Filipino Bishops Sharply Condemn Anti-LGBT Violence After Orlando Massacre

Members of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines

Bishops in the Philippines responded to the Orlando massacre by sharply condemning anti-LGBT violence..  Their statement joins other Catholic reactions to and reflections about the Orlando attack.

The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) released a statement, signed by Archbishop Socrates Villegas of Lingayen Dagupan, that immediately identified the shooting as a “hate crime.” The Conference continued, according to GMA Network:

“First, this was a hate-crime — the murder of persons because of disgust for their sexual orientation.  Bearing in the depth of his or her soul the image of the Creator, no human person should ever be the object of disgust. . .

“No matter that we may disapprove of the actions, decisions and choices of others, there is absolutely no reason to reject the person, no justification for cruelty, no reason for making outcasts of them. This is a project on which we, in the Philippines, must seriously embark for many are still forced to the peripheries because the norms of ‘decent society’ forbid association with them.”

Noting the Jubilee Year of Mercy called by Pope Francis, CBCP’s statement said that, “As important as it is to be right, it is far more important to be merciful!” They called for more dialogue, and for the government and all Christians to protect LGBT lives because the unity in Christ outweighs any differences. Their statement sharply contrasts with responses from many of their episcopal counterparts in the U.S. who failed to recognize the Orlando shooting as targeting LGBT people.

Terence Weldon, writing for Quest, a U.K. group for LGBT Catholics, also queried how Catholics can concretely respond, expanding the discussion to include the entire faithful:

“What are we to do, ourselves, to combat the homophobia that is is fostered within some sectors of the Catholic Church and its practice?

“We must never forget that ‘the Church’ is far, far more than just the bishops and priests, but includes all of us. When Catholic teaching tells us to oppose and condemn any form of violence or malice, in speech or in action, against homosexuals, that is a command to all of us, as individuals and collectively, as an organization. How have we responded up to now, to that command? How can we do so, in future? Is there room for improvement, in our response?”

One way the church has responded positively to the massacre in Orlando is through efforts by Catholic Charities of Central Florida to help victims and their families, reported the National Catholic Reporter. Catholic Charities has provided bilingual staff and pastoral care providers who have assisted with translation, immigration matters, burial arrangements, and counseling.

Frank Bruni

Frank Bruni, a columnist for The New York Times who is gay and Catholic, wrote that now is a time for solidarity with LGBT people. Bruni implored anti-LGBT politicians to act for solidarity, using words that could be equally applicable to the U.S. bishops, whom Bruni criticized in the column:

“Just show up. And by doing so, show that the absence of ‘gay’ or ‘L.G.B.T.’ in your statements immediately following the Orlando massacre. . .isn’t because you place us and our concerns behind some thick pane of glass with a Do Not Touch sign that stays up even when blood and tears pool beneath it. . .You want to show our enemies what America stands for? Then stand with us.”

John Freml, coordinator of the Equally Blessed Coalition, wrote in The State Journal-Register that in his Diocese of Springfield, Illinois, Bishop Thomas Paprocki had been silent thus far. Freml commented:

“The silence of our own bishop, and the refusal of other Catholic bishops to even name the LGBT community, not only contributes to the continuing invisibility and marginalization of LGBT people in our church, but it quite literally results in their deaths. I am baffled at how our bishops can call themselves ‘pro-life,’ when their actions have clearly demonstrated that they do not value all human life equally.”

In the Equally Blessed coaltion’s statement on Orlando, they noted:

“While we struggle against the forces of homophobia in our church and in our society, we must also remain steadfast in our opposition to racism, Islamophobia, and xenophobia in all its forms.”

 

LGBT Catholics Westminster Pastoral Council, an outreach effort by the diocese of Westminster (London), expressed their solidarity in a statement, recalling their own origins as a response to an episode of anti-LGBT violence:

“Having ourselves been born, as a worshiping community, out of the 1999 Admiral Duncan Soho bombing when three people were killed and 83 people injured, we know only too well that such violent attacks on our communities are never far away.

