Very shortly, the Archdiocese of Boston plans to unveil their new Catholic Schools Admission policy expressly requested by Cardinal Sean O’Malley so as to direct that children of gay and lesbian parents be admitted to Catholic Schools. Rumor had it that the policy might have been released publicly as early as Thursday, January 6 at the annual convocation of Catholic school principals and pastors, but apparently that did not happen.
The policy, if implemented even remotely as it appeared in an early draft form, will damage Catholic education irreparably in Boston, and has the likely prospect of damaging Catholic education across the country in the same way that “gay marriages” that began in Massachusetts are spreading across the country. The policy needs to be scrapped.
Here’s a link to the most recent draft we could find. We understand it’s been revised slightly since the September 2010 draft, but it is still fundamentally flawed from the foundation level. You can’t turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse. Drawing on our Big Picture on Catholic Education essay from last year and later developments, here’s what’s wrong with it:
1. Identity and Purpose of Catholic Education is Never Stated
2. Cardinal O’Malley’s Direction of Non-Discrimination is Flawed
3. Issues of Partnering with Gay Parents are Ignored
4. Protecting Innocence of Children is Impossible
5. Inherent Contradiction: Catholic School Education for Kids of Gay Parents is Ignored
6. Policy Mandates Implicit or explicit recognition of the gay/lesbian relationship as valid
7. Policy Creates Scandal of Giving Implicit Recognition to Gay Partnerships
8. Policy Creates Slippery Slope for Future Undermining of Catholic Identity
9. Policy Enables False Compassion on the Sinner
10) Use of Holy Father’s Quote is Deceptive
11. Draft Policy Violates Principle of Subsidiarity
You can stop here and just jump to the end if you’d like in the interest of expediency. But once you read below, you’ll understand why this policy is unsalvageable.
1. Identity and Purpose of Catholic Education
The main mission of Catholic schools is educate children of Catholics with an education shaped by Catholic faith and moral tradition. That is stated nowhere in this draft policy. When Catholic schools accept children from non-Catholic families, the religious focus remains, and although Catholic schools welcome and teach many children who are not Catholic, this is not the primary mission. It is unclear where the Boston Archdiocese got the idea that serving “unconventional households” is the central mission of Catholic education. That is what a public school is for.
2. Cardinal O’Malley’s Direction of Non-Discrimination is Flawed
The Cardinal himself directed that he did not want to exclude categories of students, and the $325,000/year-salaried schools superintendent and committee operated under the principle that they “did not want to discriminate.” That’s the same language used by the gay activists to justify “same-sex marriage” or “marriage equality.” In reality, Catholic schools and the Catholic Church DO need to discriminate.
For various reasons, including the need to maintain that Catholic identity and partnership with parents, Catholic schools have indeed excluded “categories of people” in the past. Though it has changed now, in years past, parish-based Catholic schools used to admit only Catholics, and required the family live in the parish’s geographic region and be a member of the parish. Even today, Catholic children have preference over non-Catholics in admissions. Children are excluded from schools on an individual basis because of behavioral problems. The Vatican has declared that active homosexuals should be excluded from seminaries. For Catholic schools to exclude children might not be optimal in terms of the new mantra of “welcoming everyone,” but everyone needs to remember it’s a private school, and as such someone will inevitably be excluded.
Fr. Roger Landry at CatholicPreaching observed the similarity to the situation of baptizing children, where the Church wants all children to be baptized but the priest has the duty to determine that there is a “well-founded” or “realistic” hope that the child will be raised in the Catholic faith (Canon 868 in the Code of Canon Law). “If there is no realistic hope that the parents are going to raise the child in the faith…the pastor…must reluctantly delay the baptism in view of the good of the child, who assumes rights and responsibilities upon being baptized. If the child is not going to be nourished in the faith to know and live by those privileges and duties, then the Church defers the baptism, hoping that either the parents will have a change of heart or the child, upon maturity, will freely request baptism as a catechumen.”
