BishopAccountability.org
	Catholic College Fires Openly Gay Priest My Fox Philadelphia February 26, 2011 http://www.myfoxphilly.com/dpp/news/local_news/catholic-college-fires-openly-gay-priest A beloved Chestnut Hill College professor is out of a job tonight. The school is a private Roman Catholic institution and it say it didn’t know Father James St. George was gay when he was hired to teach. Father St. George says he was fully vetted when he was hired and he's wondering whether a letter from a local lawyer may have done him in. Father St. George doesn't exactly hide the fact he's gay. But he says he never brings it up in class. "My sexuality has never come up. I've never once said i'm gay," he told Fox 29. Father St. George is part of the Old Catholic Church Of The Americas, a faction that broke away from the Vatican back in 1870. In his church, priests are allowed to marry and be gay. A quick Google search when the college hired him would have revealed that, but the college said in a statement, "it was with great disappointment when we learned through St. George's public statements of his involvement in a gay relationship with another man for the past 15 years." The college never spoke to Father St. George, he says, they sent a letter, and then refused to take his calls. His firing coincides with an email sent to Philadelphia Cardinal Justin Rigali and the college from James Pepper, a local lawyer who called the priest a "heretic." "I serve as a trauma chaplain, I help broken people. I run a parish, a small parish in Blue Bell, take care of people who have no hope. I teach kids how to become better adults," Father St. George said. "A school that is supposed to teach religious understanding is not even being tolerant." The college sent Fox 29 a statement Friday night after we taped an interview with Father St. George. Fox 29 tried to reach James Pepper, the lawyer who wrote the letter, but he did not respond to our phone call or email. The statement from Chestnut Hill College arrived after our interview with Father St. George. We received this response from him: He says the college president is "completely wrong and they have known all about me from the first day." Father St. George went on to say that to "openly admit hatred and anti-gay bias is deplorable, and I continue to be very sad that such hatred exists."
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