I agree with his commentary to the extent that he says the issue was poorly handled, pastorally.
But I don’t believe that from a legal standpoint the Church is on shaky grounds. In the linked article, the author takes the time to point out that Ms. Herx won at the EEOC – that is, the EEOC found in her favor.
So, too, did Ms. Cheryl Perich, the original plaintiff in the Hosanna Tabor case mentioned above. The EEOC found in her favor – and, ultimately, the Supreme Court unanimously rejected her claim and found that a religious school may fire a teacher if that teacher’s duties included ministerial work.
And on my own information and belief, pretty much every Catholic educational primary and secondary institution tasks all its teachers to teach their subjects in ways which inculcate awareness of and integration to the catechism of the church, to assist at Mass as servers and extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist, and to teach by the example of their own lives Christ’s message… I believe Ms. Herx’s legal claim to be tenuous.
I grant, however. that if it should develop that Mss. Herx was tasked only with teaching literature, period… then her position is much stronger.
If this was a teacher who hosted a pig roast at Yeshiva school, we would all be hearing about how insensitive and insulting the teacher was and how people should not get a jobs at certain institutions if they don’t want to abide by the rules.
In the published story, it appeared that she went to a doctor for the procedure and did not self-administer on school grounds.
Since the Catholic Church does not have audio and video to her doctors office, if she had not mouthed off to the Church and school about her deeply personal medical procedure, no one would have known that her pregnancy did not come about the old fashioned way and she would not be in this position.
Well I think a more apt analogy would be someone describing the delicious crackly bacon sandwich they had for breakfast to a person in the Yeshiva school in lurid detail, then getting fired. Poor taste or ignorance on the part of the person regaling the tale, disproportionate response from the administration, firing probably legally permissible.
I spent a few years working at a Catholic school and I can tell you that they asked me to prove my “Catholic-ness.” While I had been baptized as a Catholic, my family isn’t terribly religious, so I never did all the other Catholic stuff. I was very open about this, but the principal cut me off and said, “Baptism alone is fine enough for the Diocese. Just don’t tell anyone the rest of that, ok?”
I also had to sign a morality contract that included things like not living with a boyfriend or getting knocked up out of wedlock-- such things would be fireable offenses. I just laughed and told all my friends that I (me! of all people!) had to sign a freaking morality contract, at which point they’d all keel over in hysterical laughter. I honestly can’t remember what was all on that contract, so it may or may not have included IVF (the damned form was a whole page, single spaced, 12 pt font).
One of my responsibilities was taking the kids to mass (though I’d always duck out the back when no one was looking) and leading them in different prayers and stuff during class-- daily prayer, then whatever holiday tradition was happening. I was respectful of their beliefs and did my best to get appropriately answers to their religious questions or go get answers from the priest. The kids very quickly realized I wasn’t Catholic-- or at least, a not very good Catholic-- but I don’t think they really cared.
If I had been fired for my whorish ways :p, it probably would have burned a little bit, but I signed on to work there understanding fully what they requested of me. I regularly skirted the lines and got away with it just fine, but I also never did anything particularly egregious (egregious in their eyes, I mean) that they found out about.
This is completely the attitude I took away from the place I worked. If you were doing something wrong (ie: me not being a Catholic, except in baptism only), then just keep your mouth shut and no one will know. Hey, isn’t complete silence and ignoring things the Catholic way? ;)
FWIW, at the school I worked at, “religion” class really was not some Catholic indoctrination class. I think for one year of high school (freshman), it was taught by the priest and was all about Catholicism, but every other year it really was just a world religions class. I saw kids doing assignments on Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, and even edited a kid’s report on Unitarians. Oh, and one boy asked me to help him research his paper on the flying spaghetti monster-- a paper he got an A on. Of the religion teachers on campus, one was a Buddhist, one was a Hindu, and one was a priest. Granted, that may have just been that school.
This being the pit and all, I’m too lazy to go and look. But wasn’t this in the context of her needing to justify taking time off work? She provided an explanation to her boss of the reason she needed to be absent. Yes?
Not at all – you’re absolutely correct that the party is the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend.
But while the diocese is the employer, the one one making the decision about how to apply the dogma of the Roman Catholic Church in this case, it’s also fair to say that the teaching regarding IVF does not originate with Bishop Rhoads. So I’d suggest there’s at least some justification in mentioning the Church in her entirety, as well as the particular church that is the diocese involved here.
I took 6 years of theology from 7th to 12th grade. I roughly remember it as:
7th grade: General overview of Christianity (creation story, 10 commandments, etc.)
8th grade: History of Christianity
9th grade: Old Testament
10th grade: New Testament
11th grade: Catholic Dogma (taught by a Jewish guy who converted)
12th grade (split into 2) : Religion and the family / Philosophy and Religion
All of the classes were interesting, even as an aethiest, with the exception of the Religion and the family - this was the closest to an “indoctrination” class, as it really could ahve been titled “how to be a good Catholic.”
Oddy enough, the Catholic Dogma class was one of the most interesting classses - and not indoctrinating at all - it was really philosophical in nature, probably owing a lot to the teacher rather than the material.
When the mind tries to figure out the spirit, theology results, a form of semantic pathology that is interesting mostly for its complexity. And no, God cannot create a burrito that he cannot eat. But the burrito can.
It would be nice if the Catholic church went after child raping priests with the same fervor that they go after women who make a personal choice about their bodies that the church doesn’t agree with.
So, what they did with this woman was essentially ask her to keep what she was doing private, and then when she made it public, removed her from her position.
Isn’t that basically the allegation about how the church treated the abusing priests?
No, the church moved the priest to another parish far enough away that they hadn’t heard about the crimes and allowed the priest to rape more children until people found out then moved him to another…
I don’t believe the church offered to move the teacher to another position in another city or am I mistaken on this part?
There also a huge difference between supporting child rape and punishing a woman for doing something she wanted which is currently legal.
There are few things worse than child rape, for sure. You and I don’t consider IVF to result in murder, but the RCC does. Legal or not, the RCC is “punishing” her for what they see is murder. So, yeah, from their perspective it’s worse.
