Homosexuality, Catholic education and "Rights"

CNN recently ran an article centered around what it described as "the decision of a Roman Catholic school in Massachusetts to rescind the admission of an 8-year-old student because his parents are lesbians."

Since the article cited does not give the reasons for schools actions, only the reasons assumed by activist groups, it's difficult to comment on the case cited, but let me offer a few general thoughts.

Firstly, this issue is complicated by the myriad of laws surrounding state/religious school funding in each different locality. Accordingly some of these principles may not be able to be applied in a given locality.

In general, Catholic schools should give a priority to providing a Catholic education to the children of local practicing Catholic families. Next in priority, should places be available, would be children of non-practicing familes, children of practicing families from outside the local school district, other Christians, and finally everyone else.

Since it is impossible to be openly homosexual caregivers for a child while being practicing Catholics in good standing with the Church, it's possible that the whole story is simply a beat up because the school is implementing this policy. This is not discriminating against the child because the parents are in a homosexual relationship, but because the parents are not practicing Catholics in good standing. the same criteria might be applied to couples that are divorced and remarried without gaining a decree of nullity, parents who openly campaign for abortion rights etc.

A second principle that might be applied in this kind of case is that the school has a duty of care to those children already enrolled to provide an environment where the Catholic ethos may be nurtured. The school has a responsibility to reject children who will cause undue disruption. No one questions shools refusing to enrol children with a history of violent behaviour toward their fellow students of teachers, children who are not violent, but are constantly disruptive to the school environment are similarly dealt with through suspension, expulsion or simply not being allowed to re-enrol.

Some children can be disruptive through no fault of their own, but rather due to their associations. Childen of celebrities, known criminals, activists, and people whose lifestyles are markedly atypical of their fellows. Naturally the church has no desire to discriminate against chilren for actions and choices that are not their own, but sometimes, particularly where the associates are deliberately acting in direct contravention of church teaching, it needs to make tough choices.

'Yahweh', Singing and Sin?

That the Vatican has instructed that the proper name of God (Yahweh, and it's variations such as Jehovah), be removed from Catholic liturgies is, in some senses old news.

Naturally this extends to all prayers, readings, and songs, but for the english speaking world I suspect the biggest impact of this directive will be on the use of Dan Schutte's song 'You are near'.

While it is a simple matter to substitute a few words to remove Yahweh from a song (the 'official' revision for 'You are near' substitutes 'O Lord' for 'Yahweh'), changing the words on paper (or overhead projection system) is a lot easier than changing them inside one's own head. Just think of those prayers, and songs that have had changes imposed upon them for reasons of 'political correctness' or 'modernisation'.

Most people to greater or lesser extents, when they are actually 'singing' at Church, (as opposed to miming or mumbling in time with the music) tend to sing from memory, with the text, if used at all, used as an aid for their memory rather than reading each word and singing it.

With this in mind, it is not hard to imagine people getting to the third chorus of 'You are near' and belting out 'Yahweh' from memory, even though the new revised text might be right in front of their noses.

This is where we get to the crux of the matter. If it is not hard to imagine someone doing something they are not supposed to do, as a result of choosing to play a given song as part of the liturgy, then playing said song poses a 'occasion of sin' for such a person. Given that other song choices exist, it is voluntary (on the part of the person choosing music for the liturgy). Thus the proximity (or likelyhood) of the sin needs to be a major consideration for any in charge of choosing the music for a given liturgical celebration.

Each Sunday, in the Lord's Prayer Catholics pray 'lead us not into temptation', let us hope that our music leaders are listening!