“LGBT targeted hate-crimes must be recognised for what they are: assaults on the precious dignity of each human being as ‘wonderfully created as God’s work of art’ (Psalm 139). We call upon religious leaders of all faith traditions to recognise the reality of the Orlando outrage. We specifically call upon our Catholic leaders to acknowledge how the language of some official documents on sexual orientation can, in fact, incite and support those who commit such violence.”

LGBT Catholics Westminster’s statement called on Pope Francis and the Vatican to respond with concrete actions combatting anti-LGBT violence and discrimination, including “support the global decriminalisation of homosexuality, with an end to the use of the death penalty and torture for LGBT people.”

Marianne Duddy-Burke

Marianne Duddy-Burke, executive director of DignityUSA, released a letter to Pope Francis about church leaders’ problematic responses. In the letter, which followed up the organization’s initial statement, Duddy-Burke wrote:

“To fail to explicitly acknowledge [victims’ LGBT identities] strips the victims, the survivors, the injured, the grieving of an essential component of their humanity. It sends a message to their loved ones and families that this part of their identity should not be named, affirmed, and celebrated as they are remembered.

“It also means that you and many other Catholic leaders have missed yet another important moment to explicitly and unequivocally condemn violence directed towards LGBT people. Vague references to ‘respect for the dignity of all people’ or other such phrases are sinfully inadequate, whether in response to the horror in Orlando, or when addressing the persecution faced by LGBT people anywhere in the world.”

Fr. Joseph McShane, president of Fordham University,  New York, affirmed in a statement that solidarity with communities affected by the massacre, including LGBT ones, was not only consistent with the University’s Jesuit and Catholic identities, but necessary because of these identities :

“As a Jesuit university (and hence a university whose entire life and mission is inspired by the Gospel and its challenge to live in love), Fordham joins people of good will around the world in ‎condemning the Orlando attack. In addition, however (and precisely because of our Jesuit identity), the University offers its heartfelt support to the LGBT and Latino communities both on campus and throughout the country. It also offers its equally heartfelt prayers to the families and friends of those who died so senselessly on Sunday morning.”

 

To read Bondings 2.0‘s full coverage of the Orlando massacre and Catholic responses to it, please click here.

–Bob Shine, New Ways Ministry

“With All Families, Without Condemnation” (And More Synod Reactions)

Frank Bruni

“With All Families, Without Condemnation.” That was the headline last Sunday on Italy’s national Catholic newspaper, a further sign for many that this two-year synod process commenced a new moment in the church. Not all agree, though. Below, Bondings 2.0 provides more reactions to the Synod on the Family.

Frank Bruni, openly gay columnist for The New York Times asked an important question for those  who have closely followed the Synod’s happenings, analyzing each development and commenting on every statement: “Are most Catholics even paying attention?” While those in the media follow developments closely:

“People in the pews are less rapt. The warmth and respect they feel for the current pope doesn’t translate into any obeisance to church edict.”

Polling confirms what many Catholics know anecdotally, that wide rifts exist between official teaching and Catholics’ lived realities. Church leaders, according to Bruni, “see family in terms that are much too narrow and having a conversation that’s much too small” because they are “more interested in dictating the parameters of sex than in celebrating the boundlessness of love.”

Indeed, while some condemn contemporary family configurations as devaluing traditional morality, the columnist says the truth about reality is “more complicated and less somber than that.” Developments in family life are products of feminist and LGBT movements, which have lifted up marginalized and even abused communities to places of greater dignity and freedom. Bruni said that is all “change we should build on:

“Most of us understand, in a way we once didn’t, that there are men who will never know full romantic and sexual love with a woman, and there are women who will never experience that with a man.

“Was society better off when we denied that and trapped gay and lesbian people in heterosexual marriages that brought joy to neither spouse and were constructed on a lie? Did society benefit from marginalizing gay and lesbian people?

“Those are rhetorical questions. Or at least they should be.”

