Commentary by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS

A recently fired lesbian director of religious education at a private Catholic school in Philadelphia had the press and her supporters in tow when she tried to deliver a box of petitions asking the Archdiocese to reinstate her, but found the doors locked and no one willing to cower to her demands.

The notoriously anti-Catholic Philadelphia Inquirer is reporting on the episode that occurred on Monday when Margie Winters, who was recently fired from her post at Waldron Mercy Academy in Merion for being married to her lesbian partner, tried to deliver a box of 23,000 petitions asking for her reinstatement. When she arrived at the Archdiocesan offices, with about 50 supporters and an ABC News truck trailing after her, a security guard politely told her that the building was on lock-down.

Winters reportedly quipped, “because I’m so threatening” and handed him the box of petitions to deliver to Archbishop Charles Chaput.

The petitions read: "Margie Winters' firing was unjust and contrary to Catholic values, and she should be reinstated immediately. Please inform the school's leadership that you will not interfere with their staffing or threaten their status as a Catholic school."

Winters told her cheering fans on Monday that “we ask for full inclusion at the table and in the church. And we ask now for a moratorium on firing any LGBT employee.”

In other words, the Church must change its teaching and not only allow people who are same-sex attracted to work in its institutions (which it already does), but allow people who act on their same-sex attraction to do so (which it does not, and will not allow for Biblical reasons).

Waldron Mercy Academy,
Merion Station, PA

She also questioned the archdiocese's repeated claim that it played no role in her firing, claiming that an anonymous complaint to the archdiocese in June "very quickly" set in motion her firing.

“You can draw your own conclusions,” she said as if it's perfectly reasonable, in a law-abiding country, to condemn an accused based on personal conjecture.

Archdiocesan spokesman Ken Gavin rightfully called the petitions "problematic" and said “it's wrong for any individual or group to perpetuate the falsehood that the archbishop interfered with the school's personnel decisions."

Not surprisingly, this whole charade was orchestrated by a so-called “social justice group” known as Faithful America.

The Inquirer presents the group in the most heroic terms, treating them as heroes for claiming that they are “sick of sitting by quietly while Jesus' message of good news is hijacked by the religious right to serve a hateful political agenda.”

It applauds them for its main accomplishments such as pressuring Google and MSNBC to cut ties with organizations that respect the religious freedom guaranteed in the First Amendment.

But a brilliant expose by Catholic League president Bill Donohue does an excellent job of exposing this organization for what it is – “a loose group of anti-Catholics who are funded by an atheist billionaire” who is none other than George Soros.

According to Donohue's research, Faithful America is nothing more than a front group created to go after the Church.

“Faithful America says many people want the rogue teacher reinstated. But there is no real organization called Faithful America,” Donohue writes. “Organizations list their address, phone number, fax number, and email address. Faithful America lists none; it is an ‘online community.’ To be specific, no one goes to work each day at Faithful America because there is no place to go!

“George Soros, the atheist billionaire, funds Faithful America; he also funds Faith in Public Life, which is associated with this ‘online community.’ These are essentially front groups that pose as religious entities” which are then used to attack the faithful.

Had the Inquirer did a little digging instead of chasing after another sensational headline designed to make LGBT activists look like ordinary affronted citizens being bullied by an autocratic Church, they might have discovered a much more important story – like how some rich people exploit the American public in order to promote their own godless agenda.

But instead, we’re left with the same tired storyline - “look how badly the Catholics have treated this LGBT teacher who refused to abide by the teachings of the Church who has been paying her bills for the last eight years.”

We can only commend the Archbishop for putting at least this episode of the story on lock-down.

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