A Pennsylvania College professor is out of a job.
Father James St. George says he was fully
vetted when he was hired to teach at Chestnut Hill College, a private
Roman Catholic institution in Pennsylvania.
But the schools says that
they did not know he was gay, and has since let him go.
Now Father St. George is wondering whether a letter from a local lawyer may have done him in.
Father St. George doesn't exactly hide the fact that he's gay. But he says he never brings it up in class.
"My sexuality has never come up. I've never once said i'm gay," MyFoxPhilly reports.
Father St. George is part of the Old
Catholic Church Of The Americas, a faction that broke away from the
Vatican back in 1870. In his church, priests are allowed to marry and be
gay.
A quick Google
search when the college hired him would have revealed that, but the
college said in a statement, "it was with great disappointment when we
learned through St. George's public statements of his involvement in a
gay relationship with another man for the past 15 years."
The college never spoke to Father St. George, he says, they sent a letter, and then refused to take his calls.
His firing coincides with an email sent to
Philadelphia Cardinal Justin Rigali and the college from James Pepper, a
local lawyer who called the priest a "heretic."
"I serve as a trauma chaplain, I help broken
people. I run a parish, a small parish in Blue Bell, take care of
people who have no hope. I teach kids how to become better adults,"
Father St. George said.
"A school that is supposed to teach religious understanding is not even being tolerant."
The statement from Chestnut Hill College arrived after our interview with Father St. George.
We received this response from him: He says the college president is
"completely wrong and they have known all about me from the first day."
Father St. George went on to say that to
"openly admit hatred and anti-gay bias is deplorable, and I continue to
be very sad that such hatred exists."