He holds up families who choose to be family, considered nontraditional by some, but in his estimation quite impressive:

“I saw this happen time and again in the 1980s and early 1990s, when AIDS ravaged gay America and many sufferers found themselves abandoned by relatives, whose religions prodded them toward judgment instead of compassion. Friends filled that gap, rushing in as saviors, stepping up as providers, signing on as protectors. Where families were absent, families were born.”

James Martin, SJ

Jesuit Fr. James Martin identified some of they synod’s larger themes, such as discernment and conscience, enlivened by the bishops’ endorsement. He told the Salt Lake Tribune, “relies on the idea that God can deal directly with us, through our inner lives. It is another encouragement to remind people, especially remarried Catholics, that an informed conscience is, as the church has always taught, the final moral arbiter.”

Martin also released a video (which you can watch below on America’s website explaining his key insights from the synod, such as:

“On LGBT issues, again the synod changed no doctrine, but it reminded Catholics of the need to respect the human dignity of LBGT people and, also, to have special care for families with LGBT members. That may not sound like much of a change, but it challenges Catholics in countries where respect and care for LGBT people are not as common.”

In a a CNN essay, he defended change in the church, saying those fearful of reform and of renewal may have conflated dogma, doctrine, and practice. Or perhaps they adhere foremost to a “crushing sense of legalism,” or even “a hatred of LGBT Catholics that masks itself as a concern for their souls.”

Grant Gallicho

Grant Gallicho of Commonweal said the synod “punted” on homosexuality, highlighting Bishop Johan Bonny’s inability to even raise the issue in his small group led by the cardinal who compared LGBT activists to Nazis. But there is hope, for Gallicho wrote: “[T]his listening synod, if it is to be true to the stirring vision of the pope who established it, can never truly come to an end. It is only the beginning.” Commonweal’s editorial echoed this idea, stating:

“In that regard, the real achievement of the synod has been the reinvigoration of the synodal process itself, one in which bishops feel free to speak their minds, to disagree with one another, and even to explore the possibility that reform is essential to the church’s evangelical mission.”

Future synod’s must include more voices within the church it said, given that some bishops like Chicago’s Archbishop Blase Cupich admitted this Synod would have benefited from input by LGBT people. One emerging issue is transgender inclusion, a topic absent from this synod altogether. Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, commented to The Advocate about “gender ideology” condemnations in the final report:

” ‘The remarks show that the bishops do not understand the transgender experience or how people experience their gender identity, which is often received as a spiritual, life-giving revelation.’ “

These reflections are just the first fruits of many more commentaries and reflections to come, worthwhile both for analyzing ecclesial happenings and, like with Frank Bruni’s column, spiritual nourishment as well. You can find Bondings 2.0‘s first reaction round-up by clicking here. For Bondings 2.0‘s full coverage of the 2015 Synod on the Family, click here.

–Bob Shine, New Ways Ministry

On Religious Freedom Day, Protecting Liberty and Justice for All

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Today is Religious Freedom Day, a time set aside to honor one of the United States’  most cherished value: the right to worship God as one sees fit.   January 16th was selected for this commemoration because it it is the anniversary of the Virginia General Assembly’s adoption of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom in 1786, which became the basis for the U.S. Constitution’s freedom of religion clause in the first amendment.

For Catholics who support LGBT equality, religious freedom is an important issue because it is often used by Church leaders to oppose marriage equality and other laws that would require that LGBT people be treated as everyone else.  Conservative church leaders use religious freedom as a way to try to shield themselves from being required to comply with laws that they say their faith says they cannot obey.

I am a strong supporter of religious freedom.  I believe government should not force churches to act against their principles.  I believe that individuals should be able to live out their faith as they see fit.  However, I don’t believe that this freedom should be allowed to harm other people in the wider society, or worse, to deny others the opportunity to freely practice their faith. There is also a grave danger that the misuse of religious freedom can do serious harm to the concept itself.