Fr. Landry notes that it’s similar for Catholic school admissions decisions. “There is a requirement, for the good of the child, that the parents commit to raise the child in a situation that at least does not contradict the values and formation given at the school. If the child’s education will not be coupled to a way of life consistent with it, the parents and school would be placing the child in a spiritually and morally schizophrenic situation — which is obviously harmful.”
3. Issues of Partnering with Gay Parents are Ignored
Archbishop Chaput, Dale O’Leary, Fr. Roger Landry and Vatican documents including Declaration on Christian Education (Gravissimum Educationis) have said it well. The school needs to partner with parents to develop children in the faith. That means the parents have to accept the teachings of the Catholic Church and help reinforce them in the home and family life. Archbishop Chaput wrote, “If parents don’t respect the beliefs of the Church, or live in a manner that openly rejects those beliefs, then partnering with those parents becomes very difficult, if not impossible.” There is an inherent conflict here with gay parents who are happily living a relationship that is considered immoral, which permanently deprives children of their natural law right to both a mother and father, and which can never ever be considered valid by the church. This is uniquely different than situations where parents are divorced, single parents, or co-habitating heterosexual couples, where those parents themselves may hope for the potential of a valid marriage, and where the relationship can indeed hopefully become valid in the eyes of the Church some day.
4. Protecting Innocence of Children is Impossible
By forcing the admission of children of active gay and lesbian parents, the Archdiocese of Boston will declare that the desires of those gay and lesbian parents living in a relationship considered immoral by the Church trump the Church-granted rights of Catholic parents and children to keep their children’s minds innocent.
Here’s what we wrote about this concern on June 10, 2010, citing various Vatican documents:
Vatican’s Pontifical Council on the Family’s 1995 document, Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality.
Sex education, which is a basic right and duty of parents, must always be carried out under their attentive guidance, whether at home or in educational centers chosen and controlled by them. In this regard, the Church reaffirms the law of subsidiarity, which the school is bound to observe when it cooperates in sex education, by entering into the same spirit that animates the parents. [No. 43]
In some societies today, there are planned and determined attempts to impose premature sex information on children… They cannot understand and control sexual imagery within the proper context of moral principles and, for this reason, they cannot integrate premature sexual information with moral responsibility. Such information tends to shatter their emotional and educational development and to disturb the natural serenity of this period of life. Parents should politely but firmly exclude any attempts to violate children’s innocence because such attempts compromise their spiritual, moral and emotional development. [No. 83]
“Parents must protect their children, first by teaching them a form of modesty and reserve with regard to strangers as well as giving suitable sexual information but without going into details and particulars that might upset or frighten them [No. 85]
Catechism of the Catholic Church; “the right and duty of parents to educate their children are primordial and inalienable” (2221).
Apostolic Exhortation on the Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World His Holiness (Familiaris Consortio):
The Church is firmly opposed to an often widespread form of imparting sex information disassociated from moral principles.”
With actions like the above, the Boston Archdiocese appears be overruling the primacy of parents as the first educators of their children. In addition, by condoning the exposure of young children to homosexual parents of other children, they are ensuring that all children will be put in a situation of confusion that will require explanation by parents. How does the Archdiocese explain their rationale behind keeping parents out of the loop and breaking the innocence of a 6-year-old mind to explain why Johnny has two daddies?
The gay, lesbian, or transgendered parents will no doubt attend school functions or host events at their homes. Kissing and other public displays of affection in the sight of young children cannot be banned. How will seeing such displays of affection between homosexual couples not corrupt the mind of a young child?
5. Inherent Contradiction: Catholic School Education for Children of Gay Parents is Ignored
Pope John Paul II taught in Veritatis Splendor (No. 113) that the “right of the faithful to receive Catholic doctrine in its purity and integrity must always be respected.” As most readers know and others have written, there simply is an inherent contradiction associated with trying to educate children of gay parents in Catholic schools. Archbishop Chaput wrote the Church teaches that “marriage is a sacramental covenant; and that marriage can only occur between a man and a woman. These beliefs are central to a Catholic understanding of human nature, family and happiness, and the organization of society.” When the Church teaches that gay marriage is against the will of God at the same time the parents live a lifestyle that rejects those beliefs, then the child will hear the Church saying their parents (upon whom they rely for sustenance) are bad. The burden and stress is borne by the child, who is caught in the middle, and on their teachers, who have an obligation to teach the authentic faith of the Church.
