By Dr. Edward Peters
Original News Article
DIOCESE, CATHOLIC LEAGUE DEFEND CHILDREN OF SAME-SEX COUPLE IN CATHOLIC SCHOOL
COSTA MESA,
CALIF., USA, Jan. 06, 2005 (CNA) - Parents in the Diocese of
Orange County have threatened to pull their children from a
Catholic school and to seek the Vatican’s intervention after
school officials have refused to meet their demands.
Some parents have
accused the diocese of violating Church teaching by allowing a
homosexual couple to enroll their two children in a Catholic
school. They say the boys’ attendance in the kindergarten of St.
John the Baptist School in Costa Mesa is part of the homosexual
community’s efforts to change the Church, reported the Los Angeles
Times.
The group
demanded that the school only accept children of families that
follow Catholic teachings. But school officials rejected the
demand. Superintendent Fr. Gerald M. Horan said the parents’
demand is a “slippery slope” that would lead to the expulsion and
ban of children whose parents divorced, used birth control or
married outside the Church, he said.
Catholic League
president William Donohue agreed with Fr. Horan, adding that the
most important element to consider is the spiritual well-being of
the children in question. “On a prudential level, it makes no
sense to single out kids for retribution whose parents are gay,”
said Donohue. “What should be done about kids who were born
out-of-wedlock? Should we expel kids whose parents are cohabiting
or are known adulterers?
“Priests have
often been asked by morally delinquent parents to baptize their
children, and in most instances the priests have rightfully
obliged,” he continued. “Now just as the priest is in no way
condoning the moral delinquency of the parents, school officials
at St. John the Baptist are in no way condoning the lifestyle of
the gay parents. And in both cases, the spiritual well-being of
the kids is, or should be, the paramount concern.”
END
Opinion / Analysis
As the moral fabric of Western society
continues to unravel, novel problems such as those facing parents,
teachers, and Church officials in the Diocese of Orange—namely,
how Catholic schools should handle requests to admit children of
same-sex couples—will continue to arise. Moreover, as the pace of
social disintegration quickens, these new problems will be both
more numerous and more complex. Just ten years ago, did parents
paying for their children to attend a Catholic kindergarten really
have to worry about explaining (assuming it is explainable)
to their own youngsters why some of their classmates have two
mommies or two daddies?
From the outset, let's recognize that
neither the opposition parents nor school officials wanted this
conflict to arise. Who needs another fight these days? But arise
it has, and it must be considered carefully. I do not know what the best
response to this latest manifestation of social disorientation
should be but, knowing of the situation only what the above article tells us, I doubt that the best
answer has been hit upon yet by either side in this debate.
The solution proposed by the
“anti-admission parents” (basically, that Catholic schools should admit
only children from families that live in accord with Church
teaching) is, at first glance certainly, too vague to be enforced
and too severe if it could be enforced. The Church is full of
sinners, and Fr. Gerald Horan is right to fear stepping onto such
slippery slopes. But that does not mean that “pro-admission”
voices like his and William Donohue’s are correct in their
reasoning; indeed, I think some of their rhetoric
introduces its own problems and makes slippery slope concessions
that might be very difficult to take back in other cases.
Fr. Horan, for example, claims that
barring children of homosexual parents from Catholic schools would
lead to banning children whose parents are divorced, use birth
control, or are married outside the Church. Oh, really?
Civil divorce is a bane built largely
on sin, but divorced persons, as such, are not
barred from any participation in Catholic life whatsoever. (Are
there still Catholics in positions of influence who don't
know this?) Why, then, use the specter of expelling children whose
parents are simply divorced as an example of frightful
consequences, unless one has a taste for red herring?
Contraception, too, is a very serious
matter, but it is addressed by moral and pastoral
theology, not by
canon law and ecclesiastical governance. Thus parental
contraception, though objectively sinful, provides no
basis for
consequences upon children in the external forum. (I’m
assuming that contracepting parents don’t drop their kids off at
Catholic school
in sports cars blazoned with bumpers stickers proclaiming
“Contracepting and Proud!”). Ironically, the acceptance of
contraception by large numbers of Catholic laity, to say
nothing
of overwhelming numbers of non-Catholics, is the tap root
for the
gross caricature of marriage that same-sex weddings
represent. On
that, read experts such as Pope Paul VI or Dr. Janet
Smith.
