American Catholic
mIt never ceases to amaze how few American Catholics, in polls, agree with the Catholic church's views on birth control and in vitro fertilization. You'd thing that it would be obvious that if you take all the Catholic oaths etc. and rush off to teach, qua Catholic, at a Catholic school in Milwaukee of all places, you might expect that there would be some concern if you deliberately engaged in what, for the Catholic Church, is a kind of systematic Russian roulette with babies. But no. Kelly Romenesko, who is alleging discrimination by Appleton Catholic Educational System, Inc./Xavier. Her claim is pretty implausible - that "school officials knew for a month before the firing that she had undergone the procedure, terminating her only after she became pregnant." Yes,that would certainly be discriminatory. But you can't help but wonder why it matters, given that it is well within the Catholic church's authority to enforce rules of the church among its staff in its schools. If you don't agree with the church on the ethics of procreation, perhaps you don't really want to teach in a doctrinal school?
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Just a clarification: Appleton is in the Fox River Valley, not Milwaukee. It's a town of about 75,000 and about 100 miles north of Milwaukee. It's a heavily Catholic area and most of the students and staff at any of the many Catholic schools in the greater Fox River Valley metro area are Catholic. I attended Catholic elementary school in the area, and I don't think its surprising that she was be fired. However, the larger issue, I think, is whether or not her dismissal was because she was tacitly promoting breaking Church law within her schools' communities through a personal and private action. The late Chicago archbishop Joseph Cardinal Bernardin wrote about the "seamless garment of life" that all Catholics should lead. So maybe her actions made her dismissable because she failed to live by example. But I also have a tough time believing that she was talking about this in the open, especially with students, and I'm even more certain that, as a French teacher, she wasn't in a position to teach students about the Church's stances on reproductive technologies, thereby coming across as a hypocrite. That would be a much more legit reason for dismissal. I think she has a case.
- by Christian Krautkramer on May 12, 2006 at 1:55 PM | link
This posting unfortunately makes the mistake (all too common, alas) of equating the "Catholic Church" with the *Hierarchy* of the Catholic Church. Doctrine teaches that the "Church" is the world-wide body of believers. Once this is understood, there is plenty of room for people to be in the Church, and yet vociferously contest the rules of the hierarchy.
- by t.h. on May 12, 2006 at 2:10 PM | link
If you don't agree with the church on the ethics of procreation, perhaps you don't really want to teach in a doctrinal school?
It seems obvious that there are many possible reasons why a dissenter on one (or more than one) particular policy might still want to teach in a parochial school. (To support the rest of the doctrine; because it's convenient; because their children may get enrollment privileges; to be sure that there are dissenting voices present; because there are no other good job opportunities . . . .) The real question is whether the fact of one's opposition to policy - still less the mere fact of one's acting out of concert with the dictated policy in one's private life - is within the realm of "cause" for which an employee can reasonably be fired. To put that another way, the question is how far into employees' private lives may religious employers trespass in the name of exercising reasonable control of their business operations?
I would argue that they have no more right to impose personal behavioral policies than any other employer. We do permit religious organizations some liberties with respect to ordinary duties of employment - for one thing, they may require their employees to engage in religious practices as part of their jobs, which other employers may not, and to publicly espouse religious doctrines on the job, which other employers may not. But there is no obvious need to require employees to engage in private behavior that conforms to church doctrine merely to maintain smooth daily operations within the workplace - which I think is the limit of what any employer can reasonably expect.
Hence, an employee hired to teach Catholic doctrine about birth control would reasonably be expected to promulgate that doctrine - but whether that employee actually follows such doctrine in private has no bearing on whether they can competently expound it in public. (Failure to do so would merely be another example of ". . . those who can't do, teach.") As to whether the failure to comply creates an unspoken counter-message that undermines the doctrine taught, I would hold that that is irrelevant. Employees can hardly be held accountable for how other people react to what they (the employees) don't say. The fact that they dissent - even if it becomes known - merely proves that the world contains dissenters, which the students surely should know if they don't already, and which is something the employer cannot demand to be shielded from.
In short, an employer's sphere of reasonable control over employees extends only as far as actual performance in the workplace - and that holds for religious employers as well. Employers may demand that employees promulgate the doctrines constituting the substance of the scope of their employment, and within reasonable limits to conform to them on the job, but they may not demand that employees believe in them, or practice them in their private lives. Whatever the scope of the claimed "thought, word, and deed" hegemony of the Catholic Church, their authority as an employer extends only to the latter, and then only between 9:00 am and 5:00 pm.
- by Kevin T. Keith on May 15, 2006 at 4:39 PM | link
Kevin mentions, among his possible reasons why a dissenter might want to teach in a Catholic school, "to be sure that there are dissenting voices present". That sounds like the prospective employee is on a mission to introduce discord. Not very nice.
Lots of non-religious employers have morality clauses. A public school teacher in Kentucky was let go because she was featured in a pornographic film 11 years ago.
- by Laura(southernxyl) on May 15, 2006 at 5:13 PM | link