For example, in a New York Times column, Frank Bruni points out that religious freedom is currently being used as an excuse to discriminate against LGBT people–the same way that it has been used against racial minorities:

“As these lamentations about religious liberty get tossed around, it’s worth remembering that racists have used the same argument to try to perpetuate segregation. [A.C.L.U. lawyer James] Esseks noted that even after the Civil Rights Act, the owner of the Piggie Park restaurant chain in South Carolina maintained that he could refuse to serve black people because his religion forbade the mixing of races. The courts were unimpressed.”

Yet, last year’s Supreme Court decision in the Hobby Lobby case paved the way for non-religious institutions like the Piggie Park restaurant chain to claim a religious exemption if those who run the institution have deeply held religious beliefs.

Bruni points out what is wrong with that kind of thinking:

“. . . [I]n a country that’s not supposed to promote any one religion over others, we do precisely that.

“Would we be content to let a Muslim store owner who believes that a woman should always cover her hair refuse service to women who do not? Or a Mormon hairdresser who spurns coffee to turn away clients who saunter in with frappuccinos?

“I doubt it. So why should a merchant whose version of Christianity condemns homosexuality get to exile gays and lesbians?

“Baking a cake, arranging roses, running an inn: These aren’t religious acts, certainly not if the establishments aren’t religious enclaves and are doing business with (and even dependent on) the general public.

“Their owners are routinely interacting with customers who behave in ways they deem sinful. They don’t get to single out one group of supposed sinners. If they’re allowed to, who’s to say they’ll stop at that group?”

While the expansion of religious freedom to non-religious institutions and activities is one danger, another similar danger is the expansion of the “ministerial exception.”  While this provision allows churches the freedom for clergy to be exempted from certain laws, there has been a movement to expand the idea of who is “ministerial.”  One only has to think of the tragic case of a gay food service director denied employment at a Catholic school because he was married to a man to see the problem with this type of expansion.

Open Doors’ map of Christian persecution world-wide.

A main problem with the way that conservatives are playing the concept of religious freedom is not only the damage it can do to LGBT people and other minorities, but that those who truly face persecution because of religious belief are overlooked.  Religion News Service recently described  a report by an organization called Open Doors USA which monitors persecution of Christians around the world.  They cited 50 nations around the globe which are categorized into places of “Extreme Persecution,” “Severe Persecution,” “Moderate Persecution,” “Sparse Persecution.”  The United States is not even on the list.  No European nation is either.  Or any Latin American country.  In short, the places on the globe where marriage equality has been established do not even register on the Christian persecution scale.

Bruni illustrated how claims to Christian persecution here in the U.S. are deceptive and false:

“Christian fundamentalists in this country are practiced at claiming marginalization and oppression. ‘They’re always saying they’re kept out of the public square, and that’s baloney,’ said Marci Hamilton, a constitutional law expert and the author of  ‘God vs. the Gavel.’ ‘They’re all over the public square.’

“They and their churches inject themselves into political debates while enjoying tax-exempt status. They get public support in questionable circumstances. After a student Christian magazine insisted on its right to funds from the University of Virginia, the Supreme Court decided in 1995 that if a nonreligious publication got financial help from a public school, so must a religious publication, even if it’s proselytizing.”

Pope Francis receives a shawl from Sri Lankan Hindu priest Kurakkal Somasundaram.

Pope Francis, in his recent visit to Sri Lanka, made an impassioned call for religious freedom during one of his homilies.  The National Catholic Reporter quoted him:

“Religious freedom is a fundamental human right. Each individual must be free, alone or in association with others, to seek the truth, and to openly express his or her religious convictions, free from intimidation and external compulsion.”

Francis continued on the theme with a message that I think sums up my own views of religious freedom, and which challenges those who try to use religious freedom as a weapon to discriminate:

“Genuine worship of God bears fruit not in discrimination, hatred and violence, but in respect for the sacredness of life, respect for the dignity and freedom of others, and loving commitment to the welfare of all.”

New Ways Ministry is a member of the Coalition for Liberty and Justice, a group of religious, political, and legal organizations which work together to make sure that religious freedom is enacted in a way which honors all people.

