I wonder if that issue has arisen at Brebuf?
My Jesuit HS -- many years ago -- reportedly terminated a teacher who became a parent out of wedlock.
Mass weekly? I suspect finding enough teachers to staff a school would be tough if we truly applied the concept across the board. We all would be better off if we focused on Jesus’ focus of kindness and charity rather than on minutiae and details.
Everybody got what they wanted.
Supporters of the bishop got a prelate who enforced Catholic teaching.
Supporters of the school got to keep the teacher, the word "Jesuit" in the school's name, and they don't have to worry about getting nagged by the bishop anymore.
Win-win all around.
Nice to see some spine on this subject.
...union with the Catholic Church?
Separating Jesuits from the Church seems to generate a lot of applause from all sides. Looks like a win-win to me.
Perhaps the Jesuits believe they are doing the right thing, and therefore in conformance with the will of God for His Church.
If the persons entrusted with the governance of the Church decide to sever the relationship they may do so, of course. In the meantime, why would the Jesuits leave?
For those who support the school's refusal to fire the teacher is it because (a) you disagree with the Catholic teaching on homosexuality, (b) you disagree with the Catholic teaching on marriage, (c) you think adherence to Catholic teachings related to homosexuality and/or marriage should not be a requirement to teach at a Catholic school, or (d) some other reason?
I think it is a worthwhile topic.
I’m going to pass on the agree or disagree on Catholic marriage teaching section - I’m not close enough to God nor the theology to have an informed opinion, and God did not give me the Keys to the Kingdom. I accept the teaching.
I wish this (and a few other teachings on human sexuality) did not receive the emphasis that it seems to receive from some decision makers in the Church and, in turn, to wider audiences by media reports.
I don’t think this or other “behind closed doors” sexual sins (premarital sex, divorce, masturbation, etc) are likely to influence others off the path to salvation. Again, I’m not saying they are not sins - that’s not my call. But I think jeopardy to others from these is minimal to none, and the emphasis on sanctions such as job loss for it are more likely to cause a harmful repercussion of deterring other from the Catholic Church and the path to peace in Earth and eternal life in Heaven.
To borrow from the old story about the teacher with the jar and the rocks and stones (one retelling linked below, I think the Church is better off filling up people’s jar with the big rocks first before we worry about fitting in these little stones.
Should this make a school non-certifiable as Catholic? What makes the school Catholic?
Do my unrepentant sins today make me no longer Catholic? What have I done today to demonstrate that I am Catholic?
I’m more comfortable throwing stones at the Bishop or the school than to answer that last question for myself.
being in a marital situation that is totally opposed by the Church? In other words, would a divorced and civilly remarried teacher had issues?
I was public schooled so we didn't have these issues in Catechism/CCD back in the day. Or, we sure had no idea.
I would not have fired either way.
Considering that the Church has such a wonderful record of fine behavior these days in so many areas of morals and ethics. Snark intended.
But, I can see the marriage being more problematic than just the sexual status of the teacher.
It is OK to be gay, you just can’t engage in homosexual acts.
remarried marriage is, etc. I do know of teachers who were threatened with termination if they didn't cease living with a partner without being married and, in one instance, a teacher was told that she'd lose her job if she married her divorced boyfriend.
The Church had/has the problems to which I think you're referring precisely because certain priests--about 2%, nearly as I can tell--were molesting boys (80% were post-pubescent boys, so the problem was predatory homosexuality-) and at least some bishops said and did nothing. Saying nothing about this won't help anyone.
me that there is an actual Satan, and not some quaint abstraction.
That isn't to let anyone off the hook, because they cooperated. But it all makes sense now, after studying saints and seers going back through the years. You can see the complex plan starting to unfold over 100 years ago, and it has now crippled the Church in her other ministries.
.... heinously horrible institution such as the Catholic Church.
guy.
And he was always a joy to see. By the time I got to know him he was really old, but still sharp as a tack.
I remember going to see him right before he died. He was the first person I'd ever see 'on death's door.' It was terrifying.
I love my Jesuit high school.
It's interesting, by my unscientific survey, the people who don't like Jesuit schools seem to have one thing in common. They never attended Jesuit schools.
Quite a few of the Jesuit priests were ND fans. Of course, this was during the Davie era so Monday mornings were quite glum in my office.
It was a great place to work. If I could afford it, I would have sent Little Contrarian there for HS.
at some point in the future. Whether the issue is the same or not doesn't matter, but my view is that the more distance we can put between ND and the everyday church administrative structure, the better. The current hierarchy simply can't be trusted.
Formal canonical schism is nothing to celebrate.