As Dale O’Leary put it, “Persons in same-sex relationships who have children naturally want to protect their children’s feelings. They aren’t going to want their children to be exposed to the truth. A Catholic school cannot agree to hide the truth. What is in the best interest of the children of same-sex couples and the other children? If they accept the children in the school, the children will either be alienated from their parents on whom they rely or alienated from God who would be seen as condemning their parents’ choices. While older children might be able to understand and even appreciate the Church’s teaching, younger children certainly will not. To them it will just seem mean. It will put the teachers in an untenable position and confuse the children’s classmates. Therefore, it is reasonable for Catholic elementary schools to explain to same-sex couples that this is not the place for their children.” This is the same thing that the Denver Archdiocese concluded.
6. Policy Mandates Implicit or Explicit Recognition of the Gay/Lesbian relationship as Valid
Pope John Paul II’s Letter to the Bishops on Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons says:
The Church is also aware that the view that homosexual activity is equivalent to, or as acceptable as, the sexual expression of conjugal love has a direct impact on society’s understanding of the nature and rights of the family and puts them in jeopardy.”
Code of Canon Law: Canon 22: prohibits the canonization of civil laws that are “contrary to divine law.”
Because same-sex “marriages” or civil unions and mutatis mutandis adoptions are contrary to divine law; it is arguable that the civil law allowing them cannot be regarded by the Church as valid. Admission of the children to Catholic schools would certainly give the impression that the status of the parents is comparable to parents united in the bonds of Holy Matrimony.
Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith cautioned about recognizing homosexual unions and making them a model in society.
11. The Church teaches that respect for homosexual persons cannot lead in any way to approval of homosexual behaviour or to legal recognition of homosexual unions. The common good requires that laws recognize, promote and protect marriage as the basis of the family, the primary unit of society. Legal recognition of homosexual unions or placing them on the same level as marriage would mean not only the approval of deviant behaviour, with the consequence of making it a model in present-day society, but would also obscure basic values which belong to the common inheritance of humanity. The Church cannot fail to defend these values, for the good of men and women and for the good of society itself.
The U.S.C.C.B’s Guidelines for Ministry to Persons with Homosexual Inclination say the following:
Special care must be taken to ensure that those carrying out the ministry of the Church not use their position of leadership to advocate positions or behaviors not in keeping with the teachings of the Church. They must not belong to groups that oppose Church teaching. It is not sufficient for those involved in this ministry to adopt a position of distant neutrality with regard to Church teaching.
The Church does not support so-called same-sex “marriages” or any semblance thereof, including civil unions that give the appearance of a marriage. Church ministers may not bless such unions or promote them in any way, directly or indirectly.
(Then again, as we documented in The Big Picture, Fr. Hehir seems to pick and choose which USCCB guidelines he wishes to follow based on whether he agrees with the guideline or not).
The Catechism of the Catholic Church also says the following:
#2357: Basing itself on Sacred Scripture…tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.” They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.
What about all of this do officials at the Archdiocese of Boston and the Catholic schools find unclear or difficult to follow? Despite all this, the Catholic Schools in Boston marched on with full endorsement of people like Fr. Bryan Hehir, $325,000/year superintendent of schools Mary Grassa O’Neill, and apparently the Cardinal, who first said this issue was being carefully studied, but then allowed the contradictory message from Fr. Hehir a day later saying the arcdiocese was driving full-speed ahead with institutionalizing the admittance of children of gay parents and just is documenting the policies. It makes the Cardinal’s original message appear to have been disingenuous and deceptive at best.
7. Policy Creates Scandal of Giving Implicit Recognition to Gay Partnerships
As The Boston Pilot explained in their editorial last year, the Catechism says that “scandal takes on a particular gravity by reason of the authority of those who cause it or the weakness of those who are scandalized. It prompted our Lord to utter this curse: ‘Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.’ There is no doubt that giving recognition to same-sex unions by virtue of their children being in Catholic school will have consequences, but no one from the Archdiocesan hierarchy has said a peep about this concern or seems to realize it is part of the gay agenda and they have apparently fallen for it hook-line-and-sinker by creating this policy.
