Progressive Catholics Smear Catholic School for Disenrolling Occult Transgender Student

More 'entitlement'! 'We don't have to obey the rules! We're special'. More schools need to stand up to the insanity instead of caving into it.

From Juicy Ecumenism

By Mary Burke

A classical Roman Catholic school in Alaska has been in the news recently over its decision to not re-enroll a student whose social media post was incompatible with the Church’s teachings. An Anchorage Press article on the situation, as well as progressive Catholic figures, made it seem like the school disenrolled the student because she identified as transgender. This was not the case.

Holy Rosary Academy rising senior Morgan Smith began to self-identify as a transgender male in April. Her parents met with the principal, stating later in the summer that Smith’s pronouns and uniform officially be changed in accordance with her new gender identity when they didn’t hear back from school officials.

Notably, the 2021-2022 enrollment packets sent out to Holy Rosary Academy parents contained a new provision that parents and students would adhere to the Nicene Creed and a section titled, “Statement on Marriage, Gender, and Sexuality” that said, “Therefore one’s biological gender is established by God and cannot be changed…”

When Smith’s step-father and mother attempted to re-enroll their daughters, they realized that Morgan and her sister were taken off the school’s rolls. Morgan’s parents asked the school about the decision and principal Mark Newcomb responded that the two sisters were disenrolled because of a social media post that Morgan had made on Instagram. In the post, Smith had posed with a pentagram on her wrist and stated in the caption that devils weren’t real.

Newcomb’s response to the Joyner parents stated,

“Given the fact that you think, as you state in your note to me, that images and language of this kind are acceptable content for a Holy Rosary student to share online, we clearly do not have a functioning partnership with you for building up the Catholic culture of the school. For that reason…you will need to find other educational options for your children next year, in a setting that better aligns with the values that you hold and espouse with respect to the occult and the diabolical. It is the clear, public, and consistent teaching of the Catholic Church since the days of Christ’s earthly ministry and His casting out of demons, that the forces of darkness are real.”

Predictably, Fr. James Martin and “LGBT-positive” self-identifying Catholic organization New Ways Ministry sharply criticized Holy Rosary Academy’s recent decision. On Twitter, Martin shared an article written by New Ways criticizing the decision.

In an article, New Ways Managing Editor Robert Shine opined,

“Names, pronouns, and uniforms for students of any gender identity, but in particular for those who are trans or gender non-conforming should not be sticking points at Catholic schools. This story could have been about how one Catholic school helped a transgender student flourish…”

There are several problems with Shine’s and the Anchorage Press’s analysis of the school’s decision. One practical issue being that they refuse to accept the fact that the school didn’t disenroll the student because of her transgender identity.

The school disenrolled the student because of a social media post made by the student on the issue of demons and pentagrams. The Catholic faith often associates pentagrams with freemasonry, an ideology incompatible with the Church according to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith 1983 document, “Declaration on Masonic Associations.”

Church teaching on demons is plain and simple as Newcomb’s email stated and can be found in lines 391 and 414 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

However, in the hypothetical, if the school did decide to disenroll the student over the gender ideology debate it most likely would have been because her parents demanded that the school violate Church teachings by affirming her preferred pronouns and issuing a boy’s uniform to a biological girl. The school would have had the legal right and the theological duty to disenroll the student solely because her parents were forcing the school to accommodate an ideology that goes against official Church teachings, not because of her struggle with gender dysphoria.

The student was bullied relentlessly at public school and her dignity as a child of God was denigrated. No one should have to go through that. She was treated with dignity and respect at the Catholic school and was only dismissed because she posted contrary to the Church’s teachings on social media.

More Catholic schools need to take a firm stand for the truth. It is only in the hypothetical and because it is a convenient way to propagate their progressive interpretation of the faith that religious figures like Martin and lay organizations like New Ways assert that Holy Rosary Academy and schools like it are discriminatory in their adherence to Church teaching.