–Francis DeBernardo, New Ways Ministry

In Minnesota and Montana Dismissals, Hypocrisy Abounds

Jamie Moore

The music director at St Victoria parish in Victoria, Minnesota, has resigned after marrying his husband last weekend, and the resignation was ordered by embattled Archbishop John Nienstedt. But as LGBT-related employment disputes top twenty in 2014 alone, are these firings and resignations making it more difficult for LGBT people and allies to remain Catholic in any capacity?

The church’s pastor, Fr. Bob White, wrote to parishioners explaining that upon hearing their music director, Jamie Moore, had entered into a same-gender marriage, the archbishop demanded his resignation and Moore complied. White added that Moore would “be sorely missed…we wish him every happiness.” The pastor said he would address the situation from a “pastoral perspective” during upcoming weekend Masses.

Nienstedt released his own statement, citing a document unusually titled “Justice in Employment” which allows church workers to be fired immediately for public conduct inconsistent with Catholic teaching. The archbishop added that his role was to make “painful and difficult” decisions to uphold Christian values.

However, St. Victoria parishioners do not quite see the archbishop’s actions in keeping with Christ’s message. Some compared this incident to the firing of Kristen Ostendorf, a lesbian teacher, from a Minnesota Cathoilc high school last year. Others like Chub Schmeig criticized the action outright, telling Fox 9 News:

” ‘I believe the church has more serious problems to be concerned with than whether a gay or lesbian person is in the church…It has lots of other issues to handle first.’ “

What might those problems be for Minnesota Catholics? Archbishop Nienstedt, a leading anti-LGBT bishop in the US, is facing increasing calls for his own resignation over his mishandling of clergy abuse that included moving a priest convicted of sexual abuse and offering secret payments to priests who admitted to the sexual abuse of children. As far as LGBT issues are concerned, Nienstedt has called marriage equality the “work of Satan” and spent tremendous resources mailing more than 400,000 DVDs during Minnesota’s debate on that matter. He has also been accused of making sexual advances on priests and seminarians, charges which he denied this summer.

And what to make of this situation, where an archbishop under pressure to resign personally forces a gay musician out? Two prominent gay Catholic writers, Frank Bruni and Andrew Sullivan, are tackling this question in the wake of so many LGBT-related employment disputes with church workers. Writing in his column for the New York Times, Bruni recalls the recent Communion denial and dismissal from volunteer services of two longtime gay parishioners in Montana, Tom Wojtowick and Paul Huff, who quietly were married. He continues:

“Such punishment has befallen many employees of Catholic schools or congregations since the legalization of same-sex marriage in many states allowed them civil weddings. Teachers long known to be gay are suddenly exiled for being gay and married, which is apparently too much commitment and accountability for the church to abide. Honesty equals expulsion. ‘I do’ means you’re done…

“The Catholic Church does incalculable good, providing immeasurable comfort — material as well as spiritual — to so many. But it contradicts and undercuts that mission when it fails to recognize what more and more parishioners do: that gay people deserve the same dignity as everyone else, certainly not what happened to the Montana couple. If Francis and his successors don’t get this right, all his other bits of progress and pretty words will be for naught.”

Andrew Sullivan of The Dish writes about how these incidents have shifted his thinking about being gay and Catholic, moving from a minor blemish amid much greater goodness to a “defining wound…[that] may slowly wreck the whole church.” Writing about the Montana couple, Sullivan says:

“It’s kinda hard to portray these two as some kind of subversive force…And the action against the men came not because they are gay but because they decided to celebrate their love and friendship with a civil marriage license. So they’re not really being targeted for sex; they are being targeted for their commitment and responsibility and honesty. And the only reason they have been excluded on those grounds is because they are gay.”

“If the church upholds this kind of decision, it is endorsing cruelty, discrimination and exclusion. Pope Francis’ view is that this is exactly the kind of thing that requires the church to exercise mercy not rigidity. But allowing a married gay couple to sing in the choir as an act of ‘mercy’ would merely further expose the fragility of the church’s thirteenth century views of human sexuality. It would put the lie to the otherness of gay people; to the notion that it is essential or even possible for a tiny minority to live entirely without intimacy or love or commitment. It also reveals that gay men have long been a part of the church – and tolerated, as long as they lied about their lives and gave others plausible deniability with respect to their sexual orientation. It is an endorsement of dishonesty.”