If you have not yet read two landmark pieces about the gay agenda to normalize homosexuality, please do read them–they deserve a whole post and wide circulation amongst the Church hierarchy themselves. “The Overhauling of Straight America” appeared in Guide Magazine, a homosexual publication, in November 1987—over two decades ago. This landmark article has become a “bible” of the homosexual movement. It outlines strategies and techniques for a successful widespread propaganda campaign to confuse and deceive the American people and demonize opponents.
This isn’t really about the child, although the child is affected also. It’s about caving in to the homosexual agenda. The agenda is part of a spiritual battle, and the reaction from Fr. Bryan Hehir, Jack Connors, Mary Grassa O’Neill, and Cardinal O’Malley suggests we have already lost the battle. Yes, the Church does often let different “categories” of people go to its schools. But unlike the other “categories” of people, the homosexual movement is out to weaken and destroy the Church. Because the lesbian couple in this incident said in the media they were concerned about the religious education taught in Catholic schools, it appeared then, and now, that the purpose of the parents was ultimately to paint Catholic belief about human sexuality as wrong and force others at the school to adjust to homosexual “parents.” That child is now at St. Jerome’s at Weymouth. Here are a few passages from the article:
STEP 1: TALK ABOUT GAYS AND GAYNESS AS LOUDLY AND AS OFTEN AS POSSIBLE.
The first order of business is desensitization of the American public concerning gays and gay rights. Ideally, we would have straights register differences in sexual preference the way they register different tastes for ice cream or sports games: she likes strawberry and I like vanilla; he follows baseball and I follow football. No big deal.
The principle behind this advice is simple: almost any behavior begins to look normal if you are exposed to enough of it at close quarters and among your acquaintances. ..In the early stages of any campaign to reach straight America, the masses should not be shocked and repelled by premature exposure to homosexual behavior itself. Instead, the imagery of sex should be downplayed and gay rights should be reduced to an abstract social question as much as possible.
…we can undermine the moral authority of homophobic churches by portraying them as antiquated backwaters, badly out of step with the times and with the latest findings of psychology. Against the mighty pull of institutional Religion one must set the mightier draw of Science & Public Opinion (the shield and sword of that accursed “secular humanism”). Such an unholy alliance has worked well against churches before, on such topics as divorce and abortion. With enough open talk about the prevalence and acceptability of homosexuality, that alliance can work again here.
STEP 2: PORTRAY GAYS AS VICTIMS, NOT AS AGGRESSIVE CHALLENGERS. (more)
Do read the entire article, as well as this summary of the book, “After the Ball — How America will conquer its fear and hatred of Gays in the 1990′s.“ The reactions from Boston Archdiocese in this situation–especially by Fr. Hehir, Mary Grassa O’Neill, and Michael Reardon, but also Cardinal O’Malley–have gone exactly as was outlined and predicted by homosexual authors more than two decades ago.
Pope John Paul II’s Letter to the Bishops on Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons also warned about this problem. The Church “is also aware that the view that homosexual activity is equivalent to, or as acceptable as, the sexual expression of conjugal love has a direct impact on society’s understanding of the nature and rights of the family and puts them in jeopardy.”
Canon Law may also give some guidance. Canon 22, prohibits the canonization of civil laws that are “contrary to divine law.” Because same-sex “marriages” or civil unions and mutatis mutandis adoptions are contrary to divine law; it is arguable that the civil law allowing them cannot be regarded by the Church as valid. Admission of the children to Catholic schools will certainly give the impression that the status of the parents is comparable to parents united in the bonds of Holy Matrimony.
Fortunately, one source from the Boston Archdiocese, The Pilot, acknowledged this problem, saying, “it can be argued that the appearance of normalcy and acceptance of homosexual behavior that would follow from accepting gay parents into the life of a Catholic school — at parish functions, fundraisers, as chaperones for field trips, etc. — could lead other children to grave confusion about the nature of marriage as the union between a man and a woman.”
