Thread by @JamesMartinSJ

Here is why the Archdiocese of Indianapolis is unjustly targeting LGBT people. Their statement about #Brebeuf reads: "Whether they teach religion or not, all ministers in their professional and private lives must convey and be supportive of Catholic Church teaching." Thread

If employees' "professional and private lives must convey and be supportive of Catholic Church teaching" that means that, to be consistent, all Catholic institutions (schools, parishes, hospitals, retreat centers) in the Archdiocese would also have to fire the following people:

1) Catholic straight individuals living with someone before being married.
2) Catholic married couples who use birth control.
3) Catholic straight individuals who are divorced and remarried without an annulment.
4) Catholic couples who use in vitro fertilization.

But "Catholic Church teaching" is not simply about sexual morality; it is much broader than that. It includes a wide variety of other teachings, in a great many areas. And so schools would also have to fire:

5) Catholics who do not go to Mass.
6) Catholics who do not support church teaching on the environment ("Laudato Si," on the environment, is an encyclical on the same level as "Humanae Vitae," on birth control).
7) Catholics who do not support church teaching on the death penalty

And "Catholic church teaching" is still much broader. It is, at the most basic level, the Gospel message of Jesus Christ. So schools would also have to fire:

8) Catholics who do not give to the poor.
9) Catholics who do not forgive.
10) Catholics who are not loving.

Moreover, if an employee's life must "convey" and "support" Catholic teaching, then, quite obviously, schools would have to fire:

11) Protestants
12) Jews
13) Hindus
14) Muslims
15) Agnostics
16) Atheists

LGBT people are the only ones being targeted in this way. They are the only ones whose sexual lives are investigated in this way. (To be clear, schools could easily investigate all the other categories mentioned.) This is "unjust discrimination," as mentioned in the Catechism.

And it must cease. Brebeuf's willingness to stand with its LGBT employees, and its unwillingness to participate in the targeting of LGBT people is a necessary and courageous stance. It has been supported by the Jesuit Provincial Superior in the Midwest.

It is the most Catholic thing that the school, and the Jesuits, could do.