City of San Fran. tells archbishop his school reform is discriminatory: considering legal action

By Lisa Bourne

SAN FRANCISCO, March 6, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) – San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors says the archbishop’s effort to ensure the city’s Catholic schools uphold their faith is discriminatory, and one member of the board says the city is considering legal action.

At the same time, a reported 80 percent of teachers in the archdiocese’s four Catholic high schools have sent a petition to Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone that accuses him of fostering “mistrust and fear.”

“We believe the recently proposed handbook language is harmful to our community and creates an atmosphere of mistrust and fear,” the letter said. “We believe our schools should be places of inquiry and the free exchange of ideas where all feel welcome and affirmed.”

Organizers report that 355 teachers from Sacred Heart Catholic Prep, Serra High School, Archbishop Riordan, and Marin Catholic have signed the petition, according to CBS San Francisco.

The archdiocese announced plans in early February to add language from the Catechism of the Catholic Church spelling out Church teaching on sexual morality into faculty handbooks for the purpose of clarifying the long-standing expectation that Catholic school teachers uphold Church teaching and not publicly contradict it. Three new clauses clarifying the same were also proposed for teacher contracts in the four archdiocesan high schools... (continued)

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• City of San Fran. tells archbishop his school reform is discriminatory: considering legal action

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• S.F. archbishop goes against grain with strict morality code

S.F. archbishop goes against grain with strict morality code

By Kevin Fagan

(San Francisco Chronicle) The Catholic Church is famously conservative, but San Francisco’s archdiocese is carving out new ground on the right even for that religion as it tries to require its teachers to reject homosexual relations and other “gravely evil” behavior in their lives.

Only a handful of U.S. dioceses have added such forceful language to their teacher conduct codes in recent years requiring conformity to church doctrine in their public and private lives, experts say. Oakland, Santa Rosa and Cleveland were foremost among them — but none has pressed the point home as adamantly as San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone. And Oakland and Santa Rosa have backed down from their pushes...

“I believe these men are acting out of sincere conviction, because clearly the ecclesial winds have shifted,” said Bretzke, who taught at the University of San Francisco and in Berkeley before going to Boston. “This is not the way to put winds in your career sails anymore. Whatever you want to say about them, you cannot say they are political opportunists...”

The local conservative stance finds more resonance in Cleveland than most other places. There, Bishop Richard Lennon expanded the morality clause last year for his diocese’s teachers that banned activities including same-sex relations, pornography viewing and cohabitation outside marriage on pain of being fired.

Diocese spokesman Robert Tayek said the move was made to “be more specific” at a time of growing moral need.

“Like the Archdiocese of San Francisco, we here in the Cleveland Diocese recognize that now, more than ever, the secular culture is offering a view of life and humanity that is often at odds with Christ’s truth as presented through the Catholic Church,” read a diocese statement forwarded by Tayek. “In response to that reality, we have added language to our teacher contracts...” (continued)

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• S.F. archbishop goes against grain with strict morality code