Category: Gay Catholics

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New Jersey priest fired for backing gay rights

File under:  You Can’t Keep A Good Man Down

The Rev. Warren Hall leads a special mass for couples renewing their vows on Valentine’s Day 2014 at the Chapel of the Immaculate Conception on Steon Hall University's South Orange campus.
The Rev. Warren Hall leads a special mass for couples renewing their vows on Valentine’s Day 2014 at the Chapel of the Immaculate Conception on Steon Hall University’s South Orange campus.

By David Gibson

Father Warren Hall said he was notified by phone on Wednesday that Newark Archbishop John Myers, an outspoken conservative, says Hall’s actions are “confusing the faithful” by supporting gay advocacy groups and backing a counselor fired for being in a same-sex marriage.

The Catholic archbishop in New Jersey has barred a gay priest from ministry because the cleric supports gay advocacy groups and has backed a Catholic high school counselor who was fired when church officials discovered the woman was in a same-sex marriage.

Father Warren Hall said he was notified by phone on Wednesday (Aug. 31) that Newark Archbishop John Myers, an outspoken conservative who has submitted his retirement papers to Pope Francis, says Hall’s actions are “confusing the faithful.”

As a result, Hall will no longer be able to celebrate Mass in public, present himself as a priest or work in the New Jersey parishes where he has been ministering.

“The problem is that we have an archbishop who doesn’t believe you can be gay and Catholic,” Hall, who is on vacation, wrote in an email.

He also tweeted about the move Wednesday afternoon:

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Myers’ issues with Hall go back to May of last year, when the archbishop fired Hall from his job as chaplain at Seton Hall University for a Facebook post in which Hall showed support for the anti-bullying “NOH8” campaign that encourages respect for gay people and gay rights.

Hall, who said he remains committed to his vocation as a priest and to his vow of celibacy, a few weeks later acknowledged that he is gay.

The Newark Archdiocese said that was also a problem because “someone who labels himself or another in terms of sexual orientation or attraction contradicts what the (Catholic) Church teaches.”

The tensions seemed to have eased two months later when Myers assigned Hall to assist at two parishes in northern New Jersey across the Hudson River from Lower Manhattan.

But Hall has continued to publicly back several gay groups and gay Catholics in particular.

He is set to speak next week to a New Jersey chapter of PFLAG, founded as a support group for parents and friends of gay people, and he has expressed support for the gun control group Gays Against Guns, the LGBT Community Center in New York and New Ways Ministry, a Catholic LGBT organization.

Hall said that in the phone call informing him of the suspension, Monsignor Thomas Nydegger, Myers’ second-in-command, also cited Hall’s support for an unofficial gay and lesbian ministry at the church’s World Youth Day in Poland in July and his support for a guidance counselor who has sued the archdiocese for firing her over her same-sex marriage.

The woman, Kate Drumgoole, last month filed suit against Paramus Catholic High School – where she was a guidance counselor and basketball coach until her dismissal in January – and the archdiocese for violating anti-discrimination laws and intentionally inflicting emotional distress.

Lawyers for the archdiocese said she violated church teachings and the school’s code of ethics when she married her partner.

In his email, Hall said he was “upset” by Myers’ actions against him and that it would be hard to break the news to parishioners at Sts. Peter and Paul Church in Hoboken and St. Lawrence Church in Weehawken, where he has served for the past year: “They fully welcomed me after my firing from Seton Hall last year, they know my personal story and made me a member of the family.

“Since my firing from Seton Hall and coming out last year I felt an obligation to use this as an opportunity to more directly let people know of God’s love for all of us and that gay Catholics should stay in the church and work for more wider acceptance,” he wrote. “I do not feel I ever preached or taught anything contrary to the Gospel (and) this is true from my entire 27 years of ordination” as a priest.

A spokesman for Myers, James Goodness, said in an email on Thursday that the suspension was not about Hall’s sexual orientation but about his public stands.

“Every Catholic priest promises to be reverent and obedient to his bishop,” Goodness said. “A priest’s actions and statements always must be consistent with the discipline, norms and teachings of the Catholic Church. When they are ordained, priests agree to accept the bishop’s judgment about assignments and involvement in ministry.”

In a statement lamenting Hall’s suspension, Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, called Hall “courageous” and said “the archbishop is saying that his church fears associating with LGBT people – a fear which is contrary to the gospel.”