Or at least a “good for them”?
If the heirarchy of the Church being full of assholes means that it invalidates centuries of Truth, then where are we. Either God built an institution to deliver His Truth, even if the individuals are flawed, or He didn't.
I have no problem if people don't agree with the Church on a host of issues, but at the end of the day, the Church has been more consistent in the teachings (not the actions mind you) than anything in human history. Sure we can abandon that, but to quote the great Mel Gibson movie.
"Why Should I Trade One Tyrant Three Thousand Miles Away For Three Thousand Tyrants One Mile Away"
I'm not convinced the other option is better.
It’s not like the Holy Cross Order or Society of Jesus have clean hands with any of this.
Hell the current Pope is a Jebbie.
I’m not sure why we should favor the Order hierarchy over the regular Church hierarchy.
Or the CSC, except in a roundabout manner, either.
place in the US for Catholic (church approved and financially supported) hospitals and schools.
Are they advancing the mission of (1) leading people to heaven or (2) caring for humanity where there is an unfilled need?
For the most part, I think the need is no longer there in the US and the resources would be better directed in other directions.
The Church is supposed to help form the culture, not shrug her shoulders at it. There has to be a place where those in K-12--and beyond--can go so they can learn not just math, science, etc. but also what's right and wrong. Parents can certainly use the help.
Parish schools, diocesan schools, Jesuit schools and schools run by the Sisters of Mercy.
I think the parishes could better educate the children with focused formation programs outside of the math, science, etc schools.
Or maybe not, given what passes for parish religious education programs after the dismantling of the old CCD system.
I'm not against the schools - I just don't know if the faith benefit is there for those which are not self-supporting.
But we will disagree when it comes to hospitals.
There are way too many rural locations where that is the only option.
I would say that is a need the Church is satisfying.
I intended my post more about redundancies.
Sometimes the only reason the Catholic Church can run a hospital in bumfuzzle location is because it's part of a system that includes metro areas that help keep the "lights on" at the small rural hospital.
I'll take my lumps for that one. Fire away.
The guilty deserve what they get (and more) but I feel bad for the good ones.
We do differ wildly though on the root cause of the problem and where to go from here.
We will disagree on a lot of this, as you say, but I can certainly respect your position.
Is there a need for after school programs for kids? Elderly care? Homeless?
Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, etc.
I'm embarrassed to admit I don't spend enough time in our community to know the needs, but I expect there are many.
EDIT - I also think paying to publish a diocesan newspaper is a financial waste as well. At a minimum stop printing and mailing paper copies.
Growing up in Pittsburgh, It was taken for granted that Catholics were the majority (or greatest of plurality) denomination and that almost every parish had an affiliated K-8 school. There were, I think, 6 or 7 Catholic HS in the immediate vicinity of Pittsburgh. The mergers didn't start to happen until after 2000 or so. "Susan from the Parish Council" everywhere. People show up to mass, but for the large part just go through the motions.
Moving to the South was an eye opener in terms of Catholicity. Now I'm in a distinct minority. I live near a city almost Pittsburgh sized, and while a few of the parishes close to the city have parish schools, the vast majority in the diocese do not. The diocese covers almost half the state, but the population is 1/10 of the diocese of Pittsburgh. Out in the suburbs and beyond is truly "mission territory" (I think we are still designated as such by the Holy See). The 2 closest parishes to me are 15 and 25 minutes, and there is one parish that serves 3 counties. The great irony is that EWTN headquarters is 15 minutes away. But the parishes themselves are vibrant and tight-knit. To be a Catholic down here among so many Baptists and other evangelicals, one really has to eat their Wheaties so to speak.
Anyway, sorry for the big background, but it's formed my minsdet. I am prepared for a large contraction, as then-Fr. Ratzinger stated in 1969: "From the crisis of today the Church of tomorrow will emerge — a Church that has lost much. She will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning. She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. As the number of her adherents diminishes, so it will lose many of her social privileges. In contrast to an earlier age, it will be seen much more as a voluntary society, entered only by free decision. As a small society, it will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members. Undoubtedly it will discover new forms of ministry and will ordain to the priesthood approved Christians who pursue some profession. In many smaller congregations or in self-contained social groups, pastoral care will normally be provided in this fashion. Along-side this, the full-time ministry of the priesthood will be indispensable as formerly. But in all of the changes at which one might guess, the Church will find her essence afresh and with full conviction in that which was always at her center: faith in the triune God, in Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man, in the presence of the Spirit until the end of the world."
Sorry for the wordiness, but it's a long-winded way of saying I somewhat agree with you. I'm ready for scaling-back.
