THE BOSTON VIRUS DEFINED:  What is the Boston Virus?  It is a mindset grounded in a form of secular liberalism that would divorce faith and reason from human discourse about which Pope Benedict XVI famously spoke in his talk at Regensburg, Germany in 2006.  In that talk the Pope said:

….it is man himself who ends up being reduced, for the specifically human questions about our origin and destiny, the questions raised by religion and ethics, then have no place within the purview of collective reason as defined by “science” and must thus be relegated to the realm of the subjective. The subject then decides, on the basis of his experiences, what he considers tenable in matters of religion, and the subjective “conscience” becomes the sole arbiter of what is ethical. In this way, though, ethics and religion lose their power to create a community and become a completely personal matter.

This is a dangerous state of affairs for humanity, as we see from the disturbing pathologies of religion and reason which necessarily erupt when reason is so reduced that questions of religion and ethics no longer concern it. Attempts to construct an ethic from the rules of evolution or from psychology and sociology, end up being simply inadequate.

Address of Pope Benedict XVI at the University of Regensburg on 12 September 2006.

This virus is found no only in the Catholic Church but is to be found throughout the western world.  It is to be found not only in Boston but in many parts of the United States principally on the east and west coasts.  It is called the “Boston Virus” because in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and principally in the city of Boston the greatest concentration of those infected with the virus is to be found.  While Harvard University was not the origin of the virus, it is certainly the fertile breeding ground from whence newly infected persons come bringing with them the virus infecting churches, government and educational institutions.  Like any deadly virus, the Boston Virus can spread and cause a pandemic of intellectual, spiritual and moral disease.

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Boston Catholic Schools Non-Discrimination Policy: Next Steps Before the Virus Spreads Joe Sacerdo | January 15, 2011 at 4:15 pm | Tags: Archdiocese of Boston, Bryan Hehir | Categories: Archdiocese of Boston, Bryan Hehir, Catholic Schools, Gay/Lesbian Related | URL: http://wp.me/pQfKt-mC

By now, most of you have probably heard about the disaster of a policy the Archdiocese of Boston’s supposedly “Catholic” Schools office unveiled this past week that officially says Catholic schools can’t discriminate in admissions.

At this blog “Queering the Church,” in a post called, “Catholic School Admissions: Sanity in Boston,” they are excited about the policy, saying “representatives of leading gay and lesbian Catholic organizations welcomed the new policy.”   When gay “Catholic” organizations like DignityUSA, praise the archdiocese and Catholics for Marriage Equality says they “hope dioceses around the country will adopt Boston’s guidelines,” you know there’s a big problem. This disaster could sweep across the country quickly if faithful Catholics do not act quickly.

Lots of people are asking what to do about this.  Here is our initial thinking, but more will be coming as we launch our campaign.

First and foremost for right now, educate yourself.  It’s troubling to hear from readers that most priests in Boston area seem OK with the policy, so you may even have to educate your pastor.   Read this post in its entirety if you can, but for those with limited time, here’s an initial attempt at distilling the longer content we have covered before into a shorter set of key talking points:

1. Good of the Child Not Served by Learning Values in School Radically Different from Those at Home
2. Private Schools Can and Do “Discriminate”
3. Need Partnership Between Catholic School and Parents
4. Protecting Innocence of Children is Impossible
5. Policy Mandates Implicit or Explicit Recognition of the Gay/Lesbian relationship as Valid
6. Use of Holy Father’s Quote is Deceptive
7. Policy Violates Principle of Subsidiarity

1. Good of the Child Not Served by Learning Values in School Radically Different from Those at Home

For all of the talk about not depriving the innocent child of gay parents from a Catholic education, no one ever explains how the good of the child is served by being educated with one set of moral principles in school and encountering something radically different in their home.

As Dale O’Leary put it, “Persons in same-sex relationships who have children naturally want to protect their children’s feelings. They aren’t going to want their children to be exposed to the truth. A Catholic school cannot agree to hide the truth.  What is in the best interest of the children of same-sex couples and the other children? If they accept the children in the school, the children will either be alienated from their parents on whom they rely or alienated from God who would be seen as condemning their parents’ choices. While older children might be able to understand and even appreciate the Church’s teaching, younger children certainly will not. To them it will just seem mean. It will put the teachers in an untenable position and confuse the children’s classmates. Therefore, it is reasonable for Catholic elementary schools to explain to same-sex couples that this is not the place for their children.”

