Bishop Reports Back on Drag Queen Fallout Meeting with Gold, Says Secrecy of Advisory Panel Remains: 'It's About Trust'
by Ken Shepherd
With a year’s passage since a “profane” drag-queen “Mass” performance by a UNL doctoral student, Bishop James Conley has informed readers of his diocesan website column on the latest progress on the University of Nebraska’s part in preventing future episodes of anti-Catholicism.
In his April 24 column, Conley said that University of Nebraska President Jeffrey Gold, UNL Interim Chancellor Katherine Ankerson, and Regents Jack Stark and Tim Clare had met with him the week prior for an update on the progress of a presidential advisory panel that, as The Plains Sentinel previously reported, has been shrouded in obscurity.
“President Gold worked with Creighton University President Father Daniel Hendrickson to select and recruit the members from across the country. In addition to those initial individual meetings with prospective members, the group met once in July of last year to set up the structure of how it would operate, and again in August to discuss the incident involving the doctoral student. Both meetings took place remotely over Zoom,” Conley said.
“President Gold and President Hendrickson have decided not to publicize the names of the other members of the advisory group,” with the former telling Conley that the undisclosed members “would likely choose not to participate because they would not want to deal with the publicity that would come with the discussions on very sensitive issues before them.”
“He said ‘it’s about trust’ with the group members. ‘If we can’t do it confidentially, we wouldn’t get the results. Some people involved would not participate,’” Conley quoted Gold as saying.
Conley added that there is at least one Catholic priest on the panel, Father Daniel Hendrickson, the president of Creighton University in addition to a group of “card-carrying ethicists,” according to Gold. “The group includes senior-level academicians, two attorneys and a bioethicist. Members come from across the country, including Boston and New York,” Conley added.
Conley quoted Stark as chalking up the original controversy to a failure of proper academic advising. For his part Clare was quoted as denouncing the the controversial drag Mass as denigration of faith.
“Why mock another’s religion, race, political beliefs? Blowing out your candle doesn’t make mine burn brighter,” Conley quoted Stark as saying.
For his part, Conley expressed cautious optimism about progress with the university.
“I am also hopeful that continued engagement with community leaders at the University and elsewhere will help not only to prevent future problems, but will also assist in the continued development of a culture that is respectful of religion and of the Catholic presence in and contribution to our state and its universities,” he concluded his column.
Requests to Stark and Clare went unreturned to The Plains Sentinel.
A prominent Catholic organization on campus that describes its mission as “forg[ing] college students into saints, fully alive in Christ,” opted not to weigh in.
“We are not interested in commenting,” UNL’s Newman Center responded by email to the Plains Sentinel, directing us to the diocese of Lincoln for any “future media questions.”
“At this point, the bishop doesn’t have any further comment beyond his column. We do look forward to meeting again with the university leaders in the future,” a spokesman for the Catholic Diocese of Lincoln told The Plains Sentinel by email.
Ken Shepherd is a freelance reporter with The Plains Sentinel. He is a former editor at Fox News Digital and the Washington Times.