8. Policy Creates Slippery Slope for Future Undermining of Catholic Identity
So, what might the consequences be of the new Boston policy that welcomes children of gay parents as long as the parents agree that the child will be taught the truths of the Catholic faith on sexuality and sexual morality? Will school application forms ask for the names of ”Parent 1″ and “Parent 2″ instead of the names of the mother and father? What happens if the parents agree to their children being educated in Catholic sexual morality at school, but then go out and publicly celebrate their homosexual lifestyle with their child at the annual Gay Pride parade? Once a child is admitted, what if they come home crying and distraught because they learned in school that God views the parents’ relationship or “marriage” as invalid and immoral? What if the parents later complain about the teacher for saying something about the truths of the faith they felt was offensive, troublesome, and discriminatory to their child and their family? How can teachers be totally comfortable teachings the truths of Catholic teachings on marriage and sexuality when they know it’s likely to make a sensitive child feel hurt or uncomfortable and could result in an accusation of hate-speech? How should the school deal with a teenage boy with two daddies who questions his normal friendship with another boy, may feel his parental situation makes it OK to sexually experiment and hit on the friend, or decides he must be gay (or a teenage girl who sees her lesbian mother as a role model and thinks her close friendship with another girl means she’s probably a lesbian? Should a 14-year-old boy who identifies himself as “gay” and applies as an “out” gay teen to a Catholic high school be admitted? Beyond this, if the policy says children of gay couples are OK, then how do you defend not having openly gay teachers, and then insurance benefits for them?
As has been written previously, for those who think there is not a slippery slope, just look at how Employment Non-Discrimination Acts (ENDA) that were positioned as absolutely never to result in “same-sex marriages” led to exactly that over time. In A Gay-Protection Forum, (Boston Globe, Oct. 15, 1989) the Globe denied that Massachusetts new sexual orientation nondiscrimination law put Massachusetts on a slippery slope to same-sex marriage or domestic partnership benefits. 4 years later it was legal for gay couples to adopt children. 14 years later in the SJC’s 2003 Goodridge decision that the law banning gay couples from marrying was unconstitutional, part of the court’s reasoning rested on the legislature’s previous decision to ban sexual orientation discrimination. There’s simply no denying the slippery slope is a reality.
9. Policy Enables False Compassion on the Sinner
Cardinal Sean wrote in May 19, 2010 blog post on the schools issue, “We need to present the Church’s teachings courageously and yet in a way that is compassionate and persuasive.” Yet in his post, for some reason he didn’t present the Church’s teachings or say anything about the immoral homosexual relationship that precipitated this whole situation.
The Cardinal had a strong voice on this same topic just a few short years ago, but sadly now he seems to have lost it. On November 23, 2005, in his own letter on homosexuality, he called on Catholics to show true love to persons with homosexual tendencies by telling them that homosexual acts are sinful. Otherwise, we are dangerously “deceiving people.” He reminded Catholics that although Jesus did not condemn the woman caught in adultery, he did however – after saving her life – tell her “Go and sin no more.” We were told that some Catholics are misled into false kindness towards those with homosexual tendencies. “If we tell people that sex outside of marriage is not a sin, we are deceiving people.” The pastor of souls, whose first priority is the spiritual wellbeing of his flock, warned that spiritual wellbeing may be threatened by such false kindness. “If they believe this untruth, a life of virtue becomes all but impossible.”
It is never easy to deliver a message that calls people to make sacrifices or to do difficult things. Sometimes people want to punish the messenger. For this reason we priests at times find it difficult to articulate the Church’s teaching on sexual morality.
Yes indeed it is difficult. Fortunately, Fr. Rafferty found the courage to do it. But a few years later when the rubber hit the road in this situation, the Cardinal and others from the Archdiocese including Fr. Hehir and Dr. Grassa O’Neill have followed the all-too-familiar approach of false compassion which ignores the sins and wrong way of living that many people engage in, and does exactly what the Cardinal himself warned against. St. Thomas Aquinas has written about this issue and Archbishop Fulton Sheen has an outstanding video on the problem of false compassion that all should watch. False compassion can blind us from actually being motivated to help the sinner amend their ways. As St. Thomas Aquinas wrote, sin can never be the proper object of compassion. (Summa Theologica, II-II, q. 30, a.1, ad 1).