Archbishop Chaput wrote the Church teaches that “marriage is a sacramental covenant; and that marriage can only occur between a man and a woman.  These beliefs are central to a Catholic understanding of human nature, family and happiness, and the organization of society.”  When the Church teaches that gay marriage is against the will of God at the same time the parents live a lifestyle that rejects those beliefs, then the child will hear the Church saying their parents (upon whom they rely for sustenance) are bad.  The burden and stress is borne by the child, who is caught in the middle, and on their teachers, who have an obligation to teach the authentic faith of the Church.

Fr. Landry at CatholicPreaching noted, “There is a requirement, for the good of the child, that the parents commit to raise the child in a situation that at least does not contradict the values and formation given at the school. If the child’s education will not be coupled to a way of life consistent with it, the parents and school would be placing the child in a spiritually and morally schizophrenic situation — which is obviously harmful.”

How exactly do proponents of the policy reconcile this conflict and claim what they are doing is for the good of the child still?

2. Private Schools Can and Do “Discriminate”

Catholic schools are private schools, and by nature, a private school admits some students and not others.  Catholic children could and should have preference over non-Catholics in admissions. Children are excluded from schools on an individual basis because of behavioral problems.  The Vatican has declared that active homosexuals should be excluded from seminaries. It’s a private school, and as such someone will inevitably be excluded.

The Catholic Church “discriminates” in the sacrament of baptism, where the Church wants all children to be baptized but the priest has the duty to determine that there is a “well-founded” or “realistic” hope that the child will be raised in the Catholic faith (Canon 868 in the Code of Canon Law). As Fr. Roger Landry has written, “If there is no realistic hope that the parents are going to raise the child in the faith…the pastor…must reluctantly delay the baptism in view of the good of the child, who assumes rights and responsibilities upon being baptized. If the child is not going to be nourished in the faith to know and live by those privileges and duties, then the Church defers the baptism, hoping that either the parents will have a change of heart or the child, upon maturity, will freely request baptism as a catechumen.”

3. Need Partnership Between Catholic School and Parents

Archbishop Chaput, Dale O’Leary, Fr. Roger Landry and Vatican documents including Declaration on Christian Education (Gravissimum Educationis) have said it well.  The school  needs to partner with parents to develop children in the faith.  That means the parents have to accept the teachings of the Catholic Church and help reinforce them in the home and family life.  Archbishop Chaput wrote, “If parents don’t respect the beliefs of the Church, or live in a manner that openly rejects those beliefs, then partnering with those parents becomes very difficult, if not impossible.” There is an inherent conflict here with gay parents  who are happily living a relationship that is considered immoral, which permanently deprives children of their natural law right to both a mother and father, and which can never ever be considered valid by the church.  This is uniquely different than situations where parents are divorced, single parents, or co-habitating heterosexual couples, where those parents themselves may hope for the potential of a valid marriage, and where the relationship can indeed hopefully become valid in the eyes of the Church some day.

4. Protecting Innocence of Children is Impossible

By forcing the admission of children of active gay and lesbian parents, the Archdiocese of Boston has declared that the desires of those gay and lesbian parents living in a relationship considered immoral by the Church trump the Church-granted rights of Catholic parents and children to keep their children’s minds innocent.

The Vatican’s Pontifical Council on the Family’s 1995 document, Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality says when premature information about sex is imposed on children who are not yet equipped to integrate that information with moral responsibility:

Such information tends to shatter their emotional and educational development and to disturb the natural serenity of this period of life. Parents should politely but firmly exclude any attempts to violate children’s innocence because such attempts compromise their spiritual, moral and emotional development. [No. 83]

“Parents must protect their children, first by teaching them a form of modesty and reserve with regard to strangers as well as giving suitable sexual information but without going into details and particulars that might upset or frighten them [No. 85]

Apostolic Exhortation on the Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World His Holiness (Familiaris Consortio): says:

The Church is firmly opposed to an often widespread form of imparting sex information disassociated from moral principles.”

With actions like this policy, the Boston Archdiocese is overruling the primacy of parents as the first educators of their children.  In addition, by condoning the exposure of young children to homosexual parents of other children–and likely public displays of affection in front of young children at school functions or events hosted at their homes–they are ensuring that all children will be put in a situation of confusion that will require explanation by parents.

How will seeing such displays of affection between homosexual couples not corrupt the mind of a young child? How does the Archdiocese explain their rationale behind keeping parents out of the loop and breaking the innocence of a 6-year-old mind to explain why Johnny has two daddies?

