. issue of St. Catherine Review, today’s Blueprint foreshadows the apparent moral and social re-engineering designs of St. Xavier school authorities.

Their acts—and failures to act—seem effectively to contravene or ignore Church teaching in grave matters of faith and morals. Their public pronouncements say one thing; their deeds and the deeds of others subject to their authority say something else.

Blueprint’s Dec. 17, 1999 issue featured a front-page "press release" introducing a website produced by two self-described homosexual alumni "to serve gay, bisexual, transgendered, and questioning students at St. Xavier High School." With this virtual "support group," called the St. X Ally Network, the two 1999 graduates "also want to act as resources to help make St. X more and more gay-inclusive by raising awareness and understanding of gay issues."

This adds one more postscript to 1996 charges of "hatred" and "intolerance" for homosexuals at St. X, amid revelations about the school’s all-male Dance Club, P-FLAG sensitivity training, and administrators’ express prohibition of referrals to outside agencies and individuals of questionable fidelity to Church teaching—more about all of which, anon.

St. X Ally "resource" listings include a "gay bookstore," a "gay-friendly diner," and various organizations likely to be populated primarily by adult homosexuals; several "coming-out" and "bisexuality" guides; a homoerotic "webzine" that acclaims itself as "written by, about and for queer and questioning youth"; misleading teen-homosexual suicide "studies"; a recommended catalogue of "gay" films; and numerous "gay" propaganda outlets.

An ambivalent discussion of "Moral Questions," is preceded by a refusal to "attempt a defense of any specific viewpoint, except this one: God loves you for who you are, and neither God nor the Church wants you to be anything different." Further,

Whether you agree with [Church] teaching is a decision you must make according to your own conscience.... You should realize that merely being gay is in no way wrong. You should not feel bad about checking out other guys or having romantic feelings for another guy. These feelings are natural for you, and the Church understands and accepts this.

After two fragmentary citations from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the Ally section addressing "Moral Questions" concedes that "The Church, of course, doesn't approve completely of homosexuality." The website then distinguishes between homosexual orientation, not sinful per se, and any sexual activity outside of marriage, which the Church does consider sinful: "We are not defending any type of sex outside of marriage; from a Catholic point of view, it is wrong, period."

Nevertheless, the St. X Ally Network provides numerous links to organizations, publications, films, and other "resources" which not only ignore or oppose Church teaching, but actively endorse various forms of extra-marital sexual relations. The site further muddles its message with misleading assertions by the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association, summarizing the two APAs’ outlooks this way:

Homosexuality is not viewed as a disorder or sickness. On the contrary, studies have shown that gay people are completely healthy and are not, as a rule, different in any particular way from straight people. From a scientific standpoint, homosexual orientation is completely normal and healthy.

Both APAs condemn reparative therapy and other means of remedying homosexual inclinations, as the Ally site informs its visitors.

Skewed on facts, short on faith
Rushing to contradict itself, the Ally website misrepresents or omits key elements of Church teaching — for example, the requirement that "Conscience must be informed and... guided by the authoritative teaching of the Church." And when someone "‘takes little trouble to find out what is good and true, or when conscience is by degrees almost blinded through the habit of committing sin’... the person is culpable for the evil he commits" (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 1783-1794). As for homosexuality specifically:

Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that ‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.’ (fn., cf. Gen 19:1-29; Rom 1:24-27; 1 Cor 6:10; Tim 1:10). They are contrary to the natural law.... Under no circumstances can they be approved. (Catechism, n. 2357)

Always Our Children, the controversial statement of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops which was revised at Rome’s insistence, now tells parents they should "not presume that your child has developed a homosexual orientation," that while maintaining a loving relationship, they should "provide support, information, encouragement and moral guidance. Parents must be vigilant about their children’s behavior and exercise responsible interventions when necessary."

Even the original version of AOC observed that chastity means reserving sexual relations for "marriage between a man and a woman," in a context "open to the possible creation of human life… Therefore, the Church teaches that homogenital behavior is objectively immoral."

