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Loly_Maria
Guest
If someone had robbed a bank then they would have broken the law.
Someone else also pointed out that nobody would even know if she was married or not and it’s really not any of their business anyway.
Woman Sues Christian University After Being Fired for Becoming Pregnant Out of Wedlock
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Someone else also pointed out that nobody would even know if she was married or not and it’s really not any of their business anyway.
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phil19034
Guest
To be clear, this University is not Catholic. Thought Catholic High Schools have been firing teachers for this too.Well, this sounds to me like merciless un-Christian cruelty, without any ***canonical ***grounds.
One thing if she were fired for living in state of sin openly. Because this is a lasting commitment.
Another thing - being fired for getting pregnant! This is a sign of some past mistake, which a person may have already repented.
Having sex out of marriage is a sin. Being a parent to a child out of wedlock is not! Childbirth is always good in the eyes of God.
Really, would it have been better if she had used contraceptives or performed an abortion?!
It all comes down this one question: what is the purpose of faith-based schools and colleges? Do they have the same mission as public / secular ones, or is their mission different?
I would argue that the primary mission faith-based school & college is to teach the faith. Fornication is sinful. Religious schools should have a right to only employee people who reflect their faith and who are true examples of the faith.
In the Catholic Church, she would not be eligible to be a God Parent, nor to receive communion; so why would we feel that she’s eligible to be employed by the Church.
All Church employees should be held to the same standards as married clergy members (i.e. married priests in the Eastern Churches, Deacons in the Latin Church, or ministers in the protestant communities).
If the action would cause scandal & uproar if a pastor or deacon did it, then the same should be said of the teacher or professor.
It would be un-Christian of us to place our clergy on a pedestal, but expect so little of our lay brother & sisters, especially the ones charged to with teaching our youth.
God Bless.
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phil19034
Guest
The truth is that in MANY of these firings, the person who is fired does not keep the sin quiet. It gets out.
The gay teacher decides to have a gay wedding and broadcasts it all over Facebook, the unmarried teacher at a Catholic gets pregnant from her fellow teacher at the school and tell the kids that they are going to live together, but not get married.
In all of these pregnancy firings, never, does the teacher use it as a way to teach the children about the negatives of sin. Never does the teacher say, “Class I’m sorry I failed you and God by giving into to sin. I will love this baby that God has given me, but I am truly remorseful for my sinful behavior.”
Instead, they celebrate or they blame the Church for teaching that sin is wrong. The don’t take responsibility of their actions, instead they blame the Church for setting the bar too high.
We all have sinned. Before I reverted to the faith, I lived out of wedlock with my current wife. Do you think I want my kids to know that? NO. I pray they never find out. And if they do, do you think I will say “oh, well, it’s ok because I did it”? NO. I will tell them that I was wrong, that I went to confession and asked God for forgiveness. That, it is never OK to engage in Mortal Sin.
Our Lady of Fatima warms us that more people are in hell due to sins of the flesh than any other sin. Think of that for a moment… there have been lots of murders thought-out the history of humanity. But more people are in hell due to sins of the flesh than murder.
May The Lord grant us wisdom and understanding. Amen.
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Loly_Maria
Guest
It’s her personal life. She shouldn’t have to explain herself to her students. And she said that she was told that she had to break up with the father if she didn’t want to marry him, which is really bizarre. I also read that she said that there were men working at the university whose girlfriends had been pregnant, and they hadn’t lost their jobs, which is sex discrimination.
When I was at university, I didn’t know whether my tutors were married or not and I knew that it wasn’t any of my business. I didn’t care what they were doing outside of work as long as they were doing their job well.
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phil19034
Guest
Did you attend a religious university? Or a secular one (or one that was historically religious but no longer is)?
The point is, if the school is making an issue out of it, its because it is causing scandal.
We don’t know all the facts. We have no idea what the real situation regarding the men were. Additionally, she’s not getting fired for getting pregnant. She’s getting fired for the moral sin of scandal (which far too many people today don’t believe in).
