A reader writes

Can I get your opinion on a question regarding the Colorado Catholic school disallowing the enrollment of a lesbian couple’s children?

First, the Archdiocese of Denver can make whatever policies it wishes. Don’t take me as some dissident Catholic who doesn’t understand the autonomy of the local ordinary. Let’s overlook that this happened at a particular place and speak in general terms.

The basic idea is little Johnny will be told at school that homosexual relationships are immoral and he’ll be torn between Church and family. Thus he should not be at a Catholic school where he will be put in such a situation.

Isn’t it very likely that some of the parents of other students use artificial birth control? Chances are some of their parents are on their second marriage and never got an annulment. If the immorality of homosexual relationships is a classroom topic; these others will likely be, too. If the child knows their parents are doing these things, and finds out that the Church considers them immoral, won’t they be put in the same predicament as a child with an active homosexual parent?

This strikes me as inconsistent. Some lifestyles that don’t conform to Church teaching, the ones that are more socially accepted and harder to spot, appear to be given a pass while those that are more obvious and whose social acceptability is largely up for grabs cannot pass go (or collect $200). Sure, the child may not know mom didn’t get an annullment before marrying dad; but then again they might know. Sure, the school can’t know which parents are on the pill and so can’t kick out their children but the school could make a policy that parents acknowledge they are not using artificial birth control which places responsibility for pulling the children on the parents; not the school.

I would appreciate your opinion on these thoughts.

I think the Archdiocese did the right thing. The point about this is that the parents are specifically attempting to force the school to accept their “lifestyle” as compatible with the Church’s teaching. It’s not. If a Catholic parent (bizarrely) walked into a Catholic school and said, “I want to enroll my kid… and I want to loudly make sure that everybody in this school must understand I practice artificial contraception with my third wife and I demand the right to remind you of that, teach my kid the goodness of it, and hear nothing against it at this school” then the Church would likewise be right to tell that guy to take his kid elsewhere.

But the school is not obliged to quiz parents about their sex lives (including gay sex lives). Indeed, it’s none of their business to poke about in such matters.

For further info, see Jimmy’s discussion of this here.