Sister Christina Cathro may or may not be gay, she doesn't say, but her doctoral thesis was called "Listening for the Echo: Contribution of Lesbians' Journeys to Spiritual Direction and Theological Reflection" Because it was about homosexuality, the archbishop of Toronto Cardinal Aloysius Ambrozic refused to personally confer the doctorate she earned.

Mary Nersessian writes for the Globe and Mail:

A year into her degree in 1999, she heard that the Vatican had ordered Catholic authors Father Robert Nugent and Sister Jeannine Gramick to end their pastoral work with homosexual people. Sister Cathro decided then to focus her doctoral research on the topic of homosexuality and the church. In a recent interview from Edmonton, she said she was disheartened that the controversy that had inspired her research four years ago still exists today. "I'd have to say that I was absolutely shocked," Sister Cathro said. "I couldn't believe that somebody could do that."

Sister Cathro, a member of the Sisters of our Lady of the Missions, was unable to fly from her current Edmonton home to Toronto for the November, 2003, convocation at St. Basil's Church and only heard about the incident secondhand. She said she was upset that the school did not tell her of the archbishop's decision. "I did not hear about this incident from the official channels of the University of St. Michael's College by call, letter or e-mail. Since the incident was about me and my work, this is both disrespectful and troubling. A message explaining the controversy and inviting my response would have been welcome."

It's not the case that she wouldn't have gotten her degree at all, merely that she would have been publicly and deliberately snubbed by the archbishop. Certainly he has every right to do that, but such actions send a bit of a chill among those who do research within the Catholic church - they are, in a sense, being told that the work of this sort is disapproved of and that they will be treated less favorably than anyone else. What a great way to stifle intellectual diversity and scholarly progress.

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• Roman Catholicism
• Catholicism & Homosexuality