Catholic school fires gay teacher planning wedding

A popular music teacher at St. Ann Catholic School in north St. Louis County recently was fired after church officials learned that he planned to marry his male partner of 20 years in New York, one of a handful of states where same-sex marriage is legal.

The teacher, Al Fischer, confirmed to the Post-Dispatch that he was fired Feb. 17 from his job of four years at the school. When asked to comment on his firing, Fischer declined and referred to a letter emailed to his students’ parents shortly after his termination.

In the letter, Fischer tells parents of “my joyful news, and my sad news” — the former being his plans to marry his longtime partner in New York City, and the latter, “that I can’t be your music teacher anymore.”

Fischer’s partner, Charlie Robin, executive director of Washington University’s Edison Theatre, told the Post-Dispatch that the couple’s relationship was in no way a secret at St. Ann and that Fischer was fired after a representative of the St. Louis Archdiocese overheard him talking to co-workers about his wedding plans.

Shortly thereafter, according to Robin, Fischer was told he would be fired March 9, the couple’s 20th anniversary and the day of their planned nuptials. But after Robin posted the news of Fischer’s soon-to-come firing on Facebook on Feb. 16, Fischer was fired the next day, Robin said.

Asked about the Archdiocese’s role in the firing, a spokeswoman replied in an email that the Archdiocese “fully supports the action taken at St. Ann Parish School as it is in full compliance with the Christian Witness Statement signed by every educator in the Catholic school system.”

The spokeswoman did not offer any other details about the decision.
The Rev. Bill Kempf, St. Ann’s pastor, said in an emailed statement that the parish was “recently informed by one of its teachers of his plan to unite in marriage with an individual of the same sex. With full respect of this individual’s basic human dignity, this same-sex union opposes Roman Catholic teaching as it cannot realize the full potential a marital relationship is meant to express. As a violation of the Christian Witness Statement that all Catholic educators in the Archdiocese of St. Louis are obliged to uphold, we relieved this teacher of his duties.”

The Christian Witness Statement, which educators sign when applying for Archdiocese work, says all who serve in Catholic education should, among other requirements, “not take a public position contrary to the Catholic Church” and “demonstrate a public life consistent with the teachings of the Catholic Church.”

The Roman Catholic Church does not condemn homosexuals who remain “chaste,” but it takes a strong stance against same-sex marriage and homosexual acts.
Robin said his partner did, indeed, sign a witness statement. “We just didn’t realize we were making a ‘public’ stand,” Robin said. “There’s nothing that’s been hidden about our relationship at any point. I go to the staff parties. I show up at the school concerts. … It doesn’t matter until somebody with the Archdiocese is sitting in the room.”

Fischer’s firing comes on the heels of a Jan. 11 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that gives churches and their schools broad powers over employees. In its opinion in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the court upheld the “ministerial exception” that essentially says churches can’t be sued over employment decisions regarding those the church hires to “preach their beliefs, teach their faith and carry out their mission.”

Fischer’s firing is similar to the termination of a Catholic church employee in Charlotte, N.C.

Steav Bates-Congdon was the music director at St. Gabriel Catholic Church in Charlotte until he was fired last month after marrying his longtime male partner in New York in the fall.

One parent at St. Ann Catholic School who asked not to be identified said many parents were upset over Fischer’s firing, considering his impressive work with the school’s music program and his popularity among students and parents.

The parent and others with ties to the school told the Post-Dispatch that Fischer’s sexual orientation was well-known.

Among his roles as an area musician, he is artistic director of the Gateway Men’s Chorus, which, according to the group’s website, “affirms and promotes gay culture and acceptance through excellence in musical performance and education.” A biography of Fischer on the group’s website includes a reference to his partner of 20 years.

In his letter to parents, Fischer wrote: “I think the word has been well spread that this is not the fault of St. Ann School or its leadership, and I want to emphasize that I get that, too.” It added that the school’s principal and the parish priest “are still there for me in a big way.”

The letter encouraged parents to talk to their children. “A family conversation about whether or not justice was served here could be a great thing,” it read. “I do not want the lesson from this for the kids to be, ‘Keep your mouth shut, hide who you are or what you think if it will get you in trouble.'”

