COSTA MESA, June 15, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Parents at a Catholic school in California have moved to protect their children from attempts to normalize homosexuality. Costa Mesa’s St. John the Baptist School, in the diocese of Orange, has drafted a policy that would prevent homosexual partners from appearing at school functions as a ‘couple.’
The LA Times quotes a memo sent out to parents, “Practically speaking this means: The children adopted by a same-sex couple” may enroll “on the condition that the same-sex couple agree not to present themselves as a couple at school functions.”
Sister Mary Vianney, the school’s principal for 31 years, purportedly objected to the policy and parents have said that her employment contract has not been renewed for the coming year. The school is administered by the Norbertine fathers, a religious order that is considered ‘conservative’ by some Catholics.
The diocesan spokesman declined to comment. “The ball is in the court of the St. John the Baptist parish and the Norbertine community,” said Father Joe Fenton.
That the diocese has declined in the past to become involved with the controversy between parents and the school is not surprising to long-term observers.
The diocese of Orange’s record upholding Church teaching on homosexuality has been spotty. In 2000, while Californians debated a ballot proposition that affirmed the meaning of marriage as being between one man and one woman, the Bishop of Orange, Tod Brown, sent priests of the diocese a confusing article by a Fr. Gerald D. Coleman of the Archdiocese of San Francisco as expressing his own (the Bishops’s) views.
Fr. Coleman, a prolific author and frequent contributor to the liberal Jesuit magazine, America, wrote, “Some homosexual persons have shown that it is possible to enter into long-term, committed and loving relationships…I see no moral reason why civil law could not in some fashion recognize these faithful and loving unions with clear and specified benefits. These unions would then be recognized by society as sustaining an important status deserving our respect and protection. I believe that this possibility could be pursued without equating such unions with marriage, and without in any way demeaning our needed respect and protection for the institution of marriage.”
Credible allegations have been made that the bishop of Orange as well as three of his predecessors have turned a blind eye to at least one priest living in a notorious and open homosexual relationship.
HW