Controversies over Catholic school teachers being fired or disciplined for immoral or dissenting actions outside the classroom seem to be increasing.
The latest one involves a Wisconsin teacher fired for using in vitro fertilization to get pregnant. She says that she knows other teachers in the Catholic school system used the same procedure but weren’t fired. The obvious question is whether the administrators knew they used the immoral procedure. In Kelly Romenesko’s case, they knew because she told them. Oops.
It may not be entirely her fault though, because she says her parish priest told her it would be okay. This is exactly why it is important for bishops to crack down on priests who publicly utter heterodoxy and dissent in their parishes. How many others have been led astray by malfeasant priests? How many unborn babies died because priests told supplicants that it was okay to use in vitro fertilization?
In any case, because it’s important that Catholic school students not be led astray by illicit behavior of their teachers, I think this should continue. But I think that we shouldn’t just confine it to schools: Priests and other teachers of the faith must be held accountable too.
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