Sullivan goes on to point out that these dismissals and firings are inconsistent with Catholic moral teachings on compassion, mercy, inclusion, and fairness — and that young Catholics view this “as barbaric and inhuman.” He concludes:

“There is only so much inhumanity that a church can be seen to represent before its own members lose faith in it. I recall the feelings of my own niece and nephew who lost a huge amount of respect for the church when they heard a homily denouncing the civil marriage of their own uncle. I notice the outcry among Catholic high school students when a teacher was fired for the very same reason. When a church responds to an act of love and commitment not by celebration but by ostracism, it is not just attacking a couple’s human dignity; it is also attacking itself.”

One final note is that Sullivan captures the hypocrisy in these situations perfectly when he writes: “Yes, the church is now in favor of divorce as a condition for being a Catholic!”  (Divorce is required of the Montana couple to be allowed to return to communion.) Indeed, there is neither logic nor just cause for these dismissals.

As Pope Francis calls for greater mercy and his top US adviser, Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley, says these employment disputes “need to be rectified,” the hypocrisy inherent in denying Communion to LGBT people or forcing church workers out for their sexual orientation, marital status, or personal views only becomes more fully on display. I reiterate the prediction of former San Francisco Catholic Charities director Brian Cahill that these disputes will cause the church to become a ‘shrinking cult.’

For the sake of LGBT Catholics, their allies, and the good of the whole church, let us pray and act so this hypocrisy will end.  Please consider beginning a discussion in your parish to enact employment non-discrimination policies.  You can find out how to do that by clicking here.

–Bob Shine, New Ways Ministry

As Another Lesbian Church Employee Is Fired, Catholicism Continues to Diminish

In the same week that Catholics in Cincinnati are protesting new teacher contracts which prohibit employees from supporting LGBT issues, another lesbian employee has been fired from her employment as coordinator of social ministries at St. Francis Xavier parish, Kansas City, Missouri.

Colleen Simon at work in the St. Francis Xavier parish food pantry.

Colleen Simon is married to Rev. Donna Simon, a Lutheran pastor, and their marriage became public when the couple were mentioned in a local magazine article, according to Kansas City Star columnist Mary Sanchez.

Ms. Simon is a former Catholic and now a Lutheran.  The newspaper columnist reported that she maintained a low profile about her marriage at the parish:

“Colleen Simon kept a don’t-ask, don’t-flaunt attitude. She said she told the pastor who hired her in July 2013 (he is no longer at the parish) of her marriage. But day to day, she avoided pronouns that would highlight it, substituting ‘my spouse’ or ‘my beloved.’

“ ‘You don’t want your legacy to be one of division and ugliness,’ she said. ‘It’s awful. But there are laws, and until that law gets changed in the church, it is what it is.’ ”

Sadly, the 58-year old woman, who is three years cancer-free from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, now has no health insurance and a remaining pile of healthcare bills.

Firings such as this one highlight that, despite Pope Francis’ admonition not to be “obsessed” with gay marriage, some church officials persist in this regard.   Why are they so willing to raise church teachings about sexuality so high above other church teachings on the importance and dignity of work, the care for the vulnerable and the sick, the respect for the human conscience?   Why isn’t support for laws which seriously threaten the lives and dignity of LGBT people, such as the new law in Uganda, a cause for dismissal.  Or, closer to home, support for the death penalty or anti-immigrant policies?

One Cincinnati commentator has tried to frame the situation as a debate between secular culture (which is pro-gay) and Catholic teaching (which is negative on gay issues), but this is not the case.  The real issue is that some church leaders see teachings about sex as the only ones that matter.

