Fr. Z's Blog

Over at the Fishwrap (aka National Sodomitic Reporter) Jamie Manson (openly lesbian activist, promoter of women’s ordination, mentored by Sr. Margaret Farley, and darling of the LCWR), laments the Church’s teaching about homosexuality.

This piece is part of Fishwrap‘s incessant effort to undermine Catholic teaching concerning morals.  Thus, the nicknames.

Let’s have a look…

Catholic schools must refuse to fire LGBT employees [getting it wrong by one letter!]

It’s beginning to feel like every week brings a new story about the firing of an LGBT employee from a Catholic institution.

The most recent well-publicized termination happened earlier this month at Waldron Mercy Academy in Philadelphia. The school declined to renew the contract of Margie Winters, the school’s director of religious studies, when it came to light that she is in a same-sex marriage. [So… she wasn’t fired.  She just wasn’t rehired.]

Winters, who has been with the school for eight years, says her administrators were well aware that she was married to a woman. It wasn’t until two parents complained to the Philadelphia archdiocese that she was terminated. [Thus correcting a problem that had endured for 8 years.]

In the wake of Winters’ firing, many commentators have suggested that bishops and Catholic institutions need to show greater mercy and compassion in dealing with its lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees. [First, it must be demonstrated that bishops and Catholic institutions are not merciful and compassionate.  No?  We deny Jamie’s premise.]

Waldron Mercy did show sensitivity and acceptance of their lesbian employee. They kept Winters on staff and valued her contributions to the students and the school community. [See what she did there?  Mercy and compassion means saying, publicly, that the Church’s teachings make no difference.  Neither does public scandal.  No.  Mercy and compassion are always grounded in the truth.]

But once the complaint was made to the archdiocese, Waldron Mercy, like most Catholic institutions caught in a similar dilemma, felt forced to terminate their employee.

Winters’ story sheds light on an important and overlooked truth [Do you think that what will follow is “truth”?  Take a guess.]: Even a Catholic institution that strives to be inclusive and nurturing can’t protect an LGBT employee. [“Protect”? From what?  The truth?  But wait! …]As long as Roman Catholic doctrine teaches that same-sex relationships are sinful and a violation of God’s plan for humanity, LGBT employees will not be safe in their jobs in Catholic institutions.

[…]

Read the rest there… or don’t.

So, the answer is that the Catholic Church must conform its teachings to please homosexualists.

An ironic point comes a little further down when Jamie writes:

According to Canon 803 §3, “No school is to bear the name Catholic school without the consent of competent ecclesiastical authority.” That “competent ecclesiastical authority” is the bishop who presides over the diocese in which the school is located, even if a religious community sponsors the school.

A loss of canonical status would, of course, have financial repercussions, such as the loss of funding or even the loss of the school’s property. Even more tragically, it has sacramental consequences. It is unlikely that the Eucharist or the sacrament of reconciliation could be celebrated at the school, for example.

How rich is that?   This from the outlet which was explicitly directed by the bishop where Fishwrap‘s HQ is located to remove “Catholic from their title!  HERE

Someone should inform Jamie of Can. 216:

Can. 216 Since they participate in the mission of the Church, all the Christian faithful have the right to promote or sustain apostolic action even by their own undertakings, according to their own state and condition. Nevertheless, no undertaking is to claim the name Catholic without the consent of competent ecclesiastical authority.

They would be less hypocritical were they to change the name of their paper… so that I don’t have to do it for them.

Toward the end of her piece she offers a good example of why I call Fishwrap the National Schismatic Reporter.   Get this:

Why, then, not call the bishops’ bluffs? Imagine the pushback and negative press a bishop would get if he stripped a Catholic school of its identity for refusing to fire an LGBT employee. Imagine the momentum that could be built and the empowering precedent it could set for other schools facing the same turmoil.

Yes, the risks of disobeying a bishop are serious, but unless we as a community of women religious, Catholic school board members and administrators, parents and students, and progressive Catholics join together to say “no more” to these unjust doctrines and degrading firings, substantive change will not happen. [She and Fishwrap want not just change in administration of schools or hiring and firing practices.  They want revolt against the Church’s doctrine, which they label “unjust”.]

For the sake of the integrity of our church and the future of Catholic education, it is time to defy the threats and bullying, have the courage of our convictions, and refuse to perpetuate this injustice inside the walls of our Catholic schools.

They want people to revolt against their bishops.

I say, pray – everyone – on your knees, even making special visits to the Blessed Sacrament, and offering mortifications, that the whole body of Catholic bishops of these USA will someday develop the … wherewithal formally to direct Fishwrap to remove the word “Catholic” from its name.

In the meantime, you might pray to St. Joseph, patron of the diocese where Fishwrap’s offices are found, to help the conversion of all the writers and staff to orthodox Catholicism or else permanently to shutter their windows and doors.

St. Joseph, pray for us.

Dear St. Joseph, Terror of Demons and Protector of Holy Church, Chaste Guardian of Our Lord and His Mother, hear our urgent prayer and swiftly intercede with our Savior, whom as a loving father you defended so diligently, that He will pour abundant graces upon the staff of that organ of dissent the National catholic Reporter so that they will either embrace orthodox doctrine concerning faith and morals or that all their efforts will promptly fail and come to their just end. Amen.