A Catholic priest holding a crucifix and a dozen laymen protested a talk by Dylan Mulvaney, one of America’s most controversial transgender celebrities, at St. Louis University, a Jesuit institution, on Monday.

The Catholic university refused to cancel the event, defying Pope Francis’s recent denunciation of gender theory and gender transitioning as “extremely dangerous since it cancels differences in its claim to make everyone equal.”

Mulvaney, a biological male who identifies as a woman, shot to fame after being featured in an advertising campaign for Bud Light, a popular beer brewed by Anheuser-Busch. The brewery lost $4 billion amid boycotts of the brand after showcasing the gay TikTok influencer.

Alexandra Leung, the president of SLU’s chapter of College Republicans, told media the university was not only contradicting Catholic teaching but had rebuffed conservative students who asked permission to host Paula Scanlan, a women’s sports activist, a day after Mulvaney’s talk.

Scanlan, a former University of Pennsylvania swimmer, began campaigning for women’s sports to be protected from infiltration by biological males identifying as women after her school allowed transgender swimmer Lia Thomas to compete on the women’s team and to change in the women’s locker room.

Despite violating Catholic teaching, SLU insists it is “guided by the Roman Catholic Church and the Society of Jesus” and “committed to Catholic education at all levels” while being the “first Jesuit institution to receive the Higher Education Excellence in Diversity award….”

From The Stream