A new organization which aims to persuade Catholics to support same-sex “marriage”—in part by targeting students at Catholic colleges and universities—was co-founded by employees of Georgetown University.

“Catholics for Equality represents outright rebellion—‘mutiny’ in the words of one of the group’s founders—in opposition to the U.S. bishops and Catholic doctrine,” wrote Patrick J. Reilly, President of The Cardinal Newman Society, in a letter yesterday to Georgetown President John DiGioia.

The Cardinal Newman Society is urging DiGioia to ensure that employees of the Catholic Jesuit university do not participate in the new dissident organization.

Rev. Joseph Palacios, Assistant Professor at Georgetown University’s Center for Latin American Studies, convened a meeting of 20 activists in January to found Catholics for Equality. Sivagami Subbaraman, Director of Georgetown’s LGBTQ Resource Center, was one of the founders. Others included representatives of Dignity USA, People for the American Way, Human Rights Campaign, New Ways Ministry and Catholics for Marriage Equality in Maine.

According to the website of Catholics for Equality, one of the group’s primary purposes is to seek legal recognition of homosexual “marriage” in opposition to the U.S. bishops.

On his blog at Bilerico.com, founding board member Rev. Anthony Adams describes the mission of Catholics for Equality as “a bit like mutiny”: “It is laced with the strong conviction that the bishops no longer speak for the Catholic Church and that the voices of the bishops are no longer the voices of Jesus Christ.”

Co-organizer Geoffrey Farrow was suspended from the priesthood by Bishop John Steinbock of Fresno, California, for publicly supporting same-sex “marriage.” On his blog, Farrow describes Catholics for Equality as “an organization that will give a public voice to the vast members of our Church who do not share all of the bishops’ political or theological positions.”

In his letter to DiGioa, Reilly cited Canon 810 of the Church’s Canon Law, which requires Catholic universities to hire professors who are “outstanding in their integrity of doctrine and probity of life.”

Georgetown University’s online biography of Father Palacios publicly identifies him as “a member of the Board of Directors of Catholics for Equality” and Political Co-Chair of the DC Steering Committee of the Human Rights Campaign. The priest actively lobbied for legalized homosexual “marriage” in Washington, D.C.

Subbaraman’s campus GLBT center claims to address gay and lesbian issues “consistent with Jesuit values and principles.”

“Core Jesuit values include fidelity to Catholic teaching and sharing in the special Jesuit vow of obedience to the Holy Father,” Reilly wrote. “Ms. Subbaraman’s role with Catholics for Equality compromises the center’s integration with the mission of a Catholic university.”