This isn't the first homosexual teacher Brebeuf has ever had, it's just the first time a relationship was made public. But it didn't hinder their ability to teach us a) their subject and b) how to be "men and women for others."
Dictatorship of relativism. Pfft.
Sometimes it is.
You asked why they didn't take a stand. It's because the archdiocese never asked them to not renew the contract of a gay teacher before. This only happened because the relationship/marriage became public on social media. The diocese was forced to do something and the school was forced to respond.
I'm proud of our alma mater for taking this stand.
Nice to see an institution with some backbone.
I think this is a great decision by the school! Chairman of the board is a good friend and also an ND grad!
I think the archbishop is acting within his legitimate authority here and the Jesuits are in the wrong for not capitulating. But I also understand why they may not believe that the archbishop’s decision is a prudent one, giving the Jesuits the benefit of the doubt that their motive is the stated one and they are not underhandedly trying to undermine Church doctrine.
brought up a point in class regarding the Catholic Church. The professor came over to him and said emphatically, "This is not a Catholic university. This is a Jesuit university!"
That young man was ordained in 2016 as a Dominican priest.
for years.
I have a close friend who is a Jesuit priest who I watched openly confront a Georgetown undergrad tour guide he overheard saying something similar.
from Georgetown and speaks four languages (I can't remember if his dad went there). His bio says he worked as a lobbyist for the UN until he realized this wasn't the life for him.
For reasons not clear to me, he latched onto the Dominicans in Poland (he speaks at least Polish, Hebrew, French, and Italian) and spent years as a monk before eventually being ordained. He has spent many months in the past in Israel and loves that country but I don't know where he is at the moment.
I’ve also heard the version where the person transfers, drops out, becomes a nun, etc.
most of them openly so. It was great turning on "60 minutes" a few years after graduation to see all of it exposed.
of Jesuit seminarians over some period of time were (I don't know if it's still accurate) gay. It was in CNA or Crux or a similar outlet. That would be in line with your HS experience.
If you are a young, Catholic, homosexual man, you have two choices:
1) live your life in celibacy--either openly homosexual but fending off all possible loving relationships so that you can remain celibate, or closeted with everyone you know openly wondering if you are gay. Ultimately, it's a really lonely existence either way. Or
2) Join the priesthood, where you will have a brotherhood and a community to support you, and no one will question your celibacy.
it's really no wonder that so many priests are homosexual. The system is set up in such a way that it's really the only viable option for a homosexual man who wants to remain faithful to the Church.
With the overt negativity of your #1. Sex isn't water or food, and you can love without sex. They have come to find fulfilling platonic relationships with other men while not having to hide behind a sham heterosexual marriage.
Granted, it is hard, and I'm not discounting that people have had a difficult time in history, but it's easy to fall into the "if it feels good, do it" trap (though heterosexuals have our own problems there), but it can be done. The Courage apostolate (linked) is one of the main ones, but there are others.
My hope is that now that the taboo is gone, we can move on to it not seeming like a hopeless situation while at the same time be able to live lives faithful to Christ's teaching on marriage. But there will always be perversions of the law, of all kinds.
Edit: this post applies to both men and women.
“An Archbishop told a Jesuit school to fire a gay teacher. They said no.”
It is not inaccurate - the teacher is gay and the headline does not say he was fired because he is gay, but I think it does give the impression he was fired because he is gay.
Agree or disagree with the reason, one has to read until paragraph ten before finding what I believe to be the Archbishop’s reason (Trustees statement that school “respectfully declined the Archdiocese's insistence and directive that we dismiss a highly capable and qualified teacher due to the teacher being a spouse within a civilly recognized same-sex marriage.")
From the Catholic News Agency article (linked below):
The conflict between the school and the archdiocese began with an archdiocesan request that the contract of a teacher who is in a same-sex marriage not be renewed.
The school became aware of the teacher's same-sex marriage in the summer of 2017, according to a June 20 statement from Fr. Brian Paulson, SJ, head of the Jesuits' Midwest Province.
Paulson said the archdiocese requested “two years ago that Brebeuf Jesuit not renew this teacher’s contract because this teacher’s marital status does not conform to church doctrine.”
Same as it ever was.
I don’t think he is suggesting the school is acting like Satan, any more than Khan was acting like Satan.
The Bishop and the school each made their choices aware of the consequences. I expect both are disappointed in the outcome but also confident they made the right decision for what they see as their mission.
And that was the intended reference.
Not in the seeking the ruin of souls mission, though.
"I'd rather be boss of somewhere shitty than middle-management in someplace good" way.
That meaning doesn't actually track in this situation, of course.