Watch as “shocked” local San Francisco students speak out against their Archbishop’s new morality clause for all Catholic high school employees.
Catholic high school students say they are “shocked” after reading Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone‘s new morality clause and expanded anti-LGBT statements that are to become part of their school’s handbooks and their teachers’ contracts.
“I can’t even describe the shock of reading something like that discriminates against so many people,” Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory School student Mairead Ahlbach told KTVU. “I think people are definitely hurt by the words of the Archbishop.”
She observes that “teachers are afraid for their jobs and they rightfully are afraid the language is dangerous in this contract and in this handbook.”Â
LOOK:Â ‘Gravely Evil’: Archbishop Adds Anti-Gay Morals Clause To Catholic School Teachers’ Contracts
Other students are shocked and angered as well.
“We learn about social justice here, we learn about equality, it doesn’t represent what our school is,†Gus O’Sullivan, a senior at Sacred Heart said. “I was really shocked. I’m gay myself so this document has a lot of resonance to me specifically.â€Â
He says he hopes “the school decides to bring this further, talk to the Vatican.”
As NCRM reported Wednesday, the Archbishop’s latest attacks on social justice, progressive values, the LGBT community, and women seem to confront Pope Francis’ commentary and attempts to be a more welcoming church. They include statements that “all extra-marital sexual relationships are gravely evil, including adultery, masturbation, fornication, the viewing of pornography and homosexual relations.”
In a YouTube video, Cordileone says that “teachers have to respect the mission of the school in the way they live their public lives.”
Students have launched a petition that is gaining attention, and signatures, which have more than doubled in just 24 hours.
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Image via YouTube