The APA twins ought to have little credibility in the realm of deviant sexual behavior. The Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual IV (DSM IV, 1994) doesn’t necessarily consider even pedophilia disordered: "Simply acting out on the urges is no longer a basis for pedophilia being considered a disorder. If the individual is not distressed or impaired by what he is doing, then to the psychiatric community, it is healthy behavior" (p. 528).

Repeated disruptions by homosexual activists of the American Psychiatric Association’s early 1970s conventions is what led to 1973’s de-listing of homosexuality as a psychopathology in DSM III — a largely unprincipled capitulation that has been chronicled by psychiatrist Jeffrey Satinover in Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth: "The APA vote to normalize homosexuality was driven by politics, not science."

The American Psychological Association’s July, 1999 Psychological Bulletin published "A Meta-Analytic Examination..." claiming that sex between adults and children might be a positive experience for "willing" children. The article was hailed by the "North American Man-Boy Love Association" (NAMBLA), the country’s high-profile promoter of "normalizing" pedophilia.

Indeed, as St. Xavier’s "men for others" ought to recognize: even at a secular level, it is at best false compassion to encourage or even to "tolerate" behaviors which are demonstrably harmful to their participants and to society at large. As former homosexual Alan Medinger, now director of Regeneration, a Baltimore-based ministry for ex-homosexuals, says in relation to the nearly pandemic incidence of serious or fatal diseases among homosexuals (including an elevated breast-cancer risk among lesbians): "It is absolutely criminal to take a confused kid and lead him into a life that could kill him." Conversely, authentic "charity demands beneficence and fraternal correction" (Catechism, n. 1829), such as can be found in ministries such as "Courage," founded by Father John Harvey. Courage offers a truly compassionate response to homosexuals, gently and constructively presenting authentic Church teaching and an assurance that with prayer (especially the Rosary) and regular Mass attendance, homosexuals who recognize their condition as an unnatural affliction can be healed.

By way of background
In 1996, Blueprint published a running exchange between St. Xavier Latin and German teacher Edward J. Hausfeld and a St. X student. Hausfeld wrote, "[a]lthough most of the faculty, administration and student body seem to be working for a greater appreciation of diversity, tolerance of differences in sexual orientation seems to be the last frontier to be crossed." He complained about "an underlying distrust, even hatred, of homosexuals in the student body" despite "annual speaking appearances by Mrs. Marian Weage from Parents, Friends, and Family of Lesbians and Gays (P-FLAG)."

Hausfeld then provided phone numbers for P-FLAG, the Cincinnati Youth Group ("a support and educational group for many lesbian, gay, and bisexual teens up to the age of 21"), and United Way for students "struggling with questions of their sexual identity." (Hausfeld himself sits on the governing board of the Cincinnati Youth Group.)

The student wrote back to say the real problem was "growing acceptance of homosexuality" at St. Xavier. He expressed his dismay that a teacher in a Jesuit high school would advise students to contact groups whose outlooks contradict "the high school’s own beliefs." The young man suggested that "if there are students who are struggling with their own sexuality," the more appropriate counseling venue would be "a psychiatrist or an organization which would help them be heterosexual, such as Prodigal Ministries." He added, "the administration and religion department continue to bring in Mrs. Weage from P-FLAG to speak to the Junior class. P-FLAG is an immoral group contradicting the Catholic religion."

Hausfeld replied, "surprised and disappointed," advising the student "to check his facts." Hausfeld then repeated politicized claims by the two APAs and the AMA, and asserted that "From a medical point of view, there is nothing to ‘cure’ since there is no ‘disease.’"

"If Prodigal Ministries promises to change the orientation of people seeking them out," Hausfeld continued, "it bears the same relationship to good psychological/psychiatric practice as creationism does to the evolutionary theory." Hausfeld then distinguished between "the condition and the individual," and repeated highly exaggerated teen-homosexual-suicide statistics that have been discredited in research collected by Peter LaBarbera, editor of the Lambda Report on Homosexuality and director of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality.

