(AgapePress) - The nation's largest Catholic university is under fire over its plan to host a conference aimed at expanding homosexuality-affirming teaching and curriculum on Catholic university campuses.

Next October DePaul University in Chicago will be hosting a two-day conference for professors and staff who are involved with "lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or queer" issues on Catholic campuses. The first "Out There" conference was held at Santa Clara University in 2005 and reportedly attracted 150 participants from more than 40 colleges and universities.

Patrick Reilly, president of the Cardinal Newman Society (CNS), a Catholic renewal group, says he is very troubled by the event and its location.

"The approach that these people are taking is to accept -- and in some cases even endorse -- the homosexual lifestyle and build an academic curriculum around the homosexual culture as if it's a distinctive and worthy culture to be studied," notes Reilly. "And that's obviously a serious concern for Catholics."

The Cardinal Newman Society is calling on DePaul president Thomas Holtschneider to drop the plan to host the pro-homosexual conference in October 2007. The CNS leader says Catholic educators like Holtschneider "must respond with aggressive efforts to restore an assumption of chastity among students, faculty, staff, administrators, and trustees" if they hope to overcome what Reilly describes as "an explosion of homosexual activity and activism" on Catholic campuses.

He cites such campus activities as "gay-straight clubs, drag shows, 'queer studies,' 'coming out' events" on campuses. Such activities, says Reilly, do not address the serious needs of students; and conferences like that scheduled at DePaul for next year pose a "real danger" to young men and women and should alarm and outrage Christian parents everywhere.

Reilly says Holtschneider needs to cancel the event if the administrator wants to uphold the school's Catholic identity.

"One would think that he would step in and insist that this is inappropriate in a Catholic institution," he says. "And beyond that, it's an inappropriate academic exercise," Reilly adds. "It's playing on the fringes of academic study, and it's not worthy of a reputable academic institution."

DePaul is the only Catholic institution in the country with a "Queer Studies" minor. However many other Catholic universities have "queer studies" courses that they hide under their Women's Studies and Gender Studies programs.

Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.

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