A courageous and solid Catholic girl of 15 years has learned the difficult lesson that sometimes doing the right thing for the right reasons will often earn you enemies in this life. You may have heard of Katelyn Sills, or more precisely what she did.
Katelyn was at a pro-life vigil outside an abortion clinic and recognized a teacher from her Catholic high school working as a clinic escort. She recognized the conflict and reported it to the school, Loretto High School in Sacramento, California. When the school did nothing after repeated inquiries, her family brought it to the attention of Bishop William Weigand, who to his credit ordered the teacher be fired.
Now it turns out that Katelyn, who blogged her experiences has been summarily expelled from her school.
“As of Saturday, October 29th, I was given official notice by express mail that I am expelled from Loretto High School. This was given completely without forewarning, without a meeting, and without a chance to say goodbye. My family is now seeking legal advice, and more details will follow.”
I’ve been commenting over on this brave young woman’s blog this week, and I have yet to see even one shred of evidence that she or her mother have done anything wrong. Oh they have been accused of many vile things, but so far (and I can’t even imagine her enemies holding back anything that could prove their allegations) not one concrete instance has been sighted. It has all been rumor, innuendo and slander.
Miss Sill’s detractors, OTOH, have for the most part shown themselves to be barely literate and unthinking PC drones for who the horror of abortion is simply an everyday choice, and Church Teachings are simply to be ignored if even known.
What is being reveled over there is the ugly and evil consequences of Catholic parents handing their children over to be feed to the world by faithless religious and VOTF style lay teachers, all the while thinking themselves virtuous because they blow 12K a year on their kid’s education.
This benighted school is in no way exceptional. There are “Catholic” schools like it everywhere, and together they are flooding the world with ignorant, poorly formed Catholics who are under the illusion that because they went to Catholic school, they know everything important about their putative faith. It’s scary.
Since this is an independent school, I doubt if anyone in Rome or the diocese can do much about Katelyn’s expulsion.
Even so, I think the bishop has ample grounds to do a thorough investigation of the education in faith and morals that these girls are getting in Loretto High School.
The line these girls are getting is the same line that America magazine was pushing – orthodox Catholicism is presented as an option side-by-side with the opposite point of view. The girls are told to become strong, independent thinkers – in effect, to take a critical stance with respect to what the Church teaches as objective truth.
Of course, what these girls are soaking up in an uncritical way is the heretical opinions and disobedient attitudes of the IBVM sisters.
Another case of kill the messenger, otherwise known as Roman Catholic business as usual, unfortunately. And we think things have changed…
As I reflect on it—about the poor catechesis that is epidemic, and about the fact that Catholic secondary school has become the perogative of the comfortably-off because of the cost, and about this instance of phariseeism—I’ve got to say that they may have done this girl a favor.
I found the story the other day and was angry yet again about the failures of the people running the Church. The choice is to be PC or to be looking for another home. It’s just nauseating.
Can’t the bishop close the whole school if it isn’t teaching the faith? or take away its Catholic name?
The reason for the expulsion is to chill this sort of activity.
Of course, the way the school did this opens them up to a very big civil suit especially if they cannot prove what was alleged in the expulsion order.
And I think the bishop is obligated to do more to the school than shrug his shoulders.
The bishop may not be able to force the school to readmit Miss Sills, but doesn’t any religious order have to have the permission of the bishop to operate/work in his diocese? If so, couldn’t he rescind his permission to be active there, thus shutting down the school? Not sure, just wondering.
David, here’s a quote from the first link from a spokeman for the diocese:
“A religious institute in the church which is of pontifical right,” explaining that “they are subject in their internal affairs directly to the Holy See and not to the local bishop.”
My guess is also that the school is incorporated and has a board of directors, some of whom would not be IBVM sisters.
Rome has jurisdiction over the sisters. Bishop W has jurisdiction over the instruction in faith and morals, but only the board would have jurisdiction over the administration of the school.
Bishop W could do much more if he chose to intervene – but his actions would put indirect pressure on the school.
1) He could meet with the school administrators to discuss the situation. He could also contact the Board formally and/or informally to discuss what was done.
2) He could issue a public statement supporting the Sills family and calling on the school to rescind the expulsion.
3) He could do a thorough (read: intrusive) evaluation of the teaching of faith and morals at the school and the school’s personnel policies.
4) He could himself appeal to the leadership of the IBVM and to Rome on behalf of Katelyn.
5) He could join the Sills family outside of the Planned Parenthood abortuary.
6) He could get Katelyn into a diocesan high school on scholarship for the rest of the school year.
7) He could forbid the celebration of mass at school functions and on school property.
8) He could encourage other bishops to exercise increased scrutiny over IBVM schools.
Whatever happened to the theology of Episcopacy from the 2nd Vatican Council? Just a question.
I would do #s 2, 4, 5, 6, 7 from William’s list.
Then I would build a new girls school as close to the Loretto High School as possible staffed by some ultra-conservative (see Seminarian’s Dictionary) order of sisters.
The whole world is now posting on her blog…hits from South Africa and Poland!
OK—that helps explain Bp. Weigand’s not acting to rescind the expulsion.
He can’t.
I mistakenly thought he was sidelining himself on this one, but I am relieved in a way to hear he can’t directly intervene. Still, I think Charles raises some good ideas. Even a public statement of support would be helpful.