Pope Francis's question, "Who am I to judge?," continues to appear to have no impact at all on how Catholic institutions keep treating their gay employees: as Bob Shine reports today for New Ways Ministry, news has just broken of the firing of Matthew Eledge, an English teacher at Skutt Catholic High School in Omaha, after he became engaged to his partner Elliot Doughtery, and of the revocation of a job offer made by Dowling Catholic High School in Des Moines to Tyler McCubbin because he's gay and engaged to a partner.
As Bob Shine notes, more than 40 people have lost jobs in Catholic institutions in the U.S. over LGBT issues since 2008 (I'd want to point out that these are the reported firings of people over LGBT issues; many firings of gay employees of Catholic institutions have long flown under the radar, because the institutions claim that the people they're ditching are being fired for some other spurious reason, or because those fired do not publicize what has happened to them). That "Who am I to judge?" thing: it doesn't seem to be working out too well, does it—not for real-life human beings who happen to be gay and Catholic, that is.
And as these firings happen in the American Midwest, the Paris weekly Journal du Dimanche reported yesterday that the Vatican is refusing to accept the ambassador appointed to it by the French government, Laurent Stéfanini. Because Stéfanini is gay . . . .
The JDD report states that the refusal to accept Stéfanini as an ambassador to the Vatican comes directly from Pope Francis himself. As the report notes, France is discovering that "Who am I to judge?" has its limits.
Indeed. Pretty words, easy to say, but apparently so much sound and fury, signifying . . . .
(Thanks to Brittie Perez for emailing the Journal du Dimanche article to me and a group of other email correspondents.)
