Catholic College Fires Gay Part-Time Professor

PHILADELPHIA — A Catholic college in Philadelphia says it has fired a part-time professor after learning from a post on his blog that he has been in a same-sex relationship for a decade and a half, which officials called contrary to church teaching.

Chestnut Hill College, a private Catholic school, said the Rev. James St. George was terminated after he made "public statements of his involvement in a gay relationship with another man for the past 15 years."

St. George. 45, of Lansdale, was hired by the private Catholic school in 2009 to teach Bible studies and other subjects. He was to teach courses in theology and justice as well as world religions beginning Tuesday.

St. George confirmed to The Philadelphia Inquirer on Saturday that he is gay and recently celebrated the 15th anniversary of his relationship with his partner. He said he was shocked by the termination, which he learned about Feb. 18.

College officials appeared surprised that St. George belonged to a branch of Catholicism not associated with the Vatican that has different views on gay issues. St. George leads St. Miriam Church in Blue Bell, which is affiliated with the Old Catholic Apostolic Church of America, which vows no discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and performs commitment ceremonies for gays and lesbians.

Carol Jean Vale, president of Chestnut Hill College, said in a statement Friday night to several news organizations, including the Philadelphia Daily News, that when St. George joined the faculty "he presented himself as Father St. George and openly wore a traditional Catholic priest's collar."

Vale said that while St. George "appears to be an ordained pastor ... his church allows priests the option to engage in same-sex partnerships."

St. George denied that he had withheld anything from the college.

"What am I supposed to do?" he asked. "Say, 'Before we go any further, I'm gay?' Who says that?"

The college said officials only learned about the matter "after St. George chose to make his private life public information on his blog."

"While we welcome diversity, it is expected that all members of our college community, regardless of their personal beliefs, respect and uphold our Roman Catholic mission, character and values both in the classroom and in public statements that identify them with our school," Vale's statement said. "For this reason, we chose not to offer an additional teaching contract to St. George."

Jessica Murray, 23, who was one of St. George's students, told the Inquirer that she was appalled by the firing.

"All you have to do is Google him, you can see that he's openly gay," she said. "They can't claim they didn't know."

___

Information from: The Philadelphia Inquirer, http://www.philly.com

Comments

[Fever911]

02:00 PM on 03/22/2011

He was fired for not disclosing he was a convicted felon, not for being gay.

[jaymes h]

05:30 PM on 03/04/2011

Who would want to associate with a college or university that does not complete a full background check on their staff? Parents keep your kids from this school. The Roman Catholic Church has long maintained a method of credentials for Priests. This is totally the college's fault for not completing the proper canonical (church law) background check on this Priest.

I wish for the Priest - only good luck - and recommend that he sue the college. But Parents should not send students to a school that does not correctly check up on its staff.

[teabagflush]

01:53 PM on 03/04/2011

If the Catholic Church wants to fire gay employees, it is going to have to fire 75% of their clergy.

[wbthacker]

11:24 AM on 03/04/2011

Was this really about St. George being gay? Or was it because he was in a sexual relationship? I'm pretty sure that if St. George had blogged that he'd been living with a woman for fifteen years they would still have fired him.

St. George acts as if he is surprised that people who hired him as a Catholic priest were expecting him to be celibate and not gay. I knew that. I'll bet everyone reading this knew that.

For St. George's benefit, now that he's looking for work, I suggest he might not want to accept positions with:

- Any arm of the Catholic Church
- Bob Jones University
- Focus on the Family
- Westboro Baptist Church
- The National Organization for Marriage
- Liberty University
- The Boy Scouts

I'm not defending the bigots -- these groups should change their ways. But St. George had to be some kind of stupid if he didn't suspect his same-sex relationship would be an issue for his Catholic employers, and stupidity is just as bad a bigotry.

In fact, they're pretty much the same thing, when I think about it.

[Douglas Campbell]

08:58 PM on 03/03/2011

Not pretty enough or too old or both.

