NEW YORK (LifeSiteNews) — The president of Fordham University recently said that she opposes the Catholic Church’s teaching on contraception.
President Tania Tetlow made the comments earlier this month in response to a student-led effort to distribute birth control on campus. Tetlow, who has previously expressed her support for so-called homosexual “marriage,” shared that she, like the students, is in defiance of the Catholic Church on this key moral doctrine.
“I will tell you that, like the vast majority of American Catholics, I disagree with the Church on its policy on contraception, but it is the Church’s policy and, as a Catholic institution, we don’t violate that,” the leader of the New York City university said. The student newspaper reported that Tetlow made a similar comment in 2023.
This is not the first time Tetlow, whose father was a former Jesuit and whose uncle is also currently a Jesuit priest, has stated her opposition to what the Catholic Church teaches.
In 2023, she wrote a lengthy essay for Fr. James Martin’s pro-LGBT website Outreach, in which she claimed that sex is not binary and that someone can change his or her gender. Her sister is also a lesbian with a “wife,” in the words of Tetlow.
LifeSiteNews emailed to media reps for Fordham on Tuesday but did not receive a response. LifeSiteNews asked what other doctrines Tetlow dissents from.
The university also did not respond to questions about if the president believes that all human life is worthy of protection from the moment of conception and if she would be refraining from Holy Communion due to the public scandal she is creating.
However, a Catholic leader who attended Boston College, another Jesuit school, criticized the president in comments to LifeSiteNews.
‘Advanced state of apostasy’
“Jesuit higher education in America is in an advanced state of apostasy and has been for decades,” C.J. Doyle told LifeSiteNews via email. He is the executive director of the Massachusetts-based Catholic Action League.
The rot runs deep, according to Doyle:
This is reflected in every aspect of university life: the choices of commencement speakers and honorary degree recipients; the public figures who are given platforms; the persons invited to serve on boards of trustees; the persons hired as administrators and faculty members; the student groups which are recognized and funded and afforded access to university facilities; the provisions for student health services; the links to institutions which offer students internships; and the ubiquitous LGBTQ advocacy.
He said Fordham is no different.
Doyle notes that the “Fordham Values” do not even mention Jesus Christ or Catholicism. The mission statement does list “Jesuit principles,” however.
“President Tania Tetlow’s candid remarks are emblematic of a pervasive university culture of systemic institutional rejection of Catholic teaching,” he said, after detailing the university’s promotion of homosexuality.
While there are numerous problems at the school, the president knows she will get away with it, Doyle said.
The heterodox university leader was “confident that there would no consequences for her public dissent from Catholic morality—no repercussions from the Board of Trustees, no rebuke from the parent religious sponsor—the Eastern Province of the Society of Jesus—no walkaways by major donors, and no protests by students, faculty or alumni.”
The issue is also that many Catholic institutions “are now controlled by assimilated, culturally conforming, modernist progressives, or who, in another time, would have been called heretics.”
Much of this follows the 1967 “Land O’Lakes Statement,” which called for Catholic universities to conform to the world and focus more on the secular academics and less on their Catholic missions.
“Institutions like Fordham need to be reclaimed for the Faith and for the Catholic community,” Doyle concluded.
Catholic Church teaching on birth control upholds dignity of human life, God’s design
Contraception, which often also includes abortifacients, violates God’s design for human sexuality, according to the Catholic Church.
Pope Paul VI taught in Humanae Vitae that contraception is “intrinsically wrong” and “contradicts the will of the Author of life.”
The pope also warned of the harmful consequences for women if birth control is allowed, saying men would “forget the reverence due to a woman” and “reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires.”