When Robin first learned that Fischer was to be fired, he noted on Facebook that Fischer was to be fired “for marrying a man, in another state, even though in the state of Missouri we will continue to be just good friends.”
A practicing Catholic, Robin said he hopes to see the church change how it treats gays.

“Everyone involved in this process I know is committed to good,” he said. “The problem is blindly following the doctrine isn’t committed to good.”

Complete Article HERE!

Priest Walks Out Of Woman’s Funeral Because Of Her Gay Daughter

The battle in this country between the right and the left is raging. Since the right has no answers to the economic questions we face, they’ve decided to concentrate on dividing the country on so-called “moral” issues, one of those being the demonizing of gay and lesbian people. Little by little, they are losing the battle, as we see states individually legalizing gay marriage and recognizing that our forefathers intended that ALL are created equal and marriage is an equal right. But that doesn’t stop the right from carrying on their battle.

Something terrible happened this past weekend in Maryland and the fact that it was Maryland, a state that has just proclaimed that all are equal and has enshrined that concept into state law, goes to highlight the lengths to which the right will go. In this instance, the right was personified by Father Marcel Guarnizo, who officiated at the funeral of a former family member of mine. She was no longer a family member because I divorced the man who was her blood relative. But with social media these days, a person can remain in touch with those who, although there is no longer a family connection, are still people who are valued.

My friend Barbara, the daughter of the deceased woman, was denied communion at her mother’s funeral. She was the first in line and Fr. Guarnizo covered the bowl containing the host and said to her, “I cannot give you communion because you live with a woman and that is a sin according to the church.” To add insult to injury, Fr. Guarnizo left the altar when she delivered her eulogy to her mother. When the funeral was finished he informed the funeral director that he could not go to the gravesite to deliver the final blessing because he was sick.

I will tell you a little about the woman who drove that priest from the altar. She is kind, she is smart, she is funny and she works hard promoting the arts. She pays her bills, she cares deeply for her family and she loved her mother and her mother loved her right back. And now she will never set foot in a Catholic church again and who can blame her?

It is time for Christians of all stripes to stop and think about the teachings of the Jesus they proclaim to love so deeply and revere so much. I spent twelve years in Catholic school and the Jesus I was told about would never have turned away anyone for any reason and certainly not on the occasion of burying a parent. Fr. Guarnizo has a lot to learn about Christianity and the Catholic Church has a lot to learn about the teachings of Jesus if behavior of this sort is tolerated.

I am not about to paint all Christians with a broad brush. There are those out there who understand that the teachings of Jesus boil down to one thing. And that thing is Love. For if you love, you do not deny a person the solace of communion with the Creator, if that is their belief. You judge not, lest ye be judged. Only God knows the true heart of any person and in the end, if there is to be judgment, it will not come from some misguided, prejudiced priest who needs to go back to the seminary and learn the basics. And if he can’t find them there, then he needs to get down on his knees and pray to his Jesus to forgive him the terrible trespass he visited upon a grieving woman on the occasion of the death of her mother.

This is but one small story but it is indicative of the battle raging in America today. It is an ugly battle and one I never thought I would see. But it is here and we must deal with it. We must keep politics out of religion and religion out of politics. Perhaps if we can get back to a place where the separation of church and state are once again accepted as one of the founding principles of this country, stop trying to out-Christian each other, stop vilifying other religions and other people based on purely human and not godly concepts, we will begin to mend the fractures that are tearing us apart today. To do that, the Father Guarnizos and the Rick Santorums of the world will have to undergo a radical change of heart and I don’t think they have it in them. So it is up to the rest of us.

As for me, I send my love and condolences to my friend Barbara and all of the other family members who were made to witness such an egregious display of prejudice in such an inappropriate setting. To Father Guarnizo, I say, “Jesus would weep.”

Have mercy on gays, says Church rebel

The head of a group of “disobedient” parish priests has called for mercy on homosexuals.

Helmut Schüller, who set up the Preachers’ Initiative last June, said at the weekend that showing mercy on same-sex couples was more important than clerical law and regulations. He called on Catholic Church leaders and members to show respect and charity to homosexuals. Schüller added that inner values mattered more than anything else.