[Stokes]

10:20 AM on 03/03/2011

God is a SPIRIT of Love and Truth. Why then is the carnal sexual relationship equated with God's pure Love? Even politics is governed by sexual activities rather than "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Fire someone, yes, if they are causing harm to others, especially innocent children not someone in a sharing relationship who is doing good for others.

[charlesdickens]

12:51 AM on 03/03/2011

I worked at a small Catholic college in the vicinity of Chestnut Hill. We had a non-Catholic as the head of our religion department and an on-campus gay club. We also had a past president who stood up to the pro-lifers and had a pro-choice speaker deliver a major speech. It's called academic freedom and basic decency, which Sister Vale and Chestnut Hill seem not to practice.

[johndoewasthere]

11:09 PM on 03/02/2011

Then they hired 10 Pedophiles to teach religion

[alterego55]

09:54 PM on 03/02/2011

Uh, Professor, don't be gay. We're going to have to send you to remedial pedophilia classes.

[Rodig]

03:47 PM on 03/02/2011

I'm slowly losing patience for gays who subject themselves to religious tyranny. Seriously, gays looking for respect in church would be like blacks looking for respect in the KKK.

Life is too short to be willingly subjecting yourself to this stuff.

[ninetailedfox]

05:32 PM on 03/02/2011

I like this quote. can I borrow it sometime?

[Rodig]

07:02 AM on 03/03/2011

ninetailedfox, haha, run with it!

[arabia]

06:37 PM on 03/02/2011

"...like blacks looking for respect in the KKK."

Or Jews and Catholics, too. The KKK, remember, targeted all three groups. The word "Catholics" was spelled with a "K" [-- and I won't say what blacks and Jews were called because the names they were given are still too despicable and low to spell out, declare]). But all three groups -- blacks, Jews, and Catholics -- could not see the face of lost Paradise in the KKK. That's for sure.

African Americans, of course, were treated the worst, with lynchings that sometimes left their cut down bodies charred or roasted under a tree. It was a horrible chapter in American history. But that kind of history is like a flood in the mind that leaves no reflection in it. We want to forget it. Understandably.

Gays, however, who have been mistreated, have never had to undergo the kind of suffering that Africans Americans have had to endure -- for centuries -- at the hands of white society. And African Americans are still being abused -- in subtle ways -- owing to racism.

[Rodig]

07:03 AM on 03/03/2011

Arabia,
I'm black, I understand these distinctions all too well.

[SouthernQ]

03:18 PM on 03/02/2011

Too bad he wasn't diddling some altar boys - then the Catholic Church would have covered it up and transfered him somewhere else.

[compliancepmp]

06:19 PM on 03/02/2011

I went to Catholic school and I feel guilty about how hilarious I this comment is.

[The JillyBean]

11:28 AM on 03/02/2011

one wishes they were just as aggressive in expelling pedophile priests. It would have save many children from the nightmare of sexual abuse.

[wdw808]

08:47 PM on 03/02/2011

now i can agree with you on that

[piperflyer]

11:26 AM on 03/02/2011

If it saves one gerbil, I applaud it.

[SouthernQ]

06:10 AM on 03/03/2011

Sexually, you are attracted to men, but haven't been able to admit this to yourself.

[piperflyer]

09:50 AM on 03/03/2011

Intellectually, you are ignorant of satire.

[AwShucks]

11:24 AM on 03/02/2011

Why would St george seek out a position teaching Roman Catholic religion if he chose not to practice Roman Catholic religion for himself ?

I mean it's not like teaching math or english.

Or maybe it is like english. It's like saying, I don't chose to speak english, but I'll be a wonderful english teacher if you hire me.

[aresponse2dotcom]

02:34 PM on 03/03/2011

fav y cactus

[IndependentBadger]

09:26 AM on 03/02/2011

That's right. Fire the gay man who was honest and decided not to live a lie, while transferring thousands of known child rapists to fresh pastures, ad infinitum.