But, as for admitting into Catholic
schools the children of those who are married outside the Church
(or, while we’re at it, of couples simply cohabiting), that’s
a somewhat different matter. Maybe it is time to reconsider
the practice of tacit tolerance that Catholic institutions have
shown on this point over the years, at least where such tolerance
is being used as a wedge to widen the sore gap between Catholic
principles and Catholic life in the crucial context of Catholic
education. Homosexual behavior is objectively more disordered than
modernity's version of concubinage, but decades of accommodating the
latter have dulled our senses to its intrinsic gravity,
leaving us in a weaker position to uphold marriage as Christ and
His Church proclaim it.
Horan’s remarks are enlarged by Mr.
Donohue. Leaving aside his prejudicial use of the word
“retribution” (who wants to be in favor of that?), Donohue
seems to have overlooked that the Church herself distinguishes
between sinful actions, even grave ones, and sinful
lifestyles. Sinful actions are usually treated in sacramental
confession upon showing sorrow for the deed and exhibiting a firm
purpose of amendment; sinful lifestyles, however, precisely
because of their public nature and their persistent and defiant
attitudes, can indeed provoke public consequences.
Moreover, surely Donohue acknowledges that
Catholic schools are committed to a holistic educational approach,
believing as they do that that the entire environment of a
religious school contributes to the proper formation of the child.
Are we suddenly to hold that, when faced with this prong of the
homosexual agenda, the Church’s interest in defending the free
exercise of religion within her own schools falters outside the
catechism class? Are Catholic institutions so powerless over their
own governance policies that surely any restriction they might
wish to establish in this matter will “make no sense”? Donohue correctly points
out that the children of homosexual couples have real rights, but
then, do not also the children of families recognized by Christian
(nay, every religious) tradition? How is it that the concerns of
traditional parents are so obviously and completely wrong while those of same-sex
couples are so obviously and completely right?
As for Donohue’s worry about what
should be done with kids born out of wedlock, the answer is
simple: nothing, if only because such a condition, of itself, says
nothing about the lifestyle of the parents today. Donohue
asks further, should we expel children whose parents are
cohabiting? But, as I suggested above, while there might come a time
when school practices on this point will need to be rethought, for
now, the situation in Orange is more about admitting kids
into elementary schools rather than expelling ones already
enrolled. In other words, the problem before us is complex enough;
let’s not complicate it prematurely.
Finally, Donohue’s baptism analogy is
quite weak. For starters, the “baptize-anybody-who-asks” days are drawing
to a close. Deo gratias. Such a practice is clearly at odds
with the 1983 Code of Canon Law, requiring, as it does for
the licit baptism of a child, a “founded hope” that the child will
actually be raised Catholic (see 1983 CIC 868, and its predecessor
1917 CIC 750 suggesting the same point). Slothful clerical
attitudes toward baptism and the demands of Christian living have
simply enabled negligent pastors to pass along problems
(invariably aggravated over time) to more conscientious persons,
instead of dealing with them from the outset--and we all know
where that sorry mindset has gotten us in other areas of
Church life. In
any case, it escapes me how Christ’s mandate to baptize all
nations (Mt 28:19) and the unparalleled eschatological consequences of
the sacrament of baptism are so easily parleyed into an admissions
requirement for Catholic grade schools.
What I am suggesting is simply this:
The issues raised by admitting into Catholic grade schools
children from same-sex households are much deeper than
implied by the
statements offered so far in favor of or in opposition to such
admission. Catholic schools are dogged by the impression
that they are basically refuges for the rich fleeing failed public
education. I think that view is unfair, but when parental contempt
for the fundamental goals
of Catholic education is so flagrant, how do Church
officials escape the charge that one’s willingness to pay tuition
is more important than one’s own willingness to live by and cooperate
in the transmission of the vital values being taught? Certainly a Catholic child’s right to
a Catholic education is of great importance (1983 CIC 217, 229,
793-795). But since when does this particular right become the
prime directive before which all other considerations yield (1983
CIC 223)?
I urge that much more consideration be
given to all of the demands that are made
on
students, parents, teachers, and administrators as the legitimate
consequences of a Catholic school's very identity. ++
Source: http://www.canonlaw.info/a_samesex.htm