Hall’s ministry, DeBernardo said, “is in line with the church’s own authentic teaching that its ministers must reach out to all those who have been marginalized. He is in line with Pope Francis’ more pastoral and welcoming approach towards LGBT people.”

Myers submitted his resignation to Francis in July when he turned 75, as required by canon law.

But the pontiff, who is reportedly overhauling the episcopal search process to find candidates in tune with his pastoral agenda, has not yet named a replacement.

Complete Article HERE!

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Archbishop’s statement supports Paramus Catholic administrator’s firing

Archbishop John J. Myers
Archbishop John J. Myers

By ALLISON PRIES

The archbishop of Newark, John J. Myers, issued a statement Wednesday standing by Paramus Catholic High School’s decision to fire an employee because she’s in a same-sex marriage, asserting that her lifestyle could “create confusion and uncertainty in the moral formation” of students.

Myers’ statement — which one cleric said reflects the church’s resistance to a changing secular society — went out to all parish and school communities within the four-county archdiocese and was shared with the media by the archdiocese’s public relations office.

A harsher critic, however, said the statement highlights the contrast in Myers’ lenient treatment of priests accused or suspected of sexual abuse, as opposed to employees whom the church discovers to be in same-sex marriages.

The seven paragraph statement was offered as a response to media inquiries about the litigation filed by Kate Drumgoole, 33, of Bogota against Paramus Catholic, school President James P. Vail and the archdiocese. Drumgoole claims she was discriminated against when administrators fired her — not for being gay, but for being in a same-sex marriage.

Drumgoole’s marriage to Jaclyn Vanore, 29, both of whom are Paramus Catholic graduates, was made known to school officials by Vanore’s estranged sister, who posted their wedding pictures to Facebook pages associated with the school and Vail’s personal account. The pictures were never viewed publicly, according to her attorneys.

After meeting with Drumgoole, administrators said she no longer had “plausible deniability” and terminated her as dean of guidance and as head girls’ basketball coach.

Battle lines of church and state:  Fired over same-sex marriage, educator sues Paramus Catholic

As part of her employment, Drumgoole was required to sign a contract agreeing to abide by the tenets of the Catholic Church.

“When someone involved in Catholic education ministry offers a public counter-witness to Catholic teaching, he or she does not teach the Truth or further the mission of the Church,” Myers said.

“Such actions can create confusion and uncertainty in the moral formation of the young people he or she encounters,” the archbishop’s statement continued. “When that happens, the Church must be free to take corrective steps to maintain the identity and the integrity of her mission. This right is protected by the United States Constitution as well as federal and state law.”

Christopher Westrick, an attorney for the school, Vail and the archdiocese, tried to have the lawsuit dismissed, arguing that it involved the separation of church and state. In his motion Westrick said that the defendants did not violate New Jersey laws against discrimination because within the law, churches are allowed to require employees to subscribe to their tenets.

He argued the defendants’ conduct is protected under the First Amendment, which guarantees the free exercise of religion and freedom from government interference.

Drumgoole’s attorneys argued that her job did not consist of ministerial duties and that other employees who are divorced, living with people of the opposite sex or have children out of wedlock were not fired. They also said that the school adopts some of the state’s anti-discrimination laws, thereby making it subject to all of them.

Eric Kleiner, Drumgoole’s other attorney called her courageous for fighting “forces that are much more powerful than her.”

“Such heroism will not be muted or diffused or lessened by the extremely harsh and divisive language given by the Archbishop,” he said.

Superior Court Judge Lisa Perez Friscia last week denied the school’s motion to dismiss, allowing the case to move forward to a yearlong discovery phase in which Drumgoole’s attorneys could interview staff and faculty and have access to school documents and policies.

The case drew the attention of hundreds of alumni, parents and former faculty of Paramus Catholic who signed an online petition demanding that Drumgoole be rehired. It also was covered widely in the media.

Myers acknowledged the criticism.

“Much has been said in recent days about respect, diversity and mercy,” Myers said. “I agree that these qualities are important to the mission of the Catholic Church, especially through the ministry of Catholic education. Every person deserves to be treated with dignity, to be given respect, and to be shown the qualities of mercy.”

