UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter
Joshua J. McElwee | Jun. 4, 2013
When Carla Hale’s mother died in March, the 57-year-old didn’t know the life transition would also involve the abrupt ending of a nearly two-decade career as a Catholic high school teacher.
Columbus, Ohio, Bishop Frederick Campbell dismissed Hale, a Methodist who had taught at Bishop Watterson High School for 19 years, after someone notified the diocese she had included the name of her female domestic partner, Julie, among the survivors in her mother’s local newspaper obituary.
As other church officials have said in the cases of other Catholic teachers and parish workers who have faced similar firings in recent months, Campbell said in interviews that Hale was not fired because she is gay.
She was let go, the bishop said, because her “quasi-spousal relationship” violates church teachings, her contract and diocesan policy, the latter of which requires employees to follow general church tenets.
But how does a bishop or a church pastor or Catholic school board decide when employees aren’t following church tenets? And how do they respond when they receive anonymous tips about an employee’s supposed violations?
Mostly, they respond without any sort of official guidance or policy.
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