In a similar case, a protestant church fired a teacher for after getting pregnant because the teacher has ZERO plans to ever marry the father but was living with him. If she would have said, we hope to get married, but we are not ready yet; it would have been OK. Because they were trying to rectify the situation. But she was adamant that she have ZERO intentions on ever marrying him and they were going to live together.
In this situation, is the fired teacher living with her boyfriend? Typically, when the “ultimatum” is marry or break up; it is because the couple insists on living in sin and refuses to marry or live apart. They have zero plans to marry but still want to play house and have sex.
This is contrary to the faith.
Even if the kids don’t know the professor isn’t married; it shines a light on the fact that the teacher/professor doesn’t believe everything the faith teaches.
And if they signed a fidelity agreement, then they promised to profess and/or respect the faith.
This undermines the faith. In the public sector, this would be similar to a high ranking Microsoft employee telling people outside the company how terrible Window is and indirectly leading people to Linux and Apple
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ComplineSanFran
Guest
One of the things I am concerned about is where the line is.
I know that Roman Catholic schools are making a huge effort to put language into teacher contracts that reflects the expectations. Good in some respects; impossible in others. (San Francisco is a good example - HUGE fuss over teacher contracts right now.)
If all teachers/professors are expected to live a beyond-reproach moral life, Catholic or non-Catholic, what does that entail?
If the math teacher is a practicing Jew, does that mean she is not allowed to use birth control? Or IVF? Is she not allowed to attend her gay son’s wedding? Does she have to attend Mass? And who is to police her?
Do you see? Where is the line? And how will people enforce it?
I know that Roman Catholic schools are making a huge effort to put language into teacher contracts that reflects the expectations. Good in some respects; impossible in others. (San Francisco is a good example - HUGE fuss over teacher contracts right now.)
If all teachers/professors are expected to live a beyond-reproach moral life, Catholic or non-Catholic, what does that entail?
If the math teacher is a practicing Jew, does that mean she is not allowed to use birth control? Or IVF? Is she not allowed to attend her gay son’s wedding? Does she have to attend Mass? And who is to police her?
Do you see? Where is the line? And how will people enforce it?
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Loly_Maria
Guest
Nobody else needs to know if or why she’s living with her boyfriend (who she’s been with for twelve years but the university apparently didn’t care about that, which suggests that this is completely about the pregnancy).
Christ wasn’t concerned about how he looked to others when he spent time with known sinners, but a female employee gets pregnant and a Christian university can’t get her out quickly enough. And the funny thing is that practically nobody would have thought badly of the university just because an unmarried employee was pregnant, but now they’ve fired her lots of people will think badly of them (especially if it turns out that there was sex discrimination involved).
Everyone who works at that university has committed sin and broke their ‘fidelity agreement’ at some point. She’s not really lost her job for committing a sin, she’s lost her job for being pregnant.
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phil19034
Guest
With all due respect, you don’t understand the issue. The issue has NOTHING to do with being pregnant. It has to do with not agreeing with the sinfulness of the situation.
Everyone sins. But if you do not believe that fornication is an evil sin, then you should find a different job. This is akin to homosexual marriage. These teachers are rejecting the sexual morality of the faith. If they reject sexual morality, it means they cannot be trusted to faithfully teach the faith, which ALL teachers and professors at religious schools are supposed to do.
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phil19034
Guest
The line is simple. You agree to publicly respect the faith and do nothing to publicly challenge or disagree with church teaching.
Similar to don’t ask, don’t tell.
But this is why I personally believe that Catholic schools should ONLY hire practing Catholic teachers. Before V2, almost all of the teachers were nuns or priests.
The catholic schools should require 100% catholic faithfulness. Meaning, you must remain a Catholic in good standing and the easy way to check on it would be using the same process the Church uses to determine if a someone can be a God Parent.
In my personal opinion (as far as Catholic schools are concerned) if you can’t be a God Parent in the Catholic Church, then you shouldn’t be allowed to teach in a Catholic school.
God Bless
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ComplineSanFran
Guest
That would be a good solution, yes. But I wonder how realistic it is. I look around the high schools here in this Archdiocese and see probably less than half of the faculty being Roman Catholic. That is a guess and some comments from those who know the schools.
