As if its white-knuckled (often damaging) opposition to birth control and ongoing issues with sexual abuse didn’t provide young Catholics and potential converts enough reason to choose another path, one diocese is doing its part by showing that it’s the little acts of fecklessness that really matter.
According to the Courier-Journal: “A teacher at St. Margaret Mary Catholic School who had recently returned from a mission trip to Kenya has resigned amidst swirling frustration and fears about Ebola.”
Thing is, the number of Ebola cases in Kenya is lower than Dallas. Which is to say, zero. There is no Ebola in Kenya. It’s one thing for some parents in Louisville to believe, as a certain former Republican Vice Presidential candidate is rumored to have, that Africa is a country, but it’s another for the Louisville diocese (whose Archbishop happens to be Joseph Kurtz, the head of the USCCB) to show no signs of leadership and to accept the teacher’s resignation.
Clearly, given her husband’s letter to Kurtz, Susan Sherman didn’t waltz in and throw herself on the sword. She wanted to keep her job, which she’s held on and off for the past 16 years.
I’m sure the school’s 21-day “precautionary leave” didn’t help correct the facts and allay concerns, but given that it knew that there was no legitimate health concern the diocese appears to have just given in to hysteria and allowed the teacher to resign. The school remains open, but the lack of a backbone is evident. Another pyrrhic victory.