It was the first time Schüller published another demand on Roman Catholic Church bishops and the Vatican since presenting a list of ideas last summer. At that time, Schüller – who heads the parish of Probstdorf in Lower Austria – said the Vatican should allow priests to give Holy Communion to people who married a second time at registry offices after getting divorced following church weddings. The Preachers’ Initiative also wants the Austrian Church to allow women to hold sermons. The group is in favour of getting rid of the celibate too to increase the declining number of young men interested in becoming Catholic priests.

Schüller, who once headed Caritas Austria – appealed to Austrian priests on Saturday to fight appeals by clerical leaders on them to take care of more than one parish community at the same time. Schüller claimed that pastoral care – “a key aspect of preachers’ duties” – would be continuously neglected this way.

The Probstdorf parish priest recently rejected claims that his initiative suffered a standstill. “We just need to stop and take a breath,” he told magazine profil. Schüller explained that his movement spent the past weeks on agreeing on a strategy and a path every member agreed with. The ex-Caritas chief said that the group currently consisted of around 400 priests. He pointed out that many preachers joined the movement in the past few weeks.

He said on Saturday that the group of Catholic preachers – who angered Viennese Archbishop Christoph Cardinal Schönborn and other high-ranking representatives of the Austrian Church by declaring themselves “disobedient” – planned to cooperate with movements in several countries all over the world including Australia. Schüller stressed that the ideals of the Austrian Preachers’ Initiative were endorsed by many groups of Catholic priests abroad.

Schönborn said in several recent interviews he had no intention of denying the need for reforms in the Austrian Catholic Church. However, the head of the Austrian Church also criticised Schüller’s group for choosing the term “disobedience”. Schönborn and Schüller did not hold talks in the past weeks about a possible agreement after having met a few times last year when Schönborn tried to end the dispute before it garnered more public attention.

The archbishop of the Diocese of Vienna headed an Austrian delegation who gathered with Vatican representatives in Rome around two weeks ago. Reports have it that the clerics also spoke about Schüller’s movement and possible reactions to avoid a drifting apart of the Austrian Church. “I appreciate that the Worldwide Church starts thinking about our ideals. Maybe this was the start of something,” Schüller said when being informed by the press that such a meeting took place.

More people than ever since the end of World War Two (WWII) left the Austrian Church in 2010 when 58,603 cancellations of memberships were registered. The number declined by 32 per cent in 2011. A spokesman for the Conference of Austrian Bishops said that the Church appreciated this development – but also underlined that the decrease would not mean that everything was perfectly fine again in the Church.

Widespread refusal to carry out reforms and accept modern lifestyles but also an increasing number of reported cases of sexual abuse by clerics are main aspects for Austrians’ decision to leave the Church. Another reason seen as a key motivation is a fee colloquially known as Church tax. All members but unemployed people and needy pensioners are asked to transfer 1.1 per cent of their incomes to the Church. Critics of the tradition-rich rule point out that the Church benefited in many other ways as well such as low taxation of their properties and financial support by the state to renovate and restore monasteries and abbeys.

Complete Article HERE!

$2 billion cost for Catholic Church abuse scandals: Experts

A wave of clerical sex abuse scandals have cost the Catholic Church over two billion dollars (1.5 billion euros) but the real price is the blow to its reputation, two U.S. experts said on Wednesday.

“It is probably reasonable to estimate that the actual ‘out of pocket’ cost of the crisis to the Church internationally is well in excess of two billion dollars,” Michael Bemi and Patricia Neal said at a Vatican summit on the issue.

The cost could be much higher though as at least some dioceses in the Church “made many confidential settlements over the years, the total value of which may never be known,” said the two consultants for the U.S. Catholic Church.

Bemi and Neal asked Catholic leaders from around the world: “How many hospitals, seminaries, schools, churches, shelters for abused women and children and soup kitchens could we have built with this amount of money?

“The task of attempting to assess the damage caused to the Church by the crisis is certainly daunting and may seem to be an unattainable goal. No price can be placed on any one single soul,” they added.

As well as up-front litigation costs, the U.S. experts pointed to the time and energy members of the clergy have had to devote to responding to claims.

Many priests had been left scarred by the scandal, they said.