Universities? Ha! Not even close.
So what do you do? I am quite serious.
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phil19034
Guest
You start with the schools under control of the bishop. Which is what your archbishop is working on.
Once you have fidelity agreements, then you can work to only hire Catholics.
The private Catholic schools (ie the Jesuits, nuns, etc) are much harder to control. But the bishops can clean up their diocesan schools and parishes can clean up their elementary schools.
Catholic school administrators must realize that the rate of practicing Catholic graduating from their school is far more important than the college acceptance rate. And the mass attendance rate is a strong indicator too.
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Loly_Maria
Guest
So you think that any employees who are in a relationship and living together but are unmarried should also lose their job? And any male employees who have had children outside of marriage should lose their jobs too?
I do understand the issue and the only reason that they fired her was because she was pregnant. They didn’t care that she had a boyfriend of twelve years, which is also ‘scandal’, they only cared when she told them that she was pregnant.
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zz912
Guest
False premise you are operating under. They don’t have to live a live beyond moral reproach. They have to live their life attempting to live it in accord with the moral teachings of the Church.
So in this instance, it is not that she got pregnant out-of-wedlock, but that she fails to rectify the situation by either marrying her boyfriend of 12 years or breaking up with him. She has no intention of ever living a moral life, and her sin is manifest and unrepentant.
Considering that she has been “dating” her boyfriend for 12 years shows that the university WAS staying out of her personal life. It only became an issue when the pregnancy is impossible to avoid.
As for the other examples, the school isn’t going to monitor her life or choices, but if that person makes them manifest and obvious, it can’t be ignored. If a parent starts announcing they are approving of their gay son’s “marriage”, or other public actions contrary to the faith, then the school must step in. It is REQUIRED in the Christian faith to handle those who obstinately continue in manifest sin. Jesus is EXPLICIT that we must privately confront this person, then bring 2-3 with you if they won’t listen, and then bring them to the Church for a final chance to amend their ways. If they won’t even listen to the Church, then they must be put outside the Church and community.
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zz912
Guest
Quit being uncharitable towards those in the school leadership, it’s unchristian.
The most likely reason they never objected to her sinful state with her boyfriend is because they WERE leaving her private life alone. And she had never previously given them an public reason to assume anything was amiss. So they left her private life alone until her sinful behavior became manifest. And the final, REAL problem was that when the sinful behavior became manifest, she refused to correct her life and live it in accord with the Christian faith. So they MUST do something as Jesus commanded.
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Doormouse
Guest
for the love of Jesus Christ.
who is the judge for our lives, is it Jesus/God or the members of the C A ?lol
lets start with understanding EACH person before we throw a blanket over them all and tar them with the same brush.
I hope they make a great family and get married. wrong way about doing things, I know.
but who am I to judge,ive wore the same shoes as these people. turned my life around and back into it.
who is the judge for our lives, is it Jesus/God or the members of the C A ?lol
lets start with understanding EACH person before we throw a blanket over them all and tar them with the same brush.
I hope they make a great family and get married. wrong way about doing things, I know.
but who am I to judge,ive wore the same shoes as these people. turned my life around and back into it.
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unstoppable_II
Guest
That’s beside the point.
Excuse me, but who is married to whom is of public concern and therefore public information. That’s why we have tomes of family law.
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ComplineSanFran
Guest
Only Catholic staff and then only Catholic students? Well, we’d have a long way to go then.
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estesbob
Guest
Sounds like extortion to me. “Unless you allow me to ignore the morality clause I signed I will kill my child”.
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phil19034
Guest
You can have non Catholic students and non catholic janitors, lunch ladies, etc.
However, I strongly feel that all faculty in schools should be Catholic. When you have Catholic teachers, they tie in Catholic culture and Catholic thought into their lessons.
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Thorolfr
Guest
Following Compline’s example to which you were responding of a Jewish employee, how exactly would such a non-Christian employee be brought to the Church for a final chance to amend their ways and why should they have to listen to the Church instead of the teachings of their own faith? And they can’t hardly be put outside the Church if they aren’t in it in the first place.
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