The Oct. 11, 1996, Blueprint issue included an article about controversy surrounding St. Xavier’s all-male Dance Club, its homosexual overtones, and its two moderators, Hausfeld and school counselor Marty Roberts. In the article, Hausfeld criticized school principal Dave Mueller’s mild, official inquiries about the group as a "misunderstanding of the ‘alternative life style’ and what it means to be ‘alternative.’" Roberts responded saying, "I know there are probably gay kids in the group…but I know that there are probably gay kids in every group of the school. One Dance Club member declared, "We have been the victims of intolerance and we would like to make sure it doesn’t happen again."

The same Blueprint edition carried a letter by Mueller and school president Father William Verbryke, S.J, discussing not the Dance Club, but the Hausfeld-student letter dispute. The administrators said that "St. Xavier High School fully embraces the teachings of the Church" on the issue of homosexuality and that "As school leaders, [they] expect the teachings of the Church to guide everything from the school’s personnel policies to the editorial policies of Blueprint." They continued:

[L]ocal Church guidelines prohibit St. Xavier High School from referring people to any group when there is a question of uncertainty about that group’s support for the teachings of the Church. Accordingly, we must express regret that the name of a local support group for people of homosexual orientation was published in Blueprint....

Representatives from the [Archdiocesan high] schools will meet to explore how Catholic schools can best educate their members about how to live as disciples of Jesus in regard to this challenging issue. Our discussion with our fellow Catholic high schools will inform our discussion among the faculty at St. Xavier.

A subsequent discussion among Archdiocesan high school principals did occur. One outcome, revealed in Mueller’s January 8, 1997 report to St. Xavier faculty, was a recommendation that "sexual orientation" be added to Archdiocesan personnel policies as a protected employment classification.

A follow-up meeting included Mueller, three other high school principals (from Roger Bacon, Purcell-Marian, and Ursuline), three (unidentified) faculty members, and three homosexual St. X alumni. Mueller’s report of that meeting stated "Several people endorsed the... model of a gay/straight alliance," a model promoted nationally by the "Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network" (GLSEN), which is open about its hostility to the Church and religious objections to the homosexual lifestyle. Conferees were urged to ensure that support groups "not try to convert people to heterosexuality."

Schools raising these issues, Mueller reported, "should expect backlash and prepare for it. It will help if Archdiocesan schools stand together." Students should be advised, the report recommended further, "that a faculty member is available to talk to them about these issues — someone knowledgeable and confidential."

Official response?
One wonders what became of the school’s 1996 assertion that the Church would "guide... the editorial policies of Blueprint," and their alleged prohibition against "referring people to any group when there is ...uncertainty about that group’s support for the teachings of the Church."

The same Dec. 17, 1999 Blueprint issue that referred students to the St. X Ally website (a gateway to numerous other sites that disregard or scorn Church teaching) printed a satire of "pious Christians," practically choking on bile and spittle by the time it got around to mentioning the "‘you’re-a-hellbound-sinner-if-you-don’t-believe-us’ St. Catherine’s [sic] Review."

The issue also offered a staff editorial fretting about "sexism" at St. Xavier, and a nearly 1200-word article by a self-identified "pro-choice" student complaining of a pro-life presentation by the Teen Life Coalition of Cincinnati, whose nurse-psychologist leader spoke, he charges, "the cloying and condescending words of an obstinate preacher." With a "pro-choice standpoint in tow," he had "hoped to approach the gathering with an open mind."

The same writer was especially offended by video images of the corpses and tiny body parts that remained after second and third-trimester abortions, and the apparent failure so far of the school to bring in Planned Parenthood for divergent perspective.

The same December issue of Blueprint contains yet another complaint, this one by a senior student who says he goes off campus during free periods to smoke, since St. Xavier no longer allows the privilege on campus. Consider the irony: St. Xavier does not support tolerance of smoking; yet the school expects teachers and students to accept and even affirm homosexuality as an unalterable "lifestyle." The problem is that it’s really a tragic deathstyle, more prematurely lethal than smoking.

By default—or perhaps, deliberately—St. Xavier has become an accessory to the tactics of the homosexual agenda. That agenda’s stratagems were articulated more than a dozen years ago by Marshall Kirk and Erastes Pill in "The Overhauling of Straight America," Guide Magazine, Nov. 1987. The article calls for "the desensitization of the American public concerning gays and gay rights" as the "first order of business."

