It is hard to imagine anyone who could be unmoved by the interview given to NCR’s Thomas Fox yesterday by the two lesbian partners who have been told by the archdiocese of Denver that their two daughters can no longer attend a parish school. While it’s not for me to say whether they are “good Catholics,” they are without question devoted to their faith, eager for their daughters to be brought up in it, and anything but interested in making a public statement about the Church’s stand on same-sex relationships.
What’s clear from their account is that the school itself had no problem with their family, and that that probably went for the parish priest who oversees it as well. The problem had to do with the regime of Archbishop Charles Chaput. My guess is that someone in the parish let the archdiocese know that there was a lesbian couple in Boulder whose kids were attending Sacred Heart of Jesus elementary school, and the hammer came down.
Over at In All Things, Michael O’Loughlin is quite right to connect this story to a new policy of Catholic Charities in Washington requiring new employees to sign a statement to promise they will not “violate the principles or tenets” of the Church. Then there’s the ongoing if stuttering effort to investigate women religious. Hammers are coming down all over.