The story about the Catholic school in the Diocese of Denver not allowing the children of a Lesbian couple to attend has certainly taken off in the media and of course raise a lot of protest from the homosexual community.
I certainly agree with Archbishop Charles J. Chaput who calls it a “painful situation.” Even when an action is taken correctly for the right reasons it does not prevent the suffering of those involved. As Archbishop Chaput also said:
“If parents don’t respect the beliefs of the Church, or live in a manner that openly rejects those beliefs, then partnering with those parents becomes very difficult, if not impossible.”
There is a comparable situation when it comes to the baptism of children. For example in Canon law:
Canon 868. For the licit baptism of an infant it is necessary that: … (2) there be a founded hope that the infant will be brought up in the Catholic religion; if such a hope is altogether lacking, the baptism is to be put off according to the prescriptions of particular law and the parents are to be informed of the reason.
While education is different from baptism there is some commonality and it is rather difficult in this sad situation that the children will receive the proper reinforcement of what the Church teaches generally and their living situation specifically denies part of what the Church teaches. There is also of course the scandal caused by such a situation that attempts to normalize a same-sex relationship as being equal to heterosexual marriage. It is very sad that the children are caught in the middle of this, but the same-sex couple raising them put them in this situation in the first place. Whether or not they understood what the policy was or the fact the the school would be actually faithful to Archdiocese policy is something we don’t know.
Fr. Breslin who made the decision comments are well worth reading in full.
This past week we implemented a policy that has been the most difficult decision of my life. The choice could have been made to do nothing and allow a lesbian couple to enroll their child in our Kindergarten. But that choice would have been against Archdiocesan policy; and when a priest is ordained he promises obedience to his bishop; and I cannot violate that vow; and I will not.
The choice before me was either to protect the beliefs of our faith or pretend nothing was happening. But our school, after all, is a Catholic school. And our reason for existence, both as a parish and as a Catholic school, is to make disciples of Jesus Christ. Being disciples of Jesus Christ is very demanding. Yes, being disciples entails adherence to the many examples of Jesus’ love: love one another as I have loved you; be not the first to throw a stone; judge not lest you be judged. Think of the Good Samaritan story and the Prodigal Son.
…
Society and way too many Catholic institutions have decided that “nothing was happening” and thus have ignored or even aided such situation. He goes on to talk about repentance and the sanctity of marriage. Though I would quibble with the following.
Would that I could wave a magic wand and make all of the present struggle disappear. I hate the fact that I had to make a choice between being loving and protecting the teachings of the church.
I would certainly argue that there is not a choice in this case between protecting the faith and loving those involved. Love is willing the good for the other and when you act for their good by not affirming something that is objectively grave sin you are in fact committing an act of love. Reminding someone that they are in fact sinning when it is down prudentially is an act of mercy. If he had ignored the situation he would not have not been loving them in any way. The culture, as it often does, gets things totally backwards. They call promoting same-sex relationships as good and any objection as hatred and homophobia. When you ignore sin calling it good it does not eliminate the effects of sin and does harm even with the most sincere motives. So often what is called sincere is really SINcere in that it affirms instead of rebuking sin.
One thing that has annoyed me in these stories is that in almost all of them they are called Lesbian “parents.” Well perhaps one of them is the biological parent, but the other is the person they are living with. Same-sex relationships by their very nature are not fruitful. It is easy to understand all of the confusion considering the state of heterosexual relationships concerning fornication, divorce, and adultery. Too often heterosexual couples try to make their relationships just as unfruitful as same-sex ones via contraception and abortion.
We should certainly pray for the children involved, the same-sex couple, those scandalized by the truth of what the Church teaches; along with Archbishop Chaput and Father Breslin who defended the truth.
Fr. Z’s comments on the story.
14 comments
I agree with you about the term “parents” being applied to same-sex couples. It really blurs the line between the one glaring difference between heterosexual fecundity and homosexual sex acts.
I’ve started using the term “parenting partners” for same-sex couples; it’s the term Canadians have started using in place of the word “parents” so as not to hurt those children who are being raised by daddy, daddy’s roommate, and the assorted other gentlemen who briefly enter and exit the child’s life (for example).
The Canadian schools would like to *replace* the term “parents” with this term. I say that those of us heterosexual couples who really are parents (biologically or by adoption) should insist on being called parents, and should also insist on using the term “parenting partners” for those situations in which a child has six or eight such “partners” (e.g., mom, other mom, biological dad, biological dad’s current wife, biological grandparents, other mom’s parents who insist on being called ‘Dottie and Chris,’ and so on).
I wonder if the same would or should apply to this situation: I know of a man who is civily divorced. He and and his wife were married in the Catholic Church. He now lives with the woman he had an affair with. His kids live with him for some odd reason not worth going into. He openly lives with this woman out of wedlock. Everyone knows the sitaution and yet his kids are allowed to go to the Parish School and better yet the priest allows this man to be a Eucharistic minister. I actually don’t see the difference in these situations. A man living in opposition to the Church teachings.