It then recommends a six-step program to "accomplish this turnaround." They advise, for example, that activists "talk about gays and gayness as loudly and as often as possible" — because "almost any behavior begins to look normal if you are exposed to enough of it and at close quarters.... Against the mighty pull of institutional Religion one must set the mightier draw of Science and Public Opinion (the shield and the sword of the accursed ‘secular humanism’). Such an unholy alliance has worked before, on such topics as divorce and abortion."

The Kirk/Pill article also counsels activists to "portray gays as victims, not as aggressive challengers" by making use of "symbols which reduce the mainstream’s sense of threat, which lower its guard, and which enhance the plausibility of victimization."

These are just the first two steps, in part.

The recent Dec. 17 Blueprint press release includes a pro-forma disclaimer, saying the St. X Ally website is not "affiliated with or endorsed by St. Xavier High School, an all-male, Jesuit, college preparatory school of 1400 young men in Cincinnati, Ohio. The site was created and is maintained by [two 1999 graduates]."

But further up the same page, Blueprint is identified as the "official student newspaper of St. Xavier High School." The masthead provides the same "official student newspaper..." identification, along with another disclaimer: "The content of Blueprint does not necessarily reflect the opinions or views of the adviser, faculty, or administrators of St. Xavier High School." But it also mentions office headquarters space provided in the school’s Room 105, and a letters mailbox situated in the principal’s office.

Hausfeld and Roberts (the St. Xavier "Dance Club" moderators) are listed at the St. X Ally website — along with seven current St. Xavier students, six alumni, and the parents of one "St. X Ally" website originator — as having agreed to be listed as "resources for gay, bisexual, transgendered, and questioning guys and their friends." Again, there’s a strategic disclaimer: "Being on this list does not constitute an endorsement of this website or any of the material on it. Those listed are not connected in any official capacity with the St. X Ally Network. Further, no statement about the sexuality of any ally is intended or implied."

The listed "allies" have (according to the site) promised not to persuade students to change their sexual orientation. (Roberts lists himself at St. Xavier’s official school website as a member of the "Association for Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Issues in Counseling," which institutionally opposes therapeutic interventions seeking to alter homosexual inclinations.)

On Dec. 2, Verbryke and Mueller wrote to parents, emphasizing "no connection between the web site and St. Xavier," and cautioning that so far as they knew, the website’s creators "are neither trained nor qualified to provide the emotional and practical support they offer."

Nevertheless, the Feb. 17 Blueprint reported that "On Friday, January 27, the three authors of last year’s Blueprint article, ‘You Are Not Alone,’ led a forum hosted by Hands Across the Campus... [Three students, including the two St. X Ally website creators] were invited to share their experiences as gay students in an all-male Catholic school." Questions "centered on what student leaders could do to ‘create an atmosphere which is more respectful,’ said religion teacher Peter Corrigan."

"[O]ne of HAC’s core leaders" said "this was kind of like a testing ground to see if [the two St. X Ally originators] can give their presentation to the whole school."

Verbryke and Mueller’s Dec. 22 letter made no mention of their 1996 prohibition against Blueprint referrals to questionable outside-counseling sources. Instead, as in 1996, the letter once again postulated a need for more "faculty members whom [students] can trust to listen to questions and concerns about sexuality and who are qualified to guide them within the traditions of the Catholic Church. The Archdiocese of Cincinnati has agreed to provide training...." St. Catherine Review discussed the likely direction of such training in its May/June 1999 issue. The model will apparently be that of the "National Association of Catholic Diocesan Lesbian and Gay Ministries," for which the executive director is Fr. Jim Schexnayder, a self-"outed" gay activist and GLSEN favorite from the Oakland Diocese.

The Feb. 17 Blueprint says that following the St. X Ally press release and "surprise website" appearance, Mueller’s administration has been "working diligently" to form a support program for "sexually questioning students." Blueprint selectively interprets "the school’s and church’s teaching on the subject.... ‘Let [him] who is without sin cast the first stone.’" It leaves out the rest of what Jesus said: "go and sin no more."

[ St. Catherine Review ]