I’m sure most of my readers have not heard about this, but there is a HUGE controversy brewing regarding Loretto high school in Sacramento. It started when Loretto hired a pro-abortion teacher who had been volunteering at Planned Parenthood as an escort (the people who go out into the parking lot to shield customers from protestors) up through this summer. Two months later, the school fired the teacher at the direction of the bishop. It later came out that a family with a student at Loretto, recognized her from various protests at the clinic. After escalating the issue from the teacher to to the school, they finally escalated the issue to the bishop, resulting in the firing. As if this didn’t make for enough controversy, the school has now expelled the student who’s family was responsible.

I had refrained from commenting on the topic before now because I was conflicted on a number of issues. First of all, I strongly stand for the bishops right to fire this teacher for her non-work-related support of Planned Parenthood. Catholic schools have a right to ensure the moral character of their employees and students reflect the beliefs of the Church. That said, I’m not so sure it was the RIGHT decision for the bishop to do that. From what little information has been circulated, the bishop never talked with the teacher (or had a representative do it) to determine what the teachers perspective was to determine if indeed she needed to be fired. Also, I wasn’t sure what the schools actual perspective on the subject was. Maybe after learning this they had intended to release the teacher at the end of the year. Or maybe they had a discussion with the teacher telling her what was expected of her including no longer volunteering at Planned Parenthood and not condoning abortion in the classroom.

But now that the student has been expelled, I’m more confident that the right thing was done by firing the teacher. It is clear that the school has no sympathy for the student and her family. There argument that the family “attacked” the school is pretty clearly hogwash unless you want to define “attacked” as going over their heads and asking the bishop to take action. This is particularly true since the family has been in contact with the school over the issue for two months now and it was not until the bishop stepped in that the student was expelled. Pure and simple, they’re angry that the family went over their heads. Furthermore, the language in their letter makes it pretty clear they have no sympathy for the family which leads me to believe that they do not seem to care about upholding the faith, at least on this issue.

You can be sure I’ll be writing a letter to the bishop asking him to reconsider taking further action against the school for expelling the student including the dismissal of the president and principle of the school if they refuse to properly justify the expulsion or repent and re-admit her to the school.

Finally, if you want the whole enchilada, you can go to the students blog. Her blog has become a lightning rod for both sides with much animosity and non-Christian behavior on both sides. Katelyn on the other hand has remained forthright and calm, refusing to take the bait that many (she averages a few hundred comments per post these days) throw her way.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 2nd, 2005 at 11:30 am and is filed under Catholicism, Catholicism - Morals, Catholicism - Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.