Kman,
I would say that that situation is very scandalous since adultery is also objectively gravely sinful. It is even more scandalous that the man is allowed to be a EMHC, that marriage is in effect being mocked and the teaching of Christ is being ignored.
In effect there is n difference in these situations and the later could be worse since the man is an EMHC in addition. It is the evil of divorce and subsequent adultery that has laid the trail in part for the acceptance of homosexual acts where the sexual act is removed from fecundity and only used for pleasure.
This smack of duplicity and encourages my satisfaction with leaving the Catholic Church after years of asking it to do something about my wife’s open adultery and acceptance of it by the Church in America.
The lover was welcomed through RCIA their children baptized and welcomed in Catholic educational facilities.
If only I was gay, then maybe the Church would’ve gotten involved on behalf of the “truth of Catholicism”.
It will always break my heart that I cannot be in union with the Church, but it is the only way for me as I see ever clearer the ugliness underneath the truth that is taught but is NOT practiced in anything other than for show.
By the way Jeff, I do THANK YOU for allowing my rants, from time to time.
You see, I do love the Catholic Church as I will always love the woman I married. Coping with their mutual infidelities has been the problem and my own personal battles with sin.
Karl,
your situation is indeed very regrettable and painful, but please do not confuse the Church (the Body of Christ) with some of its members who have acted or continue to act against Gods’ will, offedning Him and you.
The Church loves you as much as you love her. Don’t stay away, open up to God’s grace and allow his mercy to give you peace.
Don’t let your wife’s sins determine YOUR destiny. Do come back home.
It is a fair question posed: if the children of active homosexuals cannot be in the school, why can the children of parents who are known to be in an invalid marriage, why can the children of parents who refuse to go to Sunday Mass, why can the children of parents who work for PP ( I have known this to happen..not in my schools..but all the same) go to a Catholic school? Are not all of these groups in a state of mortal sin? Where does the line get drawn and will there be any hope of conversion or proper religious instruction for those children…or are they consigned to the lot of the unsalvageable? Just questions. But I am slow to fix a penalty on innocent children because of their parents’ sins. If we cast them aside, by what venue can we teach those children that what their parents are doing is wrong and not an example to be followed?
There is some legitimacy to the what-about-other-sinners? argument. As the bishop says:
Many of our schools also accept students of other faiths and no faith, and from single parent and divorced parent families. These students are always welcome so long as their parents support the Catholic mission of the school and do not offer a serious counter-witness to that mission in their actions.
So show me adulterers offering serious counter-witness, and yeah, I’ll support booting their children in addition to any canonical remedies for the parents if they are Catholic. The problem is as another pointed out–objective reality isn’t fair about these things. Same-sex couples are manifest in way that adulterers or tax cheats usually are not. Add the usual public vocal defiance, and there is your serious counter-witness in the one case not present in the other.
Another argument that comes up is why punish the child? Respecfully, the punishment is coming entirely from the “parents”. As I mentioned elsewhere, they might as well have strapped high-explosives to the child and sent her to school. One unforgettable moment from the book Black Hawk Down (it’s not in the movie) was a description of a Somali who had his children cling to him as he fired on the Rangers, the thought being that our soldiers would not be able to overcome moral qualms about firing back.
Other people ask, why are we so hung up on homosexuality when there are other issues? It is because we are at an unprecedented time in which the media, academia, and judiciary are enganged in a project to normalize homosexuality. The Church, as one of the few remaining holdouts, is going to come under direct assault because of this. I saw related another story about a homosexual who applied for a job at a Catholic Church for the express purpose of suing when he didn’t get it. This is how the assualt is going to happen–kamikaze style in a manner of speaking. And as the Denver case shows, the enemy isn’t above using innocent children as human shields to prey upon Catholics’ good but often misguided sense of fair play, and their general lack of clarity on this issue which thankfully, bishops like Chaput are providing.
Bah. Italics should have ended after the second paragraph. Sorry.
Among the problems here is that an innocent child, like it or not, in an adulterous relationship is the fruit of the violation of the sign of a sacrament. When that child is conceived TO SHOW the abandoned spouse how “serious” the abandoner is that they WILL NOT REPENT to repair the relationship that the Church itself “presumes” valid one must soberly view just what is going on.
A LIFE is being used by his or her parents to commit terrible sin as the ransom to show the”legitimacy” of adultery and boldly proclaim that it is “justified” even as the claim of being a “good Catholic” is simultaneously being put forth.
How can this method of conception NOT BE CONDEMNED as BARBARIC by a priest or by the Catholic Church? Such behavior reduces a precious life to a commodity. Yet, how many think of this to BEGIN to comprehend just how far morality has decayed, when I, for twenty years, can not get a priest to see what is going on here and be willing to go, if necessary, toe to toe with his bishop to defend, really, the use of a LIFE to EXCUSE adultery?
AND, what does it mean(what does it TEACH) when the Church states that such a child of adultery is VALID JUSTIFICATION, as is taught in a Vatican document involving then Cardinal Ratzinger and Pope JPII from 1994, to violate a valid marriage “for the good of such a child”, when that child was conceived to violate the marriage EXPRESSLY? AND this is known to the Church?
