It’s tough being Catholic on today’s college campuses.

Demands are made for priests to be fired for preaching Catholic doctrine, and some groups are too Catholic even for Catholic schools.

Now, Timothy Dionisopoulos of Campus Reform reports on one Illinois professor’s rant against the Pope and Christianity:

University of Illinois – Chicago (UIC) Prof. Lennard Davis, attacked newly elevated Pope Francis for blessing a disabled man, in an op-ed published in the Huffington Post on March 21, 2013.

In the op-ed titled “Pope Perpetuates Religious Prejudice by Blessing ‘Disabled Man,’” Davis, who is a professor of Disability and Human Development in the School of Applied Health Sciences at UIC,  criticized Pope Francis for stepping out of his vehicle to bless a disabled man while on the way to his coronation.

“Such religious cures may inspire some people, but in our age of disability activism and identity, there is something fundamentally wrong with seeing disability as in need of a cure — most particularly of seeing the new Pope forge his compassion-credentials on such an act,”  wrote Davis.

Davis also criticized the depiction of disabled individuals in the Old and New Testaments and claimed the Bible depicts disability as a “punishment from God.”

In the op-ed Davis mentioned that disability is constructed by society for “varied reasons” including the “eugenic need to glorify normality to the requirement of having a category of the deserving poor.”

Davis concluded the op-ed by calling on Pope Francis to stop “kissing and blessing people with disabilities” and to “open the clergy up to all kinds of people. Including priests with disabilities.”

Davis is also a professor of English at the University of Illinois Chicago.  He has published numerous books and articles regarding disability and their role within society.