The Deacon's Bench
From the AP:
Teachers and staff from four Catholic High Schools in the San Francisco Bay Area are urging their archbishop to remove morality clauses from the faculty handbook.
Teacher Jim Jordan said Tuesday a petition with 355 signatures of teachers and staff will be delivered to Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone by union representatives.
Jordan is an English teacher at Sacred Heart Cathedral High School and says the language used by Cordileone “undermines the mission of Catholic education and the inclusive, diverse and welcoming community we prize at our schools.”
The clauses outline the church’s teaching that sex outside of marriage, homosexual relations, abortion, masturbation and the viewing of pornography are “gravely evil.”
According to organizers, 80 percent of the faculty and staff at the affected schools signed the letter. Organizers said they received signatures from 126 teachers and staff from Sacred Heart Cathedral Prep, 87 from Serra High School in San Mateo, 74 at Archbishop Riordan and 68 at Marin Catholic.
In the letter, the teachers said, “We believe the recently proposed handbook language is harmful to our community and creates an atmosphere of mistrust and fear. We believe our schools should be places of inquiry and the free exchange of ideas where all feel welcome and affirmed.”
“This language in this judgmental context undermines the mission of Catholic education and the inclusive, diverse and welcoming community we prize at our schools,” said Sacred Heart Cathedral teacher Jim Jordan, who helped organize the campaign.
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