Friends, you have no idea of how perverse things have become among priests, bishops and adulterers. The lines are so blurred, due to the stark refusal of an endless array of clerics to even WANT to entertain what we who have been abandoned are faced with, ON A DAILY BASIS!
If such a circumstance does not fundamentally trouble anyone who calls themselves a Catholic and who reads this, ON MANY LEVELS, that person is in need of serious catechesis.
No bishop, for twenty years, none, is willing to confront what has gone on all this time. Nor is a single bishop interested in lifting a finger to attempt to heal a valid marriage. Not one of the bishops with direct jurisdiction. AND the Pope knows this as does Raymond Burke in Rome BUT nothing is done to address it and my witness of twenty years of asking for help And remaining faithful to our vows is MOCKED by ALL OF THESE MEN!.
Do you think that this case is the ONLY ONE or that it is the WORST? I think not!
I am deeply saddened for all children placed in such positions.
My personal sinfulness still contributes to all of this and it weighs very heavily upon me but I CANNOT make these men understand that it is IMPORTANT to do something for these situations, that is VASTLY DIFFERENT that openly tolerating the adulterous people who ARE DRIVING these situations and USING CHILDREN TO JUSTIFY ALL THEIR CRIMES.
I am sorry Jeff, but where the Hell are the theologians, canonist and priests who sit by a say nothing when they KNOW this type of garbage is rampant in the Catholic Church. And they know that their are faithful spouses who have begged the Catholic Church for years and years, only to watch the clergy encourage their valid marriages to be violated, for the good of the children?
WHAT ABOUT THE GOOD OF OUR FIVE CHILDREN?
How long must I go on fighting for visibility and for the POPE TO STOP TALKING AND ACT? He knows well what is going on. Do any of you think his remarks to the Rota were made in a vacuum?
Yes, it is a tragedy that an innocent child is a pawn. It is disgusting! But something must be done, AND THAT MUST NO LONGER BE CODDLING OR FALSE CHARITY AS IT HAS BEEN FOR ALL OF MY ADULT LIFE IN AMERICA, to stop people from using their CHILDREN as human shields to justify their behaviors.
The guilty ones are those who FORCE THESE SITUATIONS. The rest of us are THEIR VICTIMS who are trying to figure out what we can do that is best to bring about what is GOOD, especially for the most innocent, who are ALWAYS the children and those who can least defend themselves! ALWAYS!
One important difference between heterosexual couples living in sin and homosexual couples living in sin as it applies to registering school children would seem to be that the policy of most Catholic schools is to presume that the childens’ parents are a bona fide married couple, and that it would be outrageously invasive as well as cost-prohibitive for Catholic schools to undertake to perform background checks on the marital details of the various parents of the school children. The school assumes in good faith that when the names on the application are “John and Mary Smith” they are a validly married couple – why not? It sounds perfectly plausible – and let it go at that. But “Annette and Mary Smith” kind of raises a red flag that no Catholic school is going to be in a position to ignore. It would be inappropriate for schools to go delving into other parish records and chancery archives to examine whether various applicants are validly married in the eyes of the Church, but it wouldn’t take any delving at all to realize that there is no way that two men or two women are validly married in the eyes of the Church.
Catholic schools have better things to spend their money on than on snooping into their students’ parents’ marital histories. Except when it’s up in your face and you can’t ignore it, such as a same-sex couple, and then that gets their attention
Sorry to go off topic, but I have a message for Karl. Karl, will you do something for me? Will you pray to Saint Joan of Arc, who was found guilty by a court of English and Burgundian Catholic bishops of the crimes of heresy and witchcraft and was at their order, burnt to death at the stake. I want you to also recommend yourself to her mother, Isabelle, who is remembered for fighting to restore her daughter’s good name. Although she was over seventy years old Isabelle d’Arc addressed the assembly at Rome with a speech that began: “I had a daughter, born in legitimate marriage, whom I fortified worthily with the sacraments of baptism and confirmation and raised in the fear of God and respect for the tradition of the Church,” and ended, “. . . without any aid given to her innocence in a perfidious, violent, and iniquitous trial, without a shadow of right . . . they condemned her in a damnable and criminal fashion and made her die most cruelly by fire.” The appeals court overturned the conviction on July 7, 1456, and Joan was raised to the altars of the Church as a canonized saint in 1920.
Love and prayers in Our Lady and Saint Joan,
Marion
I will try to remember this of St Joan of Arc and I will try to do as you have suggested.
Tangential is not, really, off topic and sometimes leads to good things that not everyone knows.
Thank you.
Karl
But you are SCANDALOUSLY WRONG HERE:
Catholic schools have better things to spend their money on than on snooping into their students’ parents’ marital histories. Except when it’s up in your face and you can’t ignore it, such as a same-sex couple, and then that gets their attention
AND YOU SHOULD REPENT FOR IT RIGHT HERE IN PUBLIC.