But, he said, “the invitation to join in the life of the Church does not include an invitation to alter or redefine what the Church believes and teaches, nor is it an invitation to allow others to define the identity, mission and message of the Church.”

“Even Jesus recognized that some people could not or would not accept His teaching,” Myers’ statement continued. “He was saddened when they walked away from Him, but He never altered His teaching. Nor shall we do so today.”

Drumgoole’s attorney, Lawrence Kleiner, said Myers’ statement “is taking an issue that has already divided its members and turning it into a chasm.”

In a 256-page document titled “The Joy of Love,” Pope Francis in April reiterated church teachings that gays should be welcomed with respect and dignity. But he resoundingly rejected same-sex marriage and said that gay unions cannot be equivalent to a marriage between a man and woman.

The positions are the same as those adopted by bishops from around the world who met in Vatican City in October 2015 for a three-week synod.

The Rev. Thomas Reese, a senior analyst at the National Catholic Reporter, a publication owned and largely run by laypeople, said gay marriage is “one of those areas where American culture is changing faster than the Catholic Church.”

Societal opinions about gays and same-sex marriage have changed quickly over the past 30 to 40 years, he said. But the Catholic institutions believe their employees should observe the moral example of the church.

“You’ve got these two things in conflict,” Reese said. “These things are going to be worked out over time. I think the church is going to become more accepting of their employees having these unions. But where the Catholic Church is right now, you’re going to see these things blow up.”

Reese said he believes some institutions look the other way. “It’s when these things become very public that bishops become involved and lawsuits get involved,” he said, adding, “I’m old enough to remember when Catholic teachers got fired when they got divorced. We simply don’t do that anymore.”

Mark Crawford, the state director of the New Jersey Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, called Myers’ statement “hypocritical.”

“He’ll protect those clergy he knows abused children yet hold these hard-line positions against people who love each other,” Crawford said. “It’s so backward.”

“This is what we’ve come to expect from our archbishop, unfortunately,” he said. “Hopefully, Francis will send a new shepherd our way that is more understanding, compassionate and fair.”

Complete Article HERE!

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The only thing ‘odious’ at Paramus Catholic is bigotry

ate Drumgoole, center, and her wife, Jaclyn Vanore, rear left, during a court hearing. Drumgoole is suing Paramus Catholic High School, alleging it violated the state's discrimination law when she was fired because she's married to a woman.
ate Drumgoole, center, and her wife, Jaclyn Vanore, rear left, during a court hearing. Drumgoole is suing Paramus Catholic High School, alleging it violated the state’s discrimination law when she was fired because she’s married to a woman.

By Star-Ledger Editorial Board

A New Jersey Catholic high school is being sued for firing a beloved guidance counselor and basketball coach because of her “odious” gay lifestyle.

This was the revealing word choice of Rev. Thomas Nydegger, second-in-command to Archbishop John J. Myers. We’ll get to that. First, though, there is a church v. state debate.

The Newark Archdiocese argues Kate Drumgoole wasn’t fired from Paramus Catholic because she was gay, but because she violated church tenets by entering into a same-sex marriage. It says this falls under an exception to the state’s anti-discrimination law that protects religious freedom, and that the First Amendment also guards religion against government meddling.

Drumgoole says this isn’t a First Amendment issue because she wasn’t involved in teaching religion. She says she was fired not because of her marriage but because of her sexual orientation, which is discrimination under state law.

How far we allow religion to go is a genuinely difficult legal question. What if a religion holds that races should not mix, as many Christian churches once did? Should that church have the right to fire teachers based on race? When does a claim of religious freedom become an excuse to justify bigotry?

Regardless of the legal debate, though, one thing is certain: The archdiocese has acted abysmally. Since learning that Drumgoole is gay, after photos of her 2014 wedding were circulated by a vindictive relative, the archdiocese has referred to her as “a poor role model.”

That’s rich. Countless teachers, parents and students at Paramus Catholic have vouched for her admirable leadership. Drumgoole was once a two-time captain and star player of the Paramus Catholic girls’ basketball team. She had risen through the ranks at her alma mater, and recently been promoted to an administrative role.

Myers, meanwhile, was protecting pedophile priests and using church money to build himself an opulent retirement mansion, while removing a popular gay priest from Seton Hall against the will of parishioners, accusing him of having an “agenda.” Right.

