University asks cohabiting couple to get two rooms (Professors bow out of trip)

Professors Ellen Kennedy and Leigh Lawton had traveled together before for the University of St. Thomas. Where they slept was never an issue.

But last month, as they prepared for a long-planned trip with students to Australia, they got a call from a St. Thomas official asking about their "living" arrangements for the trip.

Kennedy, 57, and Lawton, 61, live together as unmarried, heterosexual partners. The university decided they could go to Australia only if they took separate rooms. They refused, considering it deceitful.

The flight left Friday with other faculty on board. The controversy won't be leaving any time soon.

Kennedy and Lawton's story is the talk among faculty and staff at the Catholic university. It comes months after St. Thomas told a lesbian choral director she couldn't officially bring her partner along on a trip to France with a university choir.

That story, playing out the past few weeks in the campus newspaper, and the emerging account of Kennedy and Lawton have spawned a complex campus debate over Catholic doctrine, the teachings of Jesus and the university's legal reach.

There's no doubt where the church stands on homosexuality and unmarried couples living together. Others ask how far the university intends to go to enforce Catholic values.

"If sin and vice become disqualifying factors for university employees, then students might have to start teaching themselves," theology professor David Landry wrote in a recent faculty newsletter.

University officials acknowledge that the travel policy is ambiguous and say they hope to fix it in the coming months. It's unclear, for instance, whether it's OK for unmarried couples in relationships to attend a professional conference or if it matters whether students are part of the trip.

It's complicated, too, because the university was willing to let Lawton and Kennedy travel together as long as they pretended not to sleep in the same room. Officials told the pair just to get two rooms; no bed checks were planned.

There's been talk on campus that Archbishop Harry Flynn, chairman of the St. Thomas board, played a role, but university officials say that's not true.

"The bottom line is it's not appropriate, we don't feel as a Catholic university, for unmarried partners, homosexual or heterosexual, to travel together" officially with students, said Doug Hennes, vice president for university and government relations.

The issue surfaced earlier this year after Ann Schrooten, a temporary music instructor and interim director of the Liturgical Choir, planned to have her female partner and their son accompany her on the choir's trip to France. The administration stepped in after a couple of students raised concerns about the arrangement.

The university told Schrooten it wouldn't be appropriate for an unmarried partner, gay or straight, to travel with the choir. The university, however, was willing to help Schrooten pay for her partner's travel as long as the arrangements