Some Catholic Colleges Push ‘Pride’ Confusion, While Pope Leo Tells Them to Teach the Truth
“Fruity Party.”
These are all events promoted this June by DePaul University—the largest Catholic college in America—as part of its “Pride Month” celebration.
DePaul’s LGBTQIA+ Resource Center is sponsoring these and other “pride” events for students on campus. The Center offers students resources such as:
• training on “the use of gender-neutral and diverse pronouns,”
• guidance on how a student can change gender in DePaul’s systems,
• information about “all-gender housing” for co-ed roommates, and
• a list of “Trans, Non-Binary, Asexual, and Bisexual-focused websites.”
No information is listed on DePaul’s LGBTQIA+ Resource Center web page to help students understand Catholic teaching on human sexuality and the dangers of gender ideology.
Gonzaga University, Georgetown University, Fordham University, and Marquette University also feature resource centers with materials that affirm students in their “LGBTQ” attractions and “identities.”
Sadly, DePaul is not the only Catholic college encouraging students to celebrate disordered sexual attractions and embrace gender confusion as part of “Pride Month.”
The University of San Francisco, a Jesuit institution, invited “USF alumni, family, and friends” to march with USF at the NYC Pride Parade on June 28. The event page says the university is “excited to gather as a USF contingent and march in one of the world’s largest and longest-running Pride demonstrations.” It invites members of the LGBTQ+ community and “allies” to “represent USF and celebrate the spirit of inclusion, justice, and belonging together.”
USF also lists a separate event to march with University of San Francisco’s Pride Alumni Group at the San Francisco Pride Parade, open to “all USF community members.”
Georgetown University has a “Pride Month 2026 Schedule of Events” on its website, pointing students to events in Washington, D.C., including Pride Family Day, the Capital Pride Parade, and the Capital Pride Concert.
Other Catholic colleges made a point of posting on social media to celebrate “Pride Month,” including Notre Dame University, Seattle University, Loyola University Maryland, Loyola University New Orleans, Sacred Heart University, and St. Bonaventure University.
Villanova University, the alma mater of Pope Leo XIV, also posted on social media in June celebrating “Pride Month.”
Earlier this spring, the student newspaper at Villanova reported on the college’s annual Pride Week, featuring events such as “Gay Prom” and “Drag Bingo.”
A member of the college’s VU Pride student group was quoted in the report saying, “Drag is a good celebration of how gender is flexible and doesn’t have to be in the binary it is often presented as.”
In his 2021 pastoral letter re-affirming the Church’s teaching on the human person and gender ideology, Bishop Michael Burbidge of the Diocese of Arlington wrote, “The claim to ‘be transgender’ or the desire to seek ‘transition’ rests on a mistaken view of the human person, rejects the body as a gift from God, and leads to grave harm.”
He continued: “To affirm someone in an identity at odds with biological sex or to affirm a person’s desired ‘transition’ is to mislead that person. It involves speaking and interacting with that person in an untruthful manner.”
To lead students to the truth—specifically the truth of Jesus Christ—is a primary responsibility of any Catholic college.
“It is the honour and responsibility of a Catholic University to consecrate itself without reserve to the cause of truth,” Saint Pope John Paul II wrote in Ex Corde Ecclesiae. “This is its way of serving at one and the same time both the dignity of man and the good of the Church.”
Pope Leo XIV recently reiterated this responsibility of Catholic colleges during an address to presidents and senior administrators from Catholic institutions belonging to the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities.
Pope Leo said Catholic education must instill in students a “passion for the truth”—not only intellectual truth, but “the Truth that is Christ Himself.”
He also reminded Catholic educators that their institutions are called to be places where the “Christian vision permeates every discipline and every interaction.”
An authentic Catholic education cannot affirm students in false identities rooted in sexual desire, confusion about the human person, or political ideology.
Instead, a Catholic college should help every student discover the truth of his or her deepest identity as a beloved son or daughter of God.
That is why these “Pride Month” events and public celebrations are so troubling. They do not merely welcome students with compassion. They risk confirming them in a worldview contrary to Catholic teaching on the human person, sexuality, chastity, marriage, and the family.
When Catholic colleges promote “pride” parades, LGBTQ celebrations, drag-themed campus events, Lavender Graduations, and identity-based activism, they imply that Catholic teaching is negotiable.
They send a message to students that the Church’s understanding of the human person can be set aside when it conflicts with secular culture.
Catholic students need pastoral care, friendship, and genuine love. But they also need clarity. They need the Church’s teaching presented with confidence, beauty, and mercy. They need to be formed in chastity, virtue, self-mastery, and holiness.
Above all, they need to be led to Christ.
That is why faithful Catholic education matters so urgently—and why The Newman Guide is so important.
The Newman Guide helps families identify schools, colleges, homeschool programs, and graduate programs that take the Catholic mission seriously. These are institutions committed to forming students in truth, virtue, and fidelity to Christ—not simply echoing the latest slogans of the culture.
Pope Leo has reminded Catholic educators of their mission. Catholic colleges should listen.
And Catholic families should not settle for anything less than faithful Catholic education.
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