Thursday, May 20, 2010

The Cardinal on the Hingham case.

Cardinal O'Malley has written about the situation involving the refusal by a parish priest and school principal to admit the child of a lesbian couple into Catholic school.  The Cardinal has praise for everyone involved, while determining some sort of official policy must be established within the archdiocesan school system to deal with irregular situations when they arise.  I appreciate how the Cardinal cites his personal experience of accepting a child of an irregular situation into one of his Catholic schools when he was a bishop in the West Indies.
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As a young bishop in the West Indies I once celebrated a memorial Mass for a local “madame” who ran a brothel near my Cathedral. It was said she smuggled women in from other islands in oil barrels for her business. Some women suffocated in the crossing. She herself was murdered by her lover.
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 At the Mass I met the woman’s daughter, a lovely little girl. I asked her what grade she was in. She replied that she didn’t go to school. I sent a stern glance to her grandmother, who said: “Her name is the same as that of the brothel. The other children were so cruel to her, she left the public school.” I told her grandmother, “Take her to the Catholic school tomorrow.”
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Catholic schools exist for the good of the children and our admission standards must reflect that. We have never had categories of people who were excluded. We have often given preference to children from a parish where a school is located, siblings of children already enrolled at the school or Catholic children from nearby parishes. Sometimes we might not be able to accept children, because of behavioral problems or other circumstances that would be disruptive to a school community. While there are legitimate reasons that might lead to a decision not to admit a child, I believe all would agree that the good of the child must always be our primary concern. - Finish reading the Cardinal's post here.
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I believe I raised a similar point on a post dealing with Archbishop Chaput's handling of a similar incident in the Archdiocese of Denver.  Whatever my personal opinion or the outcome of these situation, I accept the decision of the Archbishop on these matters.
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As I pointed out, the Cardinal roundly praised everyone involved in the Hingham incident while pointing to the need for the Archdiocese to work "to develop policies and procedures to guide our faithfully carrying on the mission of our Catholic Schools to serve children and to do so with the heart of Christ."  The Cardinal also gave a nod to Archbishop Chaput, writing:  "The Archdiocese of Denver has formulated a policy that calls into question the appropriateness of admitting the children of same-sex couples. It is clear that all of their school policies are intended to foster the welfare of the children and fidelity to the mission of the Church. Their positions and rationale must be seriously considered."
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Every diocese in the country should be working on some sort of policy - unless of course the USCCB establishes guidelines.  There seem to be a lot of lesbians and single women with kids these days when one no longer needs a man to procreate.

2 comments:

  1. "Every diocese in the country should be working on some sort of policy - unless of course the USCCB establishes guidelines..."

    Amen

    ReplyDelete
  2. Don't count on USCCB after the CCHD debacle.

    ReplyDelete


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