Thumb's Down: Mass. Church To Help Find School For Gays' Son

[rhetoricfemme]

[quote name='peregrinus_WA' date='16 May 2010 - 01:14 PM' timestamp='1274030054' post='2111460']
I see this as an agenda driven attempt of the gay militants to further try to destroy the Catholic Church. They have already done it with the Sex Scandal and now they are doing it again.

Once in, they will complain about anything and everything in order to weaken the Catholic Church. Again, they are using the kids as a weapons to in their war.
[/quote]
Really? I don't think there is any sort of gay militia with their sights set on destroying the Church. I doubt these parents are using their child to bring down the Church. If there are, "militant gays," who are out to destroy Catholicism, then I can't imagine what the rest of the world is also doing to plot against us. I might as well not go outside ever again.

I'm sure gay folks are probably just as annoyed about the closed-minded bigots who link these priests to homosexuality. It's assuming that homosexuality and pedophilia are the same thing, which they most definitely are not. Not to mention it paints a sad picture of our priests that end up becoming the butt of many jokes.

[quote name='Norseman82' date='16 May 2010 - 06:21 PM' timestamp='1274048480' post='2111562']
Even more to the point: what's going to happen when the kid finally puts two and two together and realizes his "parents" are going to hell? (Unless that is the archdiocese's back-door way of sneaking in some evangelism).
[/quote]
Perhaps the child is meant to be a beacon for his parents to find Truth and enter the Church.

[quote name='britannia' date='17 May 2010 - 09:32 AM' timestamp='1274103123' post='2111836']
If a child's education depended upon his/her parents not being sinners then the schools might be rather empty.

I do, however, think that the parents are putting the school in a very difficult situtation: compassion would demand that the school be very sensitive to the child when discussing homosexuality; but the school should not be forced to compromise its principles. Also, do they really want to put the child through the grief it will get in the playground?
[/quote]
I know it doesn't always work this way, but I would really hope that teachers within our Catholic schools would speak firmly but sensitively of homosexuality in the first place. For the most part, no one is choosing to have feelings for the same sex. And I would be embarrassed and ashamed if I ever heard my son speaking cruelly or insensitively about homosexual people. He would absolutely never hear it within our home or any of the books/movies/music we provide him with. So he'd either be hearing it from friends and/or at school. In which case, I would say somewhere along the line someone failed him.

[Semper Catholic]

[quote name='peregrinus_WA' date='16 May 2010 - 12:14 PM' timestamp='1274030054' post='2111460']
I see this as an agenda driven attempt of the gay militants to further try to destroy the Catholic Church. They have already done it with the Sex Scandal and now they are doing it again.

Once in, they will complain about anything and everything in order to weaken the Catholic Church. Again, they are using the kids as a weapons to in their war.
[/quote]

LOL is this guy for real?

Yeah there's just a bunch of evil gay leaders in and underground state room somewhere tenting their fingers, and tactically planning how to destroy the Catholic Church.

[Selah]

[quote]Yeah there's just a bunch of evil gay leaders in and underground state room somewhere tenting their fingers, and tactically planning how to destroy the Catholic Church. [/quote]

[Hassan]

[quote name='Semper Catholic' date='17 May 2010 - 07:57 PM' timestamp='1274140650' post='2112312']
LOL is this guy for real?
[/quote]


I don't think so, but I like to pretend otherwise.

[Selah]

"Let's like go and overthrow the church! Then let's go SHOPPING!"

Okay, that was bad...I couldn't resist... *looks downcast*

[SaintOfVirtue]

[Norseman82]

At the same time, what about children who are living with a parent who is either divorced and remarried without an annulment, or cohabiting? Do we bar them out of consistency?

[SaintOfVirtue]

[quote name='Norseman82' date='17 May 2010 - 07:05 PM' timestamp='1274148347' post='2112410']
At the same time, what about children who are living with a parent who is either divorced and remarried without an annulment, or cohabiting? Do we bar them out of consistency?
[/quote]

Now all whole host of other issues come into play. In the case of divorce and remarry without an annulment (an oxymoron if ever their was one), what about the other parent? Is he/she still practicing and not remarried?

In the case of cohabiting the answer would be, yes we should bar them from entering; but not for consistency's sake, for morality's sake.

[XIX]

I'll just say this: punishing the kids for the sins of their parents is quite puzzling to me. Punishing anyone by denying them a Catholic education is warranted if they have done something to deserve expulsion, for example. But to punish Person A because Daddy A and Mommy B are not following Church teaching? I don't get it.

Jesus ate with tax collectors, absolved & befriended a prostitute, called Judas to be an apostle, called Peter to be his first Pope [i]after [/i]he denied Christ three times, healed on the Sabbath, and died a torturous death in public. Any one of these things can be interpreted by the haters as a chance to smear Christ's name, and they often took that chance. Nevertheless, He kept doing these things because it was the right thing to do.

Will it be awkward and even hurtful when the boy has to learn about the sixth commandment? Of course it will. But it's our job to promote Church teaching, even when it inevitably makes other people get squirmy. Better to get conflicting ideas tan to get a consistent message that gay relationships are okay. Besides, being exposed to Church teaching will help the boy see past a lot of the strawman arguments (The Church hates gay people, the Church condemns all gay people to Hell, etc. etc.) It's awkward, but it's better than not being exposed to Church teaching.

[XIX]

[quote name='SaintOfVirtue' date='17 May 2010 - 11:15 PM' timestamp='1274148929' post='2112412']
Now all whole host of other issues come into play. In the case of divorce and remarry without an annulment (an oxymoron if ever their was one), what about the other parent? Is he/she still practicing and not remarried?

