The anti-Christian Human Rights Campaign funded a meeting of dissident Catholics groups to strategize how to fight the Church over the firing of church employees who oppose Church teaching and practice.
Representatives from many organizations condemned by the Church attended the meeting in Chicago including pro-abortion group Catholics for Choice, and pro-gay groups New Ways Ministry and Dignity USA. The Democratic pressure group Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good also attended, as did the largely-failed grassroots reform group Call to Action.
In recent months, as same-sex marriage has been imposed by courts around the country, same-sex attracted Church employees have started to get married. As these “marriages” have become public, local parishes have begun to fire these employees, not for being same-sex attracted, but for publicly dissenting from Church teaching.
The “Church Worker Justice Strategy Session” was held at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. A representative of Call to Action told the Boston Globe’s Catholic website Crux that the group discussed “discrimination, at-will employment, morality clauses, and how we might build some power to push for just employment practices it the workplace.”
Archbishop Cordileone of San Francisco has come under severe attack for insisting that Church employees in his diocese adhere to Church teaching, including in their private lives.
It is generally reported that such employees are being fired for “being gay.” In fact, these people are usually known as gay by the Church, but are only fired when it becomes publicly known that they have married a person of the same sex, something that is not allowed by Church teaching.
Last year a Kansas City woman who worked for the Church feeding the homeless was fired after it became public that she had married a woman. The Church had no problem with her sexual orientation but balked at public opposition to Church teaching.
A choir director in Chicago, also known to be same-sex attracted, was fired after 17 years of service after he publicly announced he was marrying a man.
Conservative Catholic groups have mobilized to get Catholic Relief Services to fire a senior employee after it became known that he married a man and has also a very public campaigner against Church teaching on human sexuality.
Follow Austin Ruse on Twitter: @austinruse
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