Holy Cross Cardinal Newman Society

Holy Cross Religious Studies Professor Promoting Homosexuality

December 8, 2008

 
 
 
 
 
 
  What happened: -      
 

In November a public forum during "Rainbow Alliance Week" involving a Holy Cross professor not only openly dissenting from teachings of the Catholic Church, but also included a professor advertising his homosexual lifestyle. James Nickoloff is not only a homosexual man engaged in a 'marriage' to another man in Massachusetts, but he is a tenured faculty member at Holy Cross who openly advertises his sexual choices to other students and then wraps his theological teaching in order to justify and rationalize those choices. In November, as part of a sponsored discussion by the campus homosexual group, Nickoloff was very open and forthcoming about his relationship and made it an issue proving that the Bible and Catholicism endorsed such behavior by the fact that he was in the religious studies department.

This goes against Catholic teaching and also undermines other Church efforts to help those with same-sex attraction to successfully manage those disorders without succumbing to sexual temptation. One such church effort is known as "Courage" based out of New York.

Unspoken but implied is that physical acts are reduced to unstoppable urges, undermining the Church's teachings on chastity as well. By making man animalistic in the pursuit of such urges, it says to young people that the religious life is unattainable, and rationalizes their pursuit of physical fulfillment at the expense of emotional fulfillment either in a committed relationship or through religious vocation.

Actions:

1. Trustees - Please call one Board of Trustee member, Fr. Philip Boroughs at Georgetown University <email, (202)687-1395> to ask them to have the college return its fidelity to Church teaching especially on this most controversial of topics: homosexuality.

2. President - Please call President Fr. McFarland <mmcfarland@holycross.edu, (508)793-2525> and respectfully ask him to provide homosexual-tendency counseling to students and faculty who are engaged in unhealthy lifestyles.

3. Department - Call the Chair of the Religious Studies Department Prof. Alan J. Avery-Peck <aavery@holycross.edu or (508)793-3411> and ask if Pope John Paul II's wonderful "Theology of the Body" is assigned in any class, and if not, what alumni and supporters of the college could do to support it and offer it as a counterpoint to the disordered notions of the body received by faculty engaged in destructive lifestyles.

4. Pray - Pray for Prof. Nickoloff, for his soul and his hopeful conversion into a healthy lifestyle for himself.

And please let us know what you hear from these individuals. You can reach us at <info@hccns.org or (508)439-5350>.

Prof. James Nickoloff, of the Religious Studies department, is a former Jesuit priest who told a student group in November that he was personally engaged in homosexuality and 'married' in the state of Massachusetts to another man. He implied the sanction of the Catholic Church as he also identified himself as a professor of religious studies at a Catholic college. This act undermines the efforts of the Church to counsel and serve those with homosexual inclinations and to help them find happiness and fulfillment in Christ through chastity or in a lifestyle not destructive to both their bodies and souls.
 
 
St. Joseph, depicted above with the child Christ, was a heterosexual male interested in starting a family who was asked to forgo that blessing in order to care and raise Christ. He remained celibate and is venerated as a Saint due to his devotion to God over his natural inclinations.
 
 
The handout given by Prof. Nickoloff at the meeting undermined the Church's teaching on homosexual acts. You can download a JPEG or a PDF of the handout to see what the College is teaching students. The handout is clever in that it rightly asserts the dignity of the individual which is certainly a good, but also promotes confusion by claiming sodomy is both sinful and yet not sinful. It lacks the clarity needed to convey the truth of Catholic teaching.