Controversy at Marian High School: Firing of Pregnant Lesbian Teacher Sparks Protests

There’s an important meeting happening today at Marian High School.  Today Sister Mary Jane Herb, president of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (IHMs), will address faculty and staff at the Bloomfield Hills, Michigan school.

Sister Mary Jane will be responding to recent protests over the dismissal of Barb Webb, a chemistry teacher and coach, following disclosure of her “non-traditional pregnancy.”  Webb, a lesbian, “married” her partner Kristen Las in 2012 in a ceremony in Windsor, Ontario.  The school’s administration, though, either didn’t know or looked the other way at that time; only after the pregnancy did they insist that Webb’s violation of the school’s morality clause required that she either resign or be fired.

Although both the school administrators and the Archdiocese of Detroit refused to comment on the firing, citing confidentiality requirements, it appears that the precipitating factor was that Webb had become pregnant via in vitro fertilization, which the Catholic Church considers to be gravely sinful.

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I live only a few miles from Marian High School, which has become a hot spot in the fight to normalize same-sex relationships.  On Sunday, September 14, I drove over to the school to interview protesters and to meet Barb Webb and her “wife” Kristen Las.

There were about 120 protesters holding signs along Lahser Road, joining in support for the popular teacher.

I reported over at Aleteia about what I saw at the rally:

The people I met standing vigil at Marian High School were good, well-intentioned people, committed to equality and social justice. They were committed to Marian High and to its excellence in education. They welcomed student participation in the Sunday rally, but had asked the current students not to disrupt classes or skip school in protest.

But what is frustrating in the protesters’ comments and in media coverage is that Catholic teachings concerning reproductive technologies and same sex “marriage” are misunderstood, misreported or simply unexamined because they are assumed to be outmoded and erroneous.

At issue are at least three Catholic moral principles:

1. The Church does not teach that homosexuality is sinful, as many believe she does. Her teaching distinguishes between homosexual attraction — a disordered condition not in God’s plan for humanity but which is not in itself morally wrong — and sexual acts between persons with same sex attraction.

2.  Same-sex marriage is a public witness to the intention of the couple to engage in sexual activity, and is a violation of Catholic moral teaching. A March 2003 statement by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) sets forth the Church’s teaching on legal recognition of same sex unions.

3.  In vitro fertilization and other methods of reproductive technology that substitute for the natural embrace of husband and wife raise grave moral concerns: (a) prospective parents take for themselves the power which is the prerogative of God alone; (b) new human beings are created in laboratories by technicians, not through an act of love between husband and wife; biological parents (including unknown donors and even persons who are dead) are merely suppliers of eggs and sperm; and (c) the process of IVF typically entails discarding and killing nine or more human embryos for every one that survives to birth. The U.S. bishops’ Respect Life Program (2011) offers a brief, basic  introduction to the Church’s teaching on IVF and similar technologies. A 2009 pastoral statement by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops presents a more extensive discussion in “ Life-Giving Love in an Age of Technology.” The CDF has addressed reproductive technologies in “ Dignitas Personae” (2008) and “ Donum Vitae” (1987).

Read the rest of my on-the-scene report here.

What remains to be seen today is whether the IHMs and their president Sister Mary Jane Herb will value “inclusiveness” and “tolerance” over their responsibility to uphold Catholic teaching at a Catholic high school.

Parents who are spending their hard-earned dollars to educate their children at a Catholic school have an expectation that the school will impart Catholic values.

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I’ll update my report once details of today’s faculty meeting become public.

I also promise this week a fuller explanation of the Catholic Church’s teaching with regard to in vitro fertilization and  why it is inherently wrong.  Check back later.

Photos:  Kathy Schiffer