Teacher Fired By Catholic School for Fathering a Child Out of Wedlock
From the Boston Herald:
When he confessed to impregnating his new girlfriend, the Catholic Church refused to marry a devoted parishioner, then last week fired him from his teaching position at Bishop Feehan High in Attleboro for choosing fatherhood over abortion or abandonment. [ED.: Are you SURE this is the reason he was fired?]My Comments:
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McCoy, 27, claims he was forced to tender his resignation as both a social studies teacher and head coach of Bishop Feehan’s football team last Thursday because he violated the Diocese of Fall River’s celibacy policy for single employees. [ED.: Ah, that sounds like the REAL reason he was fired.]
When he found out last year his 21-year-old girlfriend was expecting his baby, McCoy met with his priest, the Rev. David Costa of Sacred Heart Parish in North Attleboro, to discuss the possibility of marriage.
“He wouldn’t allow it,” McCoy said. “He said it wasn’t a union of love, that we weren’t getting married for the right reasons.”
Costa yesterday declined to comment, but McCoy defended him.
“He was right,” McCoy said. “Marriage is still a possibility. Right now, the important thing is both of us being loving parents.”
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Sarah Wunsch, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, said McCoy, unlike a woman with a baby bump, could have cloaked his love life in secrecy.
“In a sense,” Wunsch said, “they’re punishing honesty. They’re punishing someone for not having an abortion. It’s just another thing the Catholic Church is doing that makes you wonder.”
(emphasis added)
“It’s just another thing the Catholic Church is doing that makes you wonder.”
I'm sure Ms. Wunsch of the ACLU has the best interests of the Catholic Church at heart.
Someone at Free Republic responded quite appropriately to her comments: "Why not say that they're punishing him for not murdering his girlfriend? He was punished for breaking a contract between himself and his employer, period."
Hard to argue with that.
That being said, as long as the couple wasn't cohabiting, I think the priest should have married them. But then, I wasn't privy to the conversation between the two men.
posted by Pro Ecclesia 12:26 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Just keep the link for next time a female teacher is fired "for not having an abortion" and everyone insists that this never happens to men...
That's exactly what I was thinking. My feelings on issues like this one are that a Catholic school has every right to fire an employee who breaks a contract with them, but I also feel that the school (because they are Catholic) has a moral obligation to help this man find another job since he DID choose life over abortion, which is to be commended and encouraged.
Regarding the priest's reported refusal to marry them: Is the old notion of "doing the right thing" just totally out of date? You know, "making her an honest woman" and all that. I wonder if the priest wanted them to go through a pre-Cana program, in other words not marry them precipitously; or whether he would have married them if they could say that they were totally "in love."
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