For example, the quality of education will probably decline in schools which fire LGBT teachers or adopt new contract clauses which are anti-gay.  In Oakland, California, which this week became the latest diocese to institute new contract clauses about sexuality, one school department head predicts a talent drain from his faculty.  SFGate.com reports:

Tim Newman, who has taught science at Bishop O’Dowd High School in Oakland for 23 years, says some of his colleagues won’t sign a contract forcing them to be disingenuous. Others worry the contract gives the diocese a reason to discipline them for actions outside the classroom.

“I will lose good teachers in my department,” he said.

Huffington Post columnist Charles Reid agrees that intellectual quality will diminish if such policies continue to reign.  He laments the fact that Catholic schools no longer probe into questions, and instead, concern themselves with culture war issues.  Reid states:

“Catholic schools were once places where such questions could be openly pursued. But a culture war is ravaging the Catholic primary and secondary school systems of the United States, and as I survey the scene I am increasingly convinced that these skirmishes represent an actual threat to the health and integrity of Catholic schools.

“In saying this, I have in mind particularly the schools of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. For what has happened in Cincinnati is absolutely tragic.”

And beyond schools, the entire church stands to suffer.  He offers Cincinnati as an example:

“Just as sadly, the health of the Catholic Church in Cincinnati has been in a downward spiral since Archbishop Schnurr assumed office. Consider some statistics: In 2008, the year he became coadjutor, there were 6,362 infant baptisms. In 2013, there 5,523 such baptisms, a decline of 13.20 percent. In 2008, there were 7,534 First Holy Communicants in the Cincinnati Archdiocese. And in 2013, there were 6,686, a decline of 11.25 percent. At the same time, overall population in the Archdiocese inched upward from around 2,988,000 to around 3,000,000. And these numbers do not yet reflect the impact of the recent, entirely unnecessary struggle over the future of Catholic education in the Archdiocese. One hopes it is not too late revise that contractual language.”

The new, restrictive contract clauses have caught the attention of New York Times columnist Frank Bruni, who notes that though Pope Francis seems to be offering change, local bishops seem to be maintaining an oppressive status quo.  Bruni quips:

“The more things change, the more they remain mired in libido and loins.”

Bruni highlights that the new clauses erase a long-standing tradition in Catholic schools:

“Faithful Catholicism has never been a condition of employment in most Catholic schools, which have Protestant teachers, Jewish teachers, teachers of no discernible religion. They know to be respectful. They know to be discreet. But they’re there to decipher the mysteries of algebra, to eradicate the evils of dangling prepositions. They’re not priests.”

And instead of clarifying things, the new clauses make for a more perplexing future. Cincinnati teachers are confused about potential legal problems, Bruni observes:

“They wondered why religion gets to trump free speech.

“They also wondered about run-of-the-mill political activity: Can a teacher be canned for attending a rally for a candidate who’s pro-choice? The contract suggests so.

“Does a Catholic-school teacher relinquish the basic privileges of citizenship? The contract raises the question.

“And what constitutes ‘public support’ of a Catholic no-no? If a teacher’s Facebook page includes photographs of her niece’s same-sex wedding, is that cause to be fired?”

Like Newman and Reid cited above, Bruni sees that the damage these policies will cause spreads far beyond the individual educators harmed:

“There are so many losers here: kids — many from the inner city — who depend on parochial schools that will now be drained of talent; younger teachers who can’t afford to quit and will carry an embittered attitude into their classrooms; Catholics everywhere, forced to wrestle anew with their church’s archaic fixations; church leaders, who have such a sad knack for driving people away. Isn’t that what Pope Francis was urging an end to?”

If these firings show anything, they show that the decades-long practice of obstinately refusing to acknowledge the presence of healthy and holy LGBT people in church communities and institutions is now causing havoc in dioceses.  Pope Francis has shown a way out of these problems, if local bishops would only pay attention.

(New Ways Ministry continues to urge Catholics to begin conversations towards adopting non-discrimination policies in their parishes and schools, as a way to prevent firings.  At the very least, such conversations will let Catholic leaders know that lay people do not want LGBT people and their supporters fired.)

–Francis DeBernardo, New Ways Ministry