“Thousands of good priests, religious, and lay ministers have all been ‘burned’ by the abuse scandal,” Bemi and Neal said.

“They often must deal with distrust, resistance, suspicion and even ridicule from people with whom they interact, because they have been painted with the same broad brush” as offenders, they added.

The conference at the Vatican’s Gregorian University, which brought together representatives of 100 bishops’ conferences and the leaders of 33 religious orders, is a response to the thousands of abuse cases revealed in recent years.

Complete Article HERE!

550 people seeking restitution for sex abuse in Archdiocese of Milwaukee bankruptcy

Follow The Money!

About 550 people are asking for restitution for alleged sexual abuse by clergy in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee — more than in any of the other U.S. dioceses that have filed for bankruptcy protection, according a lawyer involved in the Milwaukee case.

The Milwaukee Archdiocese filed for bankruptcy protection last year, saying pending sex-abuse lawsuits could leave it with debts it couldn’t afford.

The archdiocese has paid more than $30 million in settlements and other court costs related to alleged clergy abuse. More than a dozen sex abuse suits against it have been halted because of the bankruptcy proceedings. They include allegations against a priest accused of abusing some 200 boys at a suburban school for deaf students from 1950 to 1974.

James Stang, a bankruptcy lawyer who represents creditors in the Wisconsin case, estimated about 550 claims had been filed by the Wednesday afternoon deadline set by the bankruptcy court.

Those who filed claims will end up splitting a settlement amount that will be determined by the creditors’ committee, archdiocese and its insurance company. The archdiocese had only $4.6 million in assets to be applied to claims in 2010.

A victims advocacy group called the number of filings “extraordinarily tragic,” but said that represented only a small portion of people abused by clergy.

“It’s sad and it just shows how devastating these crimes have been on this community but it’s obviously far from over,” said Peter Isely, the Midwest director for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

The other seven Catholic dioceses in the U.S. that have filed for bankruptcy since the clergy abuse scandal erupted in 2002 in Boston are in Davenport, Iowa; Fairbanks, Alaska; Portland, Ore.; San Diego; Spokane, Wash.; Tucson, Ariz.; and Wilmington, Del. Two other religious orders have also filed for bankruptcy.

Of the seven other dioceses that also filed for bankruptcy, the number of claims ranged from about 40 to 250, Stang said. About 535 claimants had come forward against the Oregon Province of the Jesuits, he said.

Archdiocese spokeswoman Julie Wolf and attorney Jeff Anderson, who represents clergy abuse victims, including some in the Milwaukee case, said it’s hard to compare cases. Anderson said each diocese represents a different number of people, and Wolf said some dioceses are incorporated differently.

Payouts in the other bankruptcy cases have varied based on the severity of the abuse and the quality of the diocese’s insurance coverage, according to Stang. For example, cases in Southern California yielded an average of about $1.2 million per claimant, he said, while the amount was far less in Fairbanks, Alaska, where less money was available.

Stang predicted the payouts wouldn’t be on the generous side in Wisconsin. The creditors committee, archdiocese and its insurance company will negotiate a dollar amount. After that, those who filed claims will negotiate between themselves on how to divide the money.

“Insurance-coverage issues in Milwaukee cases haven’t been very good for survivors,” he said. “The rulings by courts there have not been survivor-friendly.”

Stang acknowledged some people file claims even though they weren’t abused but said that was “extremely rare.”

“Most people are not willing to come out and publicly say they were masturbated by someone,” Stang said.

Anderson and the archdiocese both said they advertised the deadline both locally and nationally.

Anderson said his firm paid for TV and newspaper advertisements because he didn’t think the archdiocese’s efforts made the victims feel safe coming forward.

Wolf disputed that. “We’ve just been focused on getting this message out far and wide to as many people as we could in order to make sure everybody who had a claim was able to submit it before this deadline occurred,” she said.

A Feb. 9 court hearing is set for a judge to consider a request from the archdiocese to throw out some claims by people on grounds they were filed beyond the statute of limitations, they involved someone who was not an archdiocese employee or involve a victim involved in a prior settlement.

Wolf said she didn’t know how many of the claims would be included in the request.

Complete Article HERE!