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PDF versionChaput is not teaching us what he thinks he is
by Thomas C. Fox on Mar. 11, 2010
If the Archbishop of Denver truly believes that the children of parents who fail to adequately support church teaching cannot be educated at Catholic schools, then he has more explaining to do. To the children of parents who are divorced and remarried (without going through the annulment process–at which point the church needs to explain that process to the children of annulled marriages). To the children of parents who practice and even recommend birth control. To the children of non-Catholic parents–especially those who do not support the central dogmas of Catholicism, such as, say, the Incarnation. Is there no place in Catholic education for the children of those kinds of parents? Or is there no place for the children of gay couples? And if so, why doesn’t the archbishop want such children to encounter the truths of Catholic teaching? If it’s merely to avoid upsetting the children of straight, non-divorced, non-contracepting, non-racist, anti-torture, pro-life parents, then I’m afraid he’ll have to do better.
The archbishop of Denver, in the troubling inconsistency of his argument defending the recent decision by the Denver archdiocese to ban from its schools children of a lesbian couple, is teaching us more about himself than about the Catholic faith.
Michael Sean Winters made this point as well in a post he made recently on this blog.
Consider now the questions posed by Grant Gallicho, on the Commonweal blog, dotCommonweal:
Let the children come to me,
Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them. To such as these belongs the Kingdom of God.
Yes, what is about gay
Yes, what is about gay couples that makes Catholic education unsuitable for their children, when at most Catholic schools it isn't even necessary to be Catholic? Is it the case that, unlike in other dioceses in the US, in Denver the Catholic schools will not admit Jewish or Muslim children?
Apparently the Archbishop,
Apparently the Archbishop, and those who agree with him, were not adequately educated in the meaning of the Gospels, or the definition of the word 'hypocrisy'. They do give whole new meaning to the term 'cafeteria Catholic' as they feel very free to pick and chose which 'sins' to condemn, and which to ignore.
Unless, though objectively
Unless, though objectively very sinful, few if any of the above behaviors do the same objective, grave, manifest, and public harm to the good of the child the school is trying to educate and to his classmates. That is to say, remarried or contracepting parents are not publicly manifest and their sin is not writ large enough that a child could recognize it, no one could look at them from the outside and know the internal problems they have. However, a same-sex couple is something which is obvious and public and, in the view of the Catholic Church, harmful to impressionable minds. One may or may not like that, one may or may not think there are other manifest grave sins that we must protect children from, one might even think this is all ridiculous because one believes that there is no harm done by the presence of a same-sex couple, but the fact is the above account is more or less the logic being followed here.
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