5. Policy Mandates Implicit or Explicit Recognition of the Gay/Lesbian relationship as Valid

Pope John Paul II’s Letter to the Bishops on Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons says:

The Church is also aware that the view that homosexual activity is equivalent to, or as acceptable as, the sexual expression of conjugal love has a direct impact on society’s understanding of the nature and rights of the family and puts them in jeopardy.”

Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith cautioned about recognizing homosexual unions and making them a model in society.

11. The Church teaches that respect for homosexual persons cannot lead in any way to approval of homosexual behaviour or to legal recognition of homosexual unions. The common good requires that laws recognize, promote and protect marriage as the basis of the family, the primary unit of society. Legal recognition of homosexual unions or placing them on the same level as marriage would mean not only the approval of deviant behaviour, with the consequence of making it a model in present-day society, but would also obscure basic values which belong to the common inheritance of humanity. The Church cannot fail to defend these values, for the good of men and women and for the good of society itself.

The U.S.C.C.B’s Guidelines for Ministry to Persons with Homosexual Inclination say the following:

Special care must be taken to ensure that those carrying out the ministry of the Church not use their position of leadership to advocate positions or behaviors not in keeping with the teachings of the Church. They must not belong to groups that oppose Church teaching. It is not sufficient for those involved in this ministry to adopt a position of distant neutrality with regard to Church teaching.

The Church does not support so-called same-sex “marriages” or any semblance thereof, including civil unions that give the appearance of a marriage. Church ministers may not bless such unions or promote them in any way, directly or indirectly.

Pope John Paul II’s Letter to the Bishops on Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons also warned about this problem.  The Church “is also aware that the view that homosexual activity is equivalent to, or as acceptable as, the sexual expression of conjugal love has a direct impact on society’s understanding of the nature and rights of the family and puts them in jeopardy.”

The Pilot, acknowledged this problem, saying, “it can be argued that the appearance of normalcy and acceptance of homosexual behavior that would follow from accepting gay parents into the life of a Catholic school — at parish functions, fundraisers, as chaperones for field trips, etc. — could lead other children to grave confusion about the nature of marriage as the union between a man and a woman.”

How does this policy not force the Church to give direct or implicit recognition of the gay relationship of the parents?  In admitting children of gay parents to Catholic schools, how will the Church avoid giving the impression that the status of the parents is comparable to parents united in the bonds of Holy Matrimony?

6) Use of Holy Father’s Quote is Deceptive

The first line in the draft policy says, “In creating this policy we are guided by the words of the Holy Father…”:

No child should be denied his or her right to an education in faith, which in turn nurtures the soul of a nation.”  Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI to Catholic Educators in Washington DC. April 17, 2008.

This out-of-context use of the Holy Father’s words is a deception to justify the policy.  Anyone who reads the Holy Father’s actual address to Catholic University of America can plainly see that he was referring to the “financial needs of our institutions” and “long-term sustainability”—and thus Catholic education would be accessible on a financial basis “to people of all social and economic strata.”  When he said “no child should be denied his or her right to an education in faith,” he was clearly saying that financial means should not be a reason for denial. That Cardinal O’Malley would allow repurposing this quote to justify admitting children of gay and lesbian parents is scandalous.

As another blog asked, did the archdiocese ever actually ask for the Vatican’s input or input from the Holy Father?

7) Policy Violates Principle of Subsidiarity

The policy says that pastors, principals, advisory and/or governing boards may develop specific admission policies for their school provided they are in conformity with the Archdiocesan Admission policy.

This violates a core principle of subsidiarity in Church law, which  means the Church usually assumes that problems are best defined and resolved by those most closely affected by them. By entrusting a pastor to care for the people of his parish, and by empowering a pastor to make certain decisions on behalf of his parish, the bishop is exercising the principle of subsidiarity, but regardless of the spin-control from the archdiocese, the letter of this policy negates that, forcing the pastor to conform to the top-down policy.

For now, make sure you know these points well. Don’t sit there stewing over this waiting for Bryan Hehir Exposed to do everything and miraculously resolve the scandal and crisis.  Forward a copy of this blog post to your pastor via email. Visit the Take Action page and send your own letter to the Roman Curia people listed there.  We think that the policy should be scrapped and some people in high positions in Boston need to be replaced, but it’s going to take multiple rounds of contacting Rome to get them to respond. We’ll make more suggestions when we get our own campaign launched.