Myers’ second-in-command, Rev. Nydegger, wrote that Drumgoole’s former work as a guidance counselor “makes her gay marriage and gay lifestyle (whether overt or covert) particularly odious.”

Odious, as defined by Merriam Webster online, is “deserving hatred or repugnance.” So what Nydegger said is, quite literally, hateful.

Contrast that with what Pope Francis said about gay priests: “Who am I to judge?” The Pope argues the first purpose of the church is to proclaim God’s merciful love for all people, and says it should seek forgiveness from gays for the way it has treated them.

Drumgoole’s firing is the perfect example. Thousands of Paramus Catholic alumni expressed outrage in a letter to school administrators: “You institutionalize the kind of oppressive worldview that leads students to bully and verbally abuse other students based on their sexual orientation,” their petition says.

More than 50 gay or lesbian people across the nation have been fired or had employment offers rescinded since 2010, New Ways Ministry, an advocacy group for gay, lesbian and transgender Catholics, told the Bergen Record.

The church’s hypocrisy is striking. Other faculty members at Paramus Catholic are divorced and remarried, at least one has a child out of wedlock, some cohabitate with members of the opposite sex, at least one other teacher is gay, and nude photographs of another teacher have been circulated online, according to Drumgoole’s lawsuit.

None of those teachers have been fired for violating church tenets. Drumgoole, apparently, was singled out. Her lifestyle is not “particularly odious” because of church tenets — it’s because of church bigotry.

Complete Article HERE!

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The Catholic Church can either reform itself after the Maynooth mess – or risk looking like a Fr Ted episode

By Tom Clonan

Maynooth seminary

MY PARENTS DIDN’T like Father Ted. They didn’t get it. If my Mum and Dad were alive today they’d be in their 80s. They were a generation that grew up in an Ireland dominated by the Catholic Church. For my parents, Fr Ted was like a fly on the wall documentary about priests. They couldn’t laugh at it. They couldn’t enter into the comedic spirit of it. They simply couldn’t suspend disbelief in order to laugh at Fr Ted, Fr Jack and Fr Dougal.

It was as though you ‘couldn’t make it up’. And yet, Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews had made it up. They had conceived, devised and constructed an elegant satire that eloquently described the comic, dark reality of the organisational culture of the Catholic Church in Ireland.

I have been reminded of Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews in the recent media coverage of the controversies that have engulfed the national seminary at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth. Media reports of a ‘gay subculture’ at the college and the alleged widespread use of the gay dating app Grindr among seminarians read like the script of a Fr Ted episode.

The news value of these stories have pushed them to the top of the news agenda. This dynamic may have obscured the real story however. To be honest, I believe the sexual orientation of seminarians or priests is largely irrelevant in the context of the grave challenges that confront the institution of the Catholic Church in Ireland. Indeed, much of the coverage has been voyeuristic and gay shaming – perhaps unwittingly revealing a deep-seated homophobic bias among some commentators.

The Church of Ireland approach 

The requirement for celibacy among Catholic clergy is however an issue that dogs that institution. In other Christian churches, celibacy is not a compulsory obligation. Many Catholic priests and nuns have spoken eloquently about the pain and isolation that such an arbitrary requirement causes. As seminarians struggle with their formation as priests, no doubt they equally struggle with their sexuality and the unnatural, unjust – I would say un-Christ-like – diktat for absolute sexual abstinence.

Fourteen men have commenced their studies at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth in the last week or so. This brings to a total of 41 the number of men preparing for the Catholic priesthood at the national seminary. Nationwide, the number of Catholic priests has fallen to around 1,900. The age profile of these priests skews towards older rather than younger. Most must now work in full ministry until they are 75 – and beyond. In twenty years, this number will have shrunk to almost nothing.

In comparison, the Church of Ireland has 539 ordained clergy serving a nationwide congregation one-tenth the size of the Catholic Church. 111 of these are women. Currently, the Church of Ireland has 35 ‘ordinands’ – men and women who are in training for ordained ministry. Clearly, the Church of Ireland does not share the same crisis in vocations that is now experienced by the Catholic Church here. Men and women alike – irrespective of sexual orientation – are free to answer their calling to Christ within the Anglican Church and may marry and have children if they so wish. As clergy, they share the same challenges and struggles as their congregation.

