Lesbians and Catholic Schools

Last week, a Roman Catholic school south of Boston withdrew the acceptance letter for a child whose parents are lesbians. The reason given is that the parents lifestyle is not in concert with the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. The Archdiocese of Boston quickly distanced itself from the school and the parish priest, and has offered the child a seat in another school.

I have a fundamental disagreement on this policy because of a few items. First, is it the child’s fault that his parents are lesbians? What if his parents were convicted murderers, another thing not in concert with the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. It reminds me of a story from years back. The girl next door found herself in the family way whilst still in high school. She decided to have the child and when he was born went to the local parish priest for baptism. He refused to baptize the child because his parents were not married. Not very pastoral I would say.

If the Roman Catholic Church feels that homosexuals are outside of the church that is fine, my disagreement is not on the teaching of the church as this is fundamentally the same teaching as the Orthodox Church. My disagreement comes in how the policy is being implemented. If you are not going to accept children of parents whose lifestyle is outside the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church then you need to implement the policy in a fair way and not target one group. How about children of divorced parents, children of parents who live together and are not married. How about children of parents who are not Roman Catholic, that’s a big one. Children of parents who do not come to church… etc. The list goes on.

Policies are fine, and upholding church teachings is great, and I really do applaud this school for doing just that, but it seems a little one sided and that the things that gets my goat. We need to ensure that we are employing a policy the same for everyone otherwise it smack of discrimination plain and simple. And discrimination is not only wrong, it is anti-Christian.