CNA Staff, Jan 30, 2024 / 13:53 pm (CNA).
The Catholic University of America has dismissed one of its professors for bringing an abortion advocate to class to speak to students.
A Tuesday email from the school’s president, Peter Kilpatrick, obtained by CNA said that the school began an investigation last week after learning of reports of an abortion advocate being invited to a class. The president said the school also learned that a student had an audio recording of the class in question.
The Daily Signal, which obtained and released a copy of the recording last week, identified the psychology professor as Melissa Goldberg.
“Now that we have clear evidence that the content of the class did not align with our mission and identity, we have now terminated our contract with the professor who invited the speaker,” Kilpatrick wrote on Tuesday.
Goldberg’s faculty page was no longer available on the university website as of Tuesday afternoon.
“As a Catholic institution, we are committed to promoting the full truth of the human person and to protecting human life from conception to natural death. In our rigorous pursuit of truth and justice, we engage at times with arguments or ideologies contrary to reason or to the Gospel,” he wrote.
“But we do so fully confident in the clarity given by the combined lights of reason and faith, and we commit to never advocate for sin or to give moral equivalence to error,” Kilpatrick added.
“As witnessed by the life and virtue of St. Thomas Aquinas, whose feast we just celebrated as a community, such engagement with opposing ideas helps us both to grow in our command of truth and to respond to error with empathy, compassion, and mercy.”
According to the Daily Signal, which spoke to a student who was part of the lecture, Goldberg invited Rachel Carbonneau to the class on Jan. 23. Carbonneau, the founder and CEO of the doula company Family Ways, spoke to the class about working with women who have elective abortions and abortions that are “for medical reasons,” according to the recording.
Doulas are most commonly associated with providing emotional and physical support to women prior to, during, and after birth, though a range of doula services exist for events such as death or miscarriage.
Discussing abortions, Carbonneau in the recording said that the “goal for a lot of providers is to try to perform the abortion before the baby’s nerve endings are formed. So the goal is to do it at a time when the baby is not going to feel any pain.”
Carbonneau also discussed what she called “the risk to the birthing person” including “a risk of hemorrhage and a risk of [a] baby that’s not going to survive, and the conversation to have with her older children about why she’s been pregnant and now there’s no baby.”
“There are a lot of pieces to these puzzles, emotionally and socially,” she said.
When asked by a student to expand on her use of the term “birthing persons,” Carbonneau said that she works with clients who identify as transgender. “Birthing person” is a term transgender advocates often use to avoid gendered language such as “woman” or “mother.”
Kilpatrick said in his letter this week that “at Catholic University, we have the unique opportunity and common blessing to pursue truth, to grow in faith, and to exercise charity. Our studies aim at producing wisdom, which includes excellence in living and sharing the truth with others.”
“May our common study help us to understand life, to love goodness, and to promote and protect the dignity of the human person,” he wrote.
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‘ The Holy Father went on: “The authentic progress of human society cannot forgo policies aimed at protecting and promoting marriage, and the community that derives therefrom. Adopting such policies is the duty not only of States but of the International Community as a whole, in order to invert the tendency towards the growing isolation of the person, which is a source of suffering and corrosion for both individuals and for society.
“If it is true that the defence and promotion of human dignity ‘have been entrusted to us by the Creator, and to whom the men and women at every moment of history are strictly and responsibly in debt’, it is equally true that this responsibility particularly concerns people called to positions of responsibility.” ‘
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2012/09/24/pope-exhorts-christians-to-act-and-express-themselves-with-a-prophetic-spirit-in-public-square/
Is this the same Holy Father who surrounds himself in the Vatican with a cadre of homosexuals, who protects bishops who have preyed upon boys and young men, who rewards and encourages a fellow Jesuit who promotes homosexuality, and who praises and favors a Jesuit artist who raped and engaged in orgies with numerous nuns? Why then quote his words when his actions are in direct contradiction to them?
I was in a hurry and did not see that the quote is not from the current “Holy Father” but rather from his predecessor whose work he has completely overturned and destroyed. It is stunning that one has to go back 12 years to a different Pope to get a clear and explicit statement of the Catholic doctrine on this issue.
I was hoping the reader AND the current Holy Father would catch it without me spotlighting anything or harping.
Sorry if I misled.
Someone should inform this babe that trans “birthing persons” who were not BORN female CANNOT give birth. Disgusting this would happen at a Catholic college. I would hope that by now all Catholic colleges worth their tuition costs would mandate that their professors sign a contract at hiring saying they cannot promote actions which are in opposition to Catholic belief, or else be subject to immediate termination. If you want to propagandize for this garbage, do so in the realm of public universities, which posit no moral framework except “do your own thing, no matter who gets hurt”. It would appear one of the students in the class reported this in. Bravo to that kid for having a spine and a strong belief system.
I think you should inform her LJ. I wonder when she was called babe last?
🙂
Something tells me that there were probably many red flags surrounding Professor Goldberg that should have precluded her from ever being hired at a Catholic university. I am sure there are more than a few members of the faculty who support strongly her views. It is good to read that openly promoting abortion in the classroom will get you canned at CUA (at least if there is a recording of the lecture that is made public). The bar, however, needs to be set much higher.
If you are thinking this wasn’t a one off by the professor, I agree with you Mr. Tony.
While this incident put an end to anything further at Catholic University I imagine it will open doors for her at other schools. Sadly.
Several Jesuit colleges probably will be in competition to offer her a job. If this incident had occurred at Georgetown, the administration likely would have defended her and expelled the student.
No doubt, Mr. Tony. This probably earns her a prestigious position elsewhere. And a lecture tour.