Pregnant and Single: Catholic School Teacher Fired
Why is it that the Catholic Church would rather have a single mother become unemployed and/or on welfare than either have an abortion or a job to provide for her child? When a diocese fires a single woman for becoming pregnant out of wedlock, that’s the message they’re sending.
This is one of those “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situations.
An unmarried 5th grade teacher at St. Felix school in Wabasha, Mn. found herself in an unfortunate position when she became pregnant. True to her faith, she decided against having an abortion - but then found herself on the short end of the employment stick. She was given the choice by school administrators to resign or be fired:
…after learning she was pregnant out of wedlock, she felt the right decision was to be honest with the school’s principal.
“She told me that she was glad I made the right choice in telling her,” Emily says.
She says after being asked by administration to write a letter to the school explaining what she had done, she was then asked by the principal and the school’s priest to resign…
This isn’t the first time that a teacher in a Catholic school was terminated because she wouldn’t just keep her mouth shut and quietly have an abortion. In 2006, a teacher at St. Rose of Lima in Queens, NY was fired for violating a morality clause in her employment contract when she became pregnant out of wedlock.
Apparently, the Catholic Church would rather have a single mother become unemployed or on welfare than either have an abortion or a job to provide for her child.
Update: Is this creepy, or what? From the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:
(Emily) Prigge was in her first year on the job at St. Felix school. When she took the job she signed a Catholic Christian Witness Statement, where she agreed to be a good example as a Christian in her personal and academic life. Prigge, who is Catholic, says she was told she didn’t live up to the statement because she had premarital sex…
What is this Catholic Christian Witness Statement thing? Is that kind of like a GOP fealty oath that you have to sign in order to attend a George Bush rally? Someone please enlighten me.
The RCC, serving up women as sperm vessels since 33 AD (unless they’re Mary Magdalene-ish).
She shouldn’t have resigned, but should have held them up for all the unemployment she possibly could. I’d also like to see the parents in that school, especially the parrents of the kids in her class, make their voices heard.
Yes, let’s protect priests who diddle little boys, but God forbid that some slut should parade her swollen womb in front of our impressionable youth!
Obviously I don’t know all the details of the case but I would assume she signed some sort of contract that stipulated a certain level of moral conduct fitting of a Catholic School. If this is true I don’t understand why this is news.
Yeah, Joe, we should probably brand her with a red letter “A”, too, don’t you think?
Sheesh.
Clever.
And did the priests who molested children sign “some sort of contract that stipulated a certain level of moral conduct,” too, Joe?
bitter one - i bet they don’t have any morality clause for priests - only young women.
it’s a private school, apparently, not a state school. if it were a state school, i’d get upset.
private, shmivate…i don’t think any employer’s rules should supersede the law of the land. it’s discrimination.
um, life is not always ideal. the mexican grocery store across the street won’t hire me, because i can’t speak spanish. well not enough, anyway. the owners of the motel here are pakistani, or indian, i haven’t figured out which, but only one speaks english, and she’s gone most of the time
quebec has a law sayin you have to know french
i don’t think knowin english is an onerous requirement
i wouldn’t move to mexico, and expect them to know english
a lot of russians know english now, tho
we came very close to a world war a couple days ago, do any of you realize that?
Rules are rules, let’s move on already!
She’ll be able to make more money teaching at a goverment school anyway.
Typical left, sign a contract, and then try to sue for money so you can add to the coffer of your trial lawyer friends.
I am a Catholic and proud of it!
What a foolish woman. If she had only restricted her sexual activities to boys too young to get her pregnant, it would have been fine with the Catholic church.
Most of you missed the basic point. It’s a Catholic School. She signed a contract that included following the teaching of the Catholic school. That teaching, for those who don’t know or have misinformation, includeds not having premarital sex, pregnancy out of wed-lock and also the concept of not subjecting others to scandal. While I realize many of you view this as an opportunity to rant and rave about the abuse committed by a FEW priests, let’s show some maturity and not go off the deep end just because it’s the Catholic church. The reality is this young lady (and you should know it would be the same for any man involved in a relationship) is in breach of her contract. If she didn’t know what her contract meant, includig any clauses regarding behavior, the church teaching, etc. she should have asked. Just because ‘everybody’ is doing it…doesn’t make it right. The church is in no way encouraging any woman to get an abortion, go on welfare or etc just because it must fire an individual. Again, that’s the deep end and simply not objective. I love my faith, I love my church and I live by the teachings of the church. Oh…I am a single, Catholic school teacher and I would fully expect to be fired if I were to breach my contract in anyway. I know what it says, I know what is asks and implies and I made a choice! So did she.
Paula, I think it’s you who are missing the point. This is about compassion and the rigidity of a religious organization that doesn’t seem to be able to “think out of the box”. This young woman lost her job, her health insurance, and a way to support her child when the child is born. She could have opted for an abortion, kept it quiet, but chose not to. She could have lied and hidden her condition, and probably made it to the end of the school year. She chose to be straight up with her supervisors, apparently expecting some compassion and perhaps a temporary accommodation to an administrative role.
The organization chose to kick her (and her unborn child) to the curb.
No one is arguing that she signed a contract and knew full well the tenets of the church. It’s 2008, though. We don’t do the scarlet letter thing anymore. The church pinned one on her.
I’m sorry she lost her job but is she catholic and she signed the contract she knows.
I don’t understand with all the birth contraol out there, why she wasn’t on it. To me that would of probably been the smarter sin to commit. Was she
trying to trap the man into marrying her? These comment about living on the curb
look in the job sections lots of jobs opening in daycare facility and she probably would not
have a problem with her degree getting one. So stop with the starving bull crap.
Richard, you said that, “It’s 2008, though. We don’t do the scarlet letter thing anymore.”
Actually, religious organizations do, all the time. Well…maybe not the scarlet letter. But certainly they have unique rules and regulations. I’m not at all surprised by what happened. *shrugs*