June 10, 2002

 At last the nation at large can understand the dissimulation and stone-walling that we, Catholic lay teachers, have experienced at the hands of Church leaders for years.    When we discovered deceit, duplicity and double-dealing, we also felt the pain that comes from a betrayal of confidence.
   Surely, we felt, unjust termination, the lack of a living wage and adequate health benefits, blatant discrimination based on gender and marital status (“You don’t need as much money, because you have a husband who works”) and unfair working conditions– all would be rectified if Church officials were reminded that such behavior flew in the face of the Church’s own teachings on how all employers were to behave toward their employees.  The same we thought would apply to the Church’s firm position on workers’ rights.  How could a Church which has been the strongest supporter of organized labor in the United States for more than 100 years not welcome labor unions in their own schools?  How could a Church that petitions the US Congress to pass legislation that would forbid the use of scabs, threaten to fire its own teachers and replace them in order to break a strike? 
   Exchanges of letters with our bishops and even face-to-face meetings produced little more than pious evasions of Church doctrine. 
   And what recourse did we have?  Not covered by national or state labor laws we found out very quickly what those who faced abuse found out about the Church hierarchy—that absolute power can corrupt absolutely.
     Now the entire Church population is experiencing what we’ve endured for decades.  Welcome to our world, America!  Perhaps the public will now be more sympathetic to the lay teachers in the trenches of our two-front war we fight every day: against the forces of ignorance and illiteracy with out students, and against the bureaucratic self interest of Church leaders who care less about social justice than a comfortable status quo. 
   In the coming days, we should add our loud voices to the chorus which is now crying out for reform in the Church.  Laymen should control Church finances, and  oversee episcopal accountability.
   Getting the Church to change won’t be easy. Recent events have shown that there is a closed-in clerical culture that maintains deep distinctions between clergy and laity.  The clergy is aloof from the consequences of their actions. It will be interesting to see if the current crisis has awakened them to the need for reform.