The problematic response from the seminary 

Meanwhile, in response to the crisis at Maynooth, it is reported that St Patrick’s College has decided to restrict and isolate the seminarians further. Apparently, the Seminary Council will eat breakfast with the seminarians each morning. In addition, attendance at evening meal with the Seminary Council has become mandatory with compulsory nightly rosary at 9pm each evening. If true, this challenges my ability to suspend disbelief. Such responses are retrograde, regressive and indistinguishable from the satire contained within an episode of Father Ted.

Seminarians need to be fully integrated into the student body on campus. ‘Training’ them in isolation – away from the communities they will live among and serve – makes no sense and will further institutionalise and harm them. The steps taken by the Seminary Council are typical of an organisation in crisis and under threat.

In such circumstances, secretive, closed institutions – like the clergy, armed forces and police – retreat further into themselves. They tend to subordinate the public good to misplaced self-interest and internal loyalties. Such strategies, designed to ‘circle the wagons’ in order to preserve ever-diminishing prestige and status, are ill-conceived, ill-considered and inimical to the long term interests of the Catholic Church in Ireland. Such strategies failed to solve the clerical child sex abuse scandals. In fact, such strategies have compounded the abuse and added to the pain inflicted on women and children by a male-dominated and deeply misogynistic organisational culture.

What I saw in the Defence Forces

As a retired officer within Ireland’s armed forces, I have first-hand experience of the defensive organisational culture of closed and secretive Irish institutions. When I uncovered evidence of widespread misogyny and inappropriate levels of sexual violence within the Defence Forces, I experienced whistleblower reprisal and a defensive and adversarial response from the general staff.

After an independent government enquiry confirmed my research findings however, the military authorities have since embraced transformational organisational change from within. Army officers and other members of the defence forces are now educated alongside their civilian peers in Institutes of Technology and university campuses across the country including NUI Galway and NUI Maynooth. The military authorities have now targeted women for recruitment to the organisation and understand fully that diversity and integration are crucial to the success of any military organisation. An army that does not reflect the society from which it is drawn will fail in its mission and will fail as an organisation.

Similarly, the Catholic Church will fail in its mission if it does not reflect the society which it purports to serve. The Catholic Church will fail as an organisation if it does not ordain women and allow for marriage among its clergy. This reality is reflected in the statement issued by the Trustees of the National Seminary in the wake of the recent scandals. In their statement, the Trustees – who include Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin – state that St Patrick’s must form priests ‘after the heart of the Good Shepherd’. This call for integration is reflected in Archbishop Martin’s observation that the Catholic Church in Ireland is in need of transformational change and has reached the ‘end of an era’. If his colleagues in the conference of Irish bishops ignore this reality, the last chapter of the Catholic Church in Ireland will resemble the final episode of a surreal and tragic-comic Fr Ted series.

 Complete Article HERE!

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Church leaders hold crisis talks held over fears trainee Catholic priests using gay dating app Grindr

The Grindr app
The Grindr app on a phone.

Church leaders have held crisis talks over fears that trainee Catholic priests in Ireland are using the gay dating app Grindr.

Ireland’s Catholic Church hierarchy admitted concerns about an “unhealthy atmosphere” at the country’s main seminary.

As a result Church leaders have ordered a review of the “appropriate use of the internet and social media” at a centuries-old training centre for priests, as well as an overhaul of its approach to whistleblowers.

Talks were held after the most senior Catholic in Ireland said he was boycotting the seminary and sending student priests to Rome rather than St Patrick’s College in Maynooth, Co Kildare, which is just 16 miles from the capital.

“Strange goings on” and “a quarrelsome” atmosphere led to Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin’s decision.

Dr Diarmuid Martin said he made the decision because he was “somewhat unhappy” about “an atmosphere that was growing in Maynooth” exposed through anonymous accusations in letters and online blogs.

The Catholic Archbishop of Dublin said allegations included “a homosexual, a gay culture, that students have been using an app called Grindr” which he said “would be fostering promiscuous sexuality”.

The Archbishop said there were further allegations that whistleblowers trying to bring claimed wrongdoing to the attention of authorities were being dismissed from the seminary.

The four Archbishops and 13 senior Bishops have called on the church to set up an independent audit into the running of both Irish seminaries: Maynooth and St Malachy’s in Belfast.

Complete Article HERE!