Opinion

March 19, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – LifeSiteNews received a letter from the legal counsel of the Ontario Catholic Teachers Association (OECTA) threatening legal action unless we removed the OECTA logo as an illustration in our March 10 news story, Ontario Catholic Teachers’ Association hosts conference promoting gay agenda.

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It took a few days for the letter to make its way to me since none of us actually work from the Canadian mailing address, but today the logo was removed. I guess they might have a right to demand its removal, but it is almost unheard of for any of the numerous organizations that we write about to make such a threat. The only other time in 15 years I can recall getting such a threat was from UNICEF, which also did not like what we were reporting about them.

It would have been a little more palatable had OECTA attempted to refute in its letter some of the disturbing information revealed in our story. Nope. Avoid the real issues and just threaten and intimidate for whatever reason you can dig up.

It makes you wonder – a supposedly “Catholic” teachers’ union threatens one of the only news services in Canada that stands up for a lot of the key moral principles that Catholics and all Christians should be standing for.

I suspect that there are Catholic teachers in the union who would not be happy about this legal thuggery. Others would be, however.

What very many faithful Ontario Catholics can’t understand is how this organization has been allowed to keep its “Catholic” designation and even teach a required course to all Catholic religion teachers for over 30 years. I attended one of those mandatory OECTA courses with my teacher wife in the 1970s and could not believe the heresies they were shoveling onto these impressionable young teachers.

There have been thousands of complaints over the years, but no one in the Church hierarchy or the school boards has yet put a stop to it. Why? This is no small question.

OECTA, a very large and wealthy teachers’ union, places a huge emphasis on left-wing or politically correct “social justice” causes, such as Development and Peace’s campaign against the use of bottled water. But when it comes to Catholic doctrine and moral teachings – the transmission of which is the purpose of Catholic schools – it has been contributing to the distortion of the faith and morals of thousands and thousands of teachers and students. This keeps going on and on, decade after decade.

I have never understood this. It’s very disturbing. What have the shepherds been so afraid of?