The Santa Rosa (California) Catholic Diocese is requiring its 200 schoolteachers to sign an agreement affirming that “modern errors” such as contraception, abortion, homosexual marriage, and euthanasia are “matters that gravely offend human dignity.”
God bless you Bishop Vasa. As someone who grew-up in the error laden minefields of the 1970s and 80s American Catholic Church, I can testify to the great damage uneducated and misguided teachers can cause upon the impressionable minds of their students. I attended Catholic parochial schools from kindergarten to the 12th grade. I detail much of this in my book. Over those 13 years, I never once remember being asked to memorize a prayer, learn a devotion (the Rosary,) or read from the Bible. I do recall a lot of craft projects during primary-school “religion” class, anecdotes, and an emphasis on the personal character of a slightly hippie Jesus; similar to the one portrayed in Jesus Christ Superstar. In middle-school, a brave priest once warned us children about the dangers of masturbation. He was quickly ushered out, never to be seen by us again. High-school bordered on the bizarre. In one class, we watched the drug, sex, and profanity laden film The Breakfast Club; in another, the teacher praised the benevolence of various Yoga positions which could help with problems of constipation and sexual function. At another, we repeatedly had to deconstruct the imagery in various magazine and television commercials. I got bored, and cut a lot of it; finally opting-out to work as a teacher's aid in a public school. Over the years, I had learned nothing about morality. One memory, a Catholic priest who told the students that the best believers are those that “question everything.” That, I did well.When I graduated, I loathed the Church, and even Jesus. He was incredibly dated; a 60s throwback that meant little to my life.
These diversions and gross misrepresentations of what the Catholic Church teaches, I believe, was tantamount to child abuse. I can not count all the men who I met, the same age as myself, with a similar “Catholic” background, who got dropped into the supreme evil of the gay lifestyle, and later died of AIDS. Like me, they came of age when the religious women abandoned the habit, and the doctrines of the Church. Little was said, but much time was wasted. Parents, who primarily thought that the Church still persisted in the orthodoxy of the 1950s and early-60s, never could have imagined that the persona of the singing nun had turned into the swinging sister. Most were oblivious. Even priests, that are my friends, who were children at the same time, now look back and wonder at the garbage that was spewed. They survived, as did I, by the Grace of God. For the most part, they came from solidly Catholic families, but the change happened so quickly, that most got caught off guard. After the 1980's, my knowledge of Catholic education is nil. But the sheer fact that the Bishop sees a need for teachers to sign a contract of loyalty to Catholic doctrine means that the problem still exists. For Catholic schools are not private country clubs, or sheltered day-schools, but training grounds for the battles that are yet to come. I waked into the world, without a clue. I got pulverized. Children must be guided and fortified; evil awaits.
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