Marxist Professor Tells Students to Reject “White Christianity" at Catholic University
Why did Carlow University, founded by the Sisters of Mercy, foster the self-destruction of its Catholic identity?
On March 3, 2022, Carlow University hosted a talk titled “Rejecting White Christianity” by Dr. Miguel De La Torre. Although the speaker has a long record of peddling anti-Catholic bias, he was joined at the podium by Sister Janice Vanderneck, a nun with the Sisters of St. Joseph of Baden. De La Torre has strange credentials. He’s fond of liberation theology and refers to himself as a Southern Baptist, Roman Catholic, and follower of Santeria (a false religion mixing witchcraft and Catholicism).
The invitation for the lecture promised to explore how one “begins to create a different cultural foundation upon which to base one’s faith.” What is that new foundation? Liberation theology, postcolonial theory, and the “indigenous Latinx way.”
During his talk at Carlow, De La Torre said, “I don’t know if there is a God or not; and quite frankly I really don’t care.”
Theology of Despair
De La Torre coaxed his audience to embrace “hopelessness.” In Marxist fashion, he pointed out that liberationists are in a hopeless situation because the current systems will not address the problems of the oppressed. “I fight for justice not because I am going to win,” he said, “I am not [going to win].” He lamented that western society is still too attached to morality and order, claiming that “homophobia, and sexism will continue way after my body is food for the worms.”
“When I have nothing to lose, that is when I become the most dangerous and the most radical,” he said.
“Trickster” Ethics
Dr. De La Torre explains that his solution is “trickster” ethics, and the name he gives his “ethics” is a curse word (which we will not repeat). His “ethical” solution points out that since it is hopeless to change the current order, liberationists must scramble and overturn the system. In a 2016 interview on Brew Theology, Dr. De La Torre asked questions such as “How do you lie to find out what the truth is?” and “How do you steal so that people can have a fair distribution of wealth?”
It gets worse.
De La Torre engages in blasphemy when he presents Our Lord Jesus Christ as a violent liberator of man from colonialism who follows this “trickster” ethics. In one article, he uses Our Lord to justify transgenderism and refers to Him as intersex. “Both male and female and everything in between and beyond find their worth and dignity in the image of God fully revealed in the intersexuality of Jesus. If all this is true, then I would assume Jesus would use whichever bathroom he believes is in accordance with their internal gender identity — and so should you.”
According to De La Torre, even Jesus was a racist and had to learn not to be one. As proof of his “trickster” solution, in the same interview with Brew Theology, he states that “Satan helped Jesus figure out his ministry” and that Satan, seen as the personification of evil, is a “medieval construction.” Accordingly, he claims Satan is not chaos but rather order and that Our Lord was chaos, which “brings salvation to the oppressed.”
Marxist “Solution”
De La Torre extols the Young Lords gang of the late sixties as a model for his twisted version of “ethics.” The Young Lords was a violent Marxist organization famous for using aggressive tactics in Chicago and New York. However, to foment a spirit of revolt, De La Torre explains how the Young Lords took over a church in East Harlem, kicked out the pastor, renamed the church “The People’s Church,” and used the space to spread Marxist propaganda.
Rejection of the Catholic Worldview
One of the central tenets of Liberation Theology is Marxist class struggle and the liberation of the so-called “oppressed.” In his talk at Carlow, De La Torre blasphemously told the audience that Our Lord looks like the “oppressed” and therefore is “a black, Latina, lesbian with AIDs working as a maid at the Hotel 6.”
De La Torre rejection of what he calls “white Christianity” is a rejection of Catholicism. He advocates the overturning of order and morals by violent means.
Catholicism seeks the salvation of all men and orders society in an organic way where each person has his proper role and obligation to act morally. But De La Torre, by following communist ideology, seeks not to uplift the “oppressed” but drag everyone down.
Which begs the question: Why is Carlow University allowing Dr. Miguel De La Torre to blaspheme against God and undermine the Catholic Faith? Why is a Catholic institution fomenting its own self-destruction?
Contact Carlow with your concerns (please be polite yet firm).
Carlow University
President, Dr. Kathy Wilson Humphrey
Email: OfficeOfThePresident@carlow.edu
Phone: 412-578-6123