Catholic school teacher fired for marriage

  • Thread starter Thread starter SwizzleStick
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
S

SwizzleStick

Guest
upi.com/Top_News/2008/12/30/Catholic_school_teacher_fired_for_marriage/UPI-96771230668764/
The article doesn’t indicate if LaFortune is Catholic or not. Even so, I think doing something directly opposed to Catholic teachings should clearly be avoided by a teacher working in a Catholic school or said teacher could suffer consequences. I think most companies require employees to abide by “morality clauses” and I think this is akin to that. Other opinions?

SAN ANTONIO, Dec. 30 (UPI) – A teacher at a Roman Catholic school in San Antonio fired after she married a divorced man has filed a federal discrimination complaint.

The principal of Central Catholic High School urged Marquis LaFortune, 25, a week before her wedding in November to resign or to have her husband-to-be seek an annulment of his first marriage, options she turned down. She told the San Antonio Express-News that the firing took some of the joy out of the preparations for the marriage.

“I would have resigned if I’d felt like I’d done something wrong,” she said. “I couldn’t get out of bed. It’s just been this cloud. It was supposed to be the best week of my life, and I had to pull myself together for the ceremony.”

Under Catholic teaching, divorced persons cannot remarry.

LaFortune has filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

School officials learned of her fiance’s marital status from an article in The Pep, the school’s newspaper. She helped manage the paper.

“In addition to gaining a new last name, Ms. LaFortune will also be inheriting a beautiful stepdaughter,” the article said.
 
I think the school and the pastor should have interviewed her and ascertained the full circumstances surrounding the marriage, and offered pastoral counselling if needed, before taking this action. Perhaps they did, but the news stories and subsequent discussion and what I hear from those closer to the situation do not indicate this was done.
 
puzzleannie said:
I think the school and the pastor should have interviewed her and ascertained the full circumstances surrounding the marriage, and offered pastoral counselling if needed, before taking this action. Perhaps they did, but the news stories and subsequent discussion and what I hear from those closer to the situation do not indicate this was done.
Click to expand...
I believe they probably did. The article did mention that she was urged to have her fiancé seek an annulment. Whatever else may have been said, that would have been the core of any pastoral counseling. Seems to me that the school had no choice.
 
Agreed. I send my children to a private Catholic school precisely because I want them surrounded by others who practice and profess their faith. I believe they better education, and are happier and safer, than they would be in public school. But those are secondary benefits.
 
]“I would have resigned if I’d felt like I’d done something wrong,” she said.
Click to expand...
Her suit won’t go far under EEO. EEO protects against discrimination based on age, sex, disability, religion, race, ethnicity and color.

She was not fired because she was a Catholic, nor was she fired because she wasn’t a Catholic. She was fired because she was too stupid to teach. As a Catholic, even a nominal one, she had to know that it was wrong for a Catholic to marry a divorced man who did not have the marriage annulled. Knowing that and doing it anyway – well I wouldn’t want anyone that foolish teaching my kids.
 
SwizzleStick said:
“I would have resigned if I’d felt like I’d done something wrong,” she said.
Click to expand...
It’s all about feelings.

I wish I had the document with me but it’s at school. It’s the Holy See teachings on Catholic education. It strongly encourages schools to hire practicing Catholics in good standing. I wish more people would read it.
 
I thoroughly agree with the school’s position and support their course of action. But on the other hand, perhaps a suspension until the matter is resolved would have been more appropriate.
 
I don’t necessarily think she should be fired… Like another said, I think the matter should be resolved correctly. I don’t understand the opposition in getting an annulment, I am sure that option was mentioned to the two. I hear it can sometimes be taxing to get an annulment, but in a case like this it would be worth it.
 
AaronK88 said:
I don’t necessarily think she should be fired… Like another said, I think the matter should be resolved correctly. I don’t understand the opposition in getting an annulment, I am sure that option was mentioned to the two. I hear it can sometimes be taxing to get an annulment, but in a case like this it would be worth it.
Click to expand...
Perhaps (and I’m just guessing here) she knew that no annulment could be given because the marriage was sacramentally sound and he divorced his wife for an unacceptable reason.
 
Marsha_Adams said:
Perhaps (and I’m just guessing here) she knew that no annulment could be given because the marriage was sacramentally sound and he divorced his wife for an unacceptable reason.
Click to expand...
That could be true as well. Not enough details were provided in the article for me to make a sound judgment.

However, I will have to say that I am glad that the Catholic School is standing by their convictions, and not appearing wishy-washy.
 
Good for that school.

I hope it has its teachers sign a contract, in which they acknowledge the school’s expectatation that its teachers accept and abide by the teachings of the Church.
 
Is she a good teacher? Then she should keep her job. I went to a Catholic school and I met the spouse of three teachers. Two of them were my football coaches.

Now, if she is a religion teacher, that’s a different story, but quite frankly, I don’t see how this affects her class at all. There isn’t any reason for her students to know her personal situation.
 
Lujack said:
There isn’t any reason for her students to know her personal situation.
Click to expand...
well in a seprate local article on it, it mentions that this came to the adminastrators attention because she had students put it in the school paper(which she ran), and the school article mentioned that her fiance already had children. so she brought it up first.
 
quiet52 said:
Good for that school.

I hope it has its teachers sign a contract, in which they acknowledge the school’s expectatation that its teachers accept and abide by the teachings of the Church.
Click to expand...
Our surrounding Dioceses have such clauses, stating something along the lines that the teachers are to live according to Catholic teachings. Failure to do so can cause the termination of the contract.

Seems like what they did here. Doubt her discrimination suit will go far if they have such clauses.

(Heck, one of our local Baptist schools have even stricter ones. If the teachers are ever seen with alcohol, they can be immediately fired)
 
According to one news article:
Two days after the wedding, the couple traveled to Cripple Creek, Colo., for their honeymoon, where LaFortune’s husband called his ex-wife to relay the entire troubled saga. According to LaFortune, the ex-wife told him their previous marriage had, in fact, been annulled, something she had sought.
Click to expand...
mysanantonio.com/news/education/Central_Catholic_teacher_terminated_over_marriage.html

Assuming she speaks the truth about the annulment, it seems like her own stubbornness and “I want what I want and I want it now!” attitude was the real problem.

And after making numerous statements about how she feels she hasn’t done anything wrong, she adds this:
The conflict “just sort of turned me off (of the religion) more,” she said. “It felt really archaic. I think they were overlooking what I had to offer the boys.”
Click to expand...
Overlooking what? Her moral relativism? Hm…
 
Reading about the woman’s attitude makes me all the more certain she should not be teaching at a Catholic school.
 
I’m not sure what to make of the case if the annulment had been granted, but she just didn’t want to submit the paperwork.

However, a similar case took place in Waterloo, Iowa in 2007.
A popular football coach remarried without getting an annulment and he got booted. He kicked up a fuss and later filed for an annulment but was turned down. A county judge refused to intervene, so the coach was forced to resign.
catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=10078
 
Kind of strange being that the Catholic Church just allowed Newt Gingrich to take Holy Communion when he has been divorced twice and now married 3rd time to a woman who was his mistriss while he was married to second woman.

I believe the school should at least put her on some sort of leave to get her husband’s annulment worked out.
 
josephdavid said:
Kind of strange being that the Catholic Church just allowed Newt Gingrich to take Holy Communion when he has been divorced twice and now married 3rd time to a woman who was his mistriss while he was married to second woman.

I believe the school should at least put her on some sort of leave to get her husband’s annulment worked out.
Click to expand...
Gingrich is in a Sacramental marriage (look it up).

This teacher is not and seems to have no desire to do so.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top