Quote of the Day

It is time for us to encourage school leaders, both religious and lay, to refuse to comply with demands [by bishops] that they fire LGBT employees.

Many Catholic schools were founded by women religious. The sisters have a remarkable history of protesting nuclear weapons, racial injustice, income inequality, prison conditions, human trafficking, the death penalty and environmental degradation.

With such a legacy behind them, why would Catholic schools willingly participate in the radical injustice of terminating the vocations of its devoted LGBT employees and subject them to such financial instability and deep humiliation?

Most Catholic schools seem to have a clear advantage over the bishops. The laity has far more respect for women religious than they do for the hierarchy. The majority of Catholics in the United States strongly support the rights of LGBT people. And more than enough Catholic theologians and ethicists have argued cogently for the full inclusion and equality of LGBT people in the church.

Why, then, not call the bishops' bluffs? Imagine the pushback and negative press a bishop would get if he stripped a Catholic school of its identity for refusing to fire an LGBT employee. Imagine the momentum that could be built and the empowering precedent it could set for other schools facing the same turmoil.

– Jamie L. Manson
Excerpted from "Catholic Schools Must Refuse
to Fire LGBT Employees"
National Catholic Reporter
July 29, 2015

Related Off-site Link:
Sister of Mercy Joins Parents in Protests Against Firing of Lesbian Educator – Bob Shine (Bondings 2.0, July 24, 2015).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Thoughts on the Firing of Kristen Ostendorf
• Quote of the Day – September 2, 2013
• Truth Telling: The Greatest of Sins in a Dysfunctional Church
• Church Fires "Openly" Gay Music Director
• Compassion, Christian Community, and Homosexuality
• Catholic Church Can Overcome Fear of LGBT People

Image: Kristen Solberg.