In the case of cohabiting the answer would be, yes we should bar them from entering; but not for consistency's sake, for morality's sake.
[/quote]
May I ask how barring them from entering would defend or promote anybody's morality?

[MithLuin]

My career is teaching in Catholic schools. Certainly, there is an issue of who the school will hire. There is an expectation that you aren't going to do illegal stuff or cause scandal - they take your fingerprints and have the FBI do a background check. So, if a lesbian or gay man wanted to work at a Catholic school and had a partner openly, I think that would raise some issues. I am not saying no Catholic school would hire them, but there are many that would not, and it would be legal. I'm fine with those policies, though I prefer them to be up front rather than 'understood' - make expectations clear and put them in the contract, so everyone knows what is and is not a fireable offense.

But students have to have parents that pass muster? Really? Do you have [i]any[/i] clue how many kids are born out of wedlock these days? Any? ([url=http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/13/health/13mothers.html]40% of babies born in the US in 2007 were born to [u]unmarried[/u] mothers[/url]) It is almost [i]unusual[/i] to have a student whose parents have the same last name and [i]both[/i] parents are at home. Broken families are the [i]norm[/i]. 95% of couples who apply for marriage [i]in the Catholic church[/i] in my archdiocese are cohabiting - that's not people getting married by judges or in other churches. I didn't just make that number up - the bishop's office says so. Marriage has completely disintegrated in this country, and it's the kids who suffer from their parents' mistakes and poor choices.

So, sure. Go start a Catholic school for children whose parents are publicly living upright lives and whose marriages are in accord with church teaching. No affairs, no illegitimate children, no cohabitation, no divorce/remarriage, no contraception. If you can get a group like that together, all power to you. But you're not going to find many Catholic schools where that is currently the case. The reality is that if you send your kids to Catholic schools, they [i]are[/i] going to meet and befriend kids whose parents are not paragons of virtue. Whether its a drinking problem or a cohabitation situation, you'll have to deal with that and answer uncomfortable questions. Part of being a parent.

The mission of the Catholic schools is to educate children and teach them the faith. This ministry is not supposed to be dependent upon how scandalous the parents are, though I do agree that the school reserves the right to accept or not accept the students they want to. Inner city Catholic schools try to be a haven for kids who don't have many opportunities in life. Do we turn them away because their parents' lives are a mess, or do we try to give them an opportunity to learn something different?

Many Catholic schools have a policy of [i]not[/i] expelling a high school student who becomes pregnant. The reasoning behind this policy is two-fold. If she were threatened with expulsion, she may be even more tempted to seek an abortion to 'hide' the problem from the school. Also, if she's about to become a mom, helping her to finish her education is one of the most charitable things you can do for that child. Does it cause scandal for an unwed teenage girl to attend a Catholic school? Sure. I have no intention of denying that! But that doesn't mean the policy is a bad one.

This did not make the news because the parent ran off crying 'discrimination' - it made the news because the Archdiocese of Boston issued an announcement about their policy with regard to this situation. My guess is the parent was looking for a good education for her son, and didn't really consider carefully the 'hey, since this is a Catholic school, they're going to teach my son that my living situation is sinful' situation. Now that that has come up, she's more likely to look elsewhere (as the article said).

But now that Boston has announced this policy, the next child who applies who has gay parents will be more likely to be accepted in the school. While I can understand why that is an issue, I don't think Boston was wrong to come up with this policy. If the Archbishop announced that is was okay for couples to to live in same-sex relationships, he'd be wrong. When he says that the schools can educate a child who lives in their home, I don't think he's wrong.

[Apotheoun]

I have worked at two different Catholic high schools and both of them held that when they admitted a child to the school as a student they were also admitting the family to the school as a part of the support network for all the members of the educational community, which is why neither school would admit students whose parents advocated (through word or deed) a position in opposition to Catholic doctrine.

A good Catholic school program is not simply about providing a good education to its student members; rather, it is about providing a good [i]Catholic[/i] education to both students and their families, which includes more than simply attending classes on the part of the student. The school should have a holistic approach to each student's development in which it serves the whole person, and not merely his intellect. This approach includes the parents and even the siblings of the student.

Edited May 18, 2010 by Apotheoun

[Winchester]

[quote name='XIX' date='18 May 2010 - 07:58 AM' timestamp='1274183881' post='2112686']
I'll just say this: punishing the kids for the sins of their parents is quite puzzling to me. Punishing anyone by denying them a Catholic education is warranted if they have done something to deserve expulsion, for example. But to punish Person A because Daddy A and Mommy B are not following Church teaching? I don't get it.
[/quote]
It's not punishment.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Winchester' date='18 May 2010 - 11:07 AM' timestamp='1274202453' post='2112851']
It's not punishment.
[/quote]
I agree, it is not about punishing anyone.

Besides, if the "gay couple" were truly serious about providing a good Catholic education for the child in question, they would agree to separate, which would have the double effect of allowing the child to be admitted to a Catholic school program, while also removing the child from an innately immoral home situation.

[CatherineM]

[quote name='Norseman82' date='17 May 2010 - 09:05 PM' timestamp='1274148347' post='2112410']
At the same time, what about children who are living with a parent who is either divorced and remarried without an annulment, or cohabiting? Do we bar them out of consistency?
[/quote]
Those were my parents growing up. The difference was that they didn't receive communion, and everyone knew that they were divorced and that was a consequence.