WASHINGTON (CNS) — A federal court in Indiana sided with the Archdiocese of Indianapolis and one among its Catholic high schools in a lawsuit filed by a former guidance counselor who said her contract was not renewed due to her same-sex union.
The Sept. 30 ruling in Fitzgerald v. Roncalli High School and the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, relied on previous Supreme Court rulings which have emphasized a ministerial exception protecting a spiritual school’s hiring and firing practices from government intrusion.
The recent decision echoes a virtually equivalent ruling from a 12 months ago based on a lawsuit filed against the identical school and archdiocese from one other school counselor whose contract was similarly not prolonged as a consequence of her same-sex union.
Young said the Indianapolis Archdiocese and its schools can select, retain or dismiss faculty in line with their religious standards.
The selections in each cases were issued by U.S. District Judge Richard Young for the Southern District of Indiana.
Young said the Indianapolis Archdiocese and its schools can select, retain or dismiss faculty in line with their religious standards, something he also stressed a 12 months ago.
The present case involved Shelly Fitzgerald, former co-director of guidance at Roncalli High School for 15 years. Her employment was terminated in 2018 after she confirmed to the varsity that she was in a same-sex union and the varsity declined to renew her contract for the next 12 months.
School officials said her conduct was prohibited by the agreement she signed with the varsity.
Fitzgerald filed a discrimination lawsuit in 2019 against the varsity and the archdiocese.
On Sept. 29, the court threw out the lawsuit, noting that “Roncalli entrusted Fitzgerald to show the Catholic faith and perform” its religious mission.
Employees would forfeit their positions in the event that they engaged in conduct that didn’t adhere with “the moral or religious teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.”
The contract described school employees as ministers of religion. It also contained a clause stipulating that employees would forfeit their positions in the event that they engaged in conduct that didn’t adhere with “the moral or religious teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.”
The ruling on the same case last 12 months also involved a 2019 grievance filed by Lynn Starkey, one other former guidance counselor at Roncalli.
After that ruling, Starkey appealed her case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the seventh Circuit in Chicago, which in late July of this 12 months determined that the Catholic school and its archdiocese have a constitutional right to rent staff who will uphold their core religious teachings.
In court documents in Fitzgerald’s case, the judge identified that the role of a guidance counselor is “predominately secular” and that even though it could seem “a stretch” to explain a guidance counselor as a minister, the role falls under that umbrella because the varsity spells out in its faculty handbook and employment agreement that it “entrusted guidance counselors like Fitzgerald to convey the church’s message along with their secular duties.”
The judge granted summary judgment and resolved the entire claims at issue within the case.
Luke Goodrich, vp and senior counsel on the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represented the defendants, said the case echoes the Supreme Court’s stance that “religious organizations have a constitutional right to rent individuals who imagine of their faith’s ideals and are committed to their religious mission.”
“This can be a commonsense ruling: Catholic schools exist to pass on the Catholic faith to their students; to try this, they need freedom to ask Catholic educators to uphold Catholic values.”
“This can be a commonsense ruling: Catholic schools exist to pass on the Catholic faith to their students; to try this, they need freedom to ask Catholic educators to uphold Catholic values,” he said in a press release.
Roncalli Catholic School isn’t the one Catholic school within the Archdiocese of Indianapolis facing lawsuits for teacher firings over same-sex marriages.
In late August, the Indiana Supreme Court said the state couldn’t interfere in a Catholic school’s firing of a teacher in a same-sex marriage due to the varsity’s religious freedom rights.
That case involved Cathedral High School in Indianapolis, which fired Joshua Payne-Elliott, a social studies and world language teacher in 2019.
The court’s decision this summer, written by Justice Geoffrey G. Slaughter, emphasized that the “Structure encompasses the best of non secular institutions to make your mind up for themselves, free from state interference, in matters of church government in addition to those of religion and doctrine.”
Payne-Elliott filed a lawsuit against the archdiocese for his firing, saying it went against his contract with the varsity. The firing took place after the Indianapolis Archdiocese mandated that each one Catholic schools within the archdiocese implement a morality clause that didn’t permit employees to be in same-sex marriages.
An Indiana trial court originally dismissed the lawsuit in favor of the archdiocese, but the previous teacher appealed the choice. After the Indiana Court of Appeals reinstated the lawsuit, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, representing the archdiocese, asked the Indiana Supreme Court to review it.
