They taught English, gym, music and fifth grade, and are typically described as “beloved” by their students.
But that didn’t stop the Catholic schools where they worked from
firing these teachers for their same-sex relationships, or, in one
woman’s case, for admitting that she privately disagreed with church
teaching on gay marriage.
A recent spate of sackings at Catholic institutions — about eight in
the past two years — is wrenching for dioceses and Catholic schools,
where some deem these decisions required and righteous, and others see
them as unnecessary and prejudicial.
“Your typical Catholic school does have a mission and asks their
teachers to be exemplars of what the schools are trying to do,” said
Richard Garnett, a University of Notre Dame law professor who writes
about religious freedom. “They’re trying to teach the church’s values
about sexual ethics and morality.”
While the Catholic Church’s catechism requires Catholics to treat
gays and lesbians with “respect” and “compassion,” it calls homosexual
acts a “grave depravity,” and the church has been unequivocal in its
rejection of gay marriage.
But among the signers of a petition to reinstate a gay teacher at St.
Lucy’s Priory High School in Glendora, Calif., are alumni who say their
school imparted other Catholic values that speak against the firing of
Ken Bencomo. The head of the English department lost his job after 17
years at St. Lucy’s, after photos of his wedding appeared in a local
newspaper.
“We all come from different backgrounds, different experiences, but I
think a lot of people will agree when I say St. Lucy’s taught us to
love each other and accept each other,” petitioner Allyssa DenDekker
wrote. “John 3:16 ‘For God so loved the WORLD…’”
It’s not news that gay teachers and other employees of Catholic
institutions lose their jobs over a same-sex relationship. Nor is it
news that priests have sometimes quietly resisted pressure to fire gay
employees. What’s different in recent years is a growing acceptance of
gay marriage among Catholics, and gay people’s increasing ability to
marry and unwillingness to hide their relationships.
The consequence, from a vocal swath of the laity, is a public
pushback against Catholic institutions that fire gay employees who get
married. Among the recent cases that rankled lay Catholics:
* Kristen Ostendorf, an English and religion teacher at Totino-Grace
High School in Fridley, Minn., for 18 years. She lost her job this
summer after acknowledging her lesbian relationship at a faculty
meeting.
* Trish Cameron, a fifth-grade teacher at St. Joseph’s Catholic School
in Moorhead, Minn., for 11 years. The school fired her in June 2012
after she told school officials that she supports gay marriage, though
she keeps her views out of the classroom.
* Al Fischer, who taught music at St. Ann Catholic School in St. Louis
for four years. St. Ann dismissed him in February 2012 after school
officials learned of his plans to marry another man.
This summer, dozens of former students rallied outside St. Lucy’s and
75,000 people signed the petition to reinstate Bencomo; petitions are
circulating in support of other teachers and lay leaders who faced
similar fates.
One on behalf of Carla Hale garnered 100,000 signatures. Hale taught
physical education at an Ohio Catholic school for 18 years and was fired
in March after her mother’s obituary disclosed that Hale had a female
partner. Hundreds of people called Bishop Watterson High School to
protest Hale’s termination.
Supporters of Fischer decried his firing in letters to the editor of
the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Bloggers railed against the termination of
Cameron.
Such firings — once the private affairs of Catholic schools,
whispered about in the teachers’ lounge — now air on the nightly news
and circulate on Facebook. Some progressive Catholics are hopeful that
the public activism will help the church conclude that employing a gay
person in a same-sex marriage comports with Catholic teaching.
“What we know, what everyone knows, Catholic and non-Catholic, is
that the younger generation is much more supportive of marriage equality
than older generations, which is the indicator that it is the future,”
said Frank DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, a
pro-gay Catholic group.
“I’m heartened by it not only because they’re young but because a lot
of them have discussed their support for the teacher in terms of
Catholic principles,” he said. “It’s a good case of the church hierarchy
undone by their highest ideals.”
But the precarious situation of gay Catholic schoolteachers who marry
is not likely to be undone soon, despite the laity’s support for gay
marriage and Pope Francis’ increasingly warm comments about gay people.
The reality is that when churches and church schools terminate
employees in same-sex relationships, they stand on firm legal ground.
Religious institutions have a right, grounded in the First Amendment, to
hire people who support their religious tenets and fire those who
don’t.
It’s not just religious institutions where gay peoples’ jobs are
vulnerable. Nationwide, 21 states and the District of Columbia prohibit
discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, with exemptions for
religious institutions. Elsewhere, it’s perfectly legal to fire someone
based on sexual orientation.
Still, bishops, priests and Catholic school principals are often
reluctant to publicly defend decisions to fire gay teachers who have
married. Those who do describe these decisions as painful but necessary.
After Hale lost her teaching job, Bishop Frederick Campbell spoke to
The Columbus Dispatch about why she had to go: It’s his responsibility
to maintain the Catholic identity of institutions he oversees, he said.
“We do this in an atmosphere of care, of calm consideration, but yet
out of the realization that at particular times we have to make
particular decisions,” Campbell said. “And they are difficult sometimes,
but they do flow from what we believe, who we are and how we are to
live.”
The Rev. Bill Kempf, pastor of the school from which music teacher
Fischer was fired, explained to The Associated Press that Fischer’s
union “opposes Roman Catholic teaching as it cannot realize the full
potential a marital relationship is meant to express.”
Marianne Duddy-Burke, executive director of DignityUSA, an
organization of gay, lesbian and transgender Catholics, hopes a
different religious argument will someday make it OK for a person in a
same-sex relationship to work openly in a Catholic school.
“The bishops’ hands are not tied,” she said. “You follow a man who
died on a cross. And you’re promised resurrection — that’s the hallmark
of our faith. If we can’t live that in our professional lives, how do we
dare call ourselves Catholic?”