“We love sinners out of charity, not so as to will what they will, or to rejoice in what gives them joy, but so as to make them will what we will, and rejoice in what rejoices us. Hence it is written: ‘They shall be turned to thee, and thou shalt not be turned to them.’” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, II-II, q. 25, a.6, ad 4, citing Jeremiah 15:19).
10) Use of Holy Father’s Quote is Deceptive
The first line in the draft policy says, “In creating this policy we are guided by the words of the Holy Father, by Canon Law and by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops”
No child should be denied his or her right to an education in faith, which in turn nurtures the soul of a nation.” Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI to Catholic Educators in Washington DC. April 17, 2008.
This out-of-context use of the Holy Father’s words is a deception to try and justify the policy. Anyone who reads the Holy Father’s actual address to Catholic University of America can plainly see that he was referring to the “financial needs of our institutions” being provided for so their “long-term sustainability” would be assured—and thus Catholic education would be accessible on a financial basis “to people of all social and economic strata.” When he said “no child should be denied his or her right to an education in faith,” he was clearly saying that financial means should not be a reason for denial. That Cardinal O’Malley would allow repurposing this quote to justify admitting children of gay and lesbian parents is scandalous.
11. Draft Policy Violates Principle of Subsidiarity
The draft policy says that pastors, principals, advisory and/or governing boards may develop specific admission policies for their school provided they are in conformity with the Archdiocesan Admission policy.
This violates a core principle of subsidiarity in Church law, which means the Church usually assumes that problems are best defined and resolved by those most closely affected by them. By entrusting a pastor to care for the people of his parish, and by empowering a pastor to make certain decisions on behalf of his parish, the bishop is exercising the principle of subsidiarity, but this policy would negate that, forcing the pastor to conform to the top-down policy. We understand this was to be addressed in a later revision of the policy.
But that then begs the question, if the local pastor can make his own decision, as subsidiarity would require, then why have a policy at all? If not for pressure from Jack Connors and those promoting the gay agenda, why not scrap the whole policy?
A member of the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council who reviewed this policy wrote the following:
So, let us not fail in our advising role to our Cardinal, keeping the admonition of Christ found in the Gospel of Matthew 6:24 “No one can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” Reason demands consistency: consistency internally with the Archdiocese’s previous stands on matters related to the issue at hand and consistency externally with the decision another American Archbishop has inscribed into his policies regarding admission to Denver Catholic schools. The last thing we need is to pit Archbishop against Archbishop on this matter. Let us not surrender to money or political correctness, while perhaps gaining a few lines of praise from the Boston Globe or those who advance the Gay Agenda, but stand by solid principles that would advance the Mission of the Catholic Church in Boston. The Boston Globe and the Gay Agenda are not the barometers of our Faith, but part of the Culture of Death, which must be confronted.
This situation brings to mind another scenario in 1968, when the commission established by Pope Paul VI advised him to relax the Church’s teaching regarding contraception. Yet the Pope, in a display of moral fortitude and against the majority, decided to uphold the traditional Catholic teaching regarding the evils of contraception, which is not simply a “mean” Catholic rule, but something intrinsic to man that goes to the essence of our humanity and natural law. Let us advise our Cardinal with uprightness and courage, so that once again he sees in us his true collaborators and friends by saying NO to the proposed policy of “non-discrimination”.
The bottom line is that the whole policy is so riddled with flaws, it should have never been written and should be scrapped. There’s just no other way to describe it.
Until we get our campaign up and running, you should immediately send a copy of this post to the Papal Nuncio, Archbishop Pietro Sambi at nuntiususa@nuntiususa.com to ask him to intervene on this policy, and also send it to your local pastor and ask him to complain immediately to the archdiocese. Hit the email button at the end of this post to share with the Nuncio, your pastor, and other friends.
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Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston is pictured during a press conference at the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center in Washington Feb. 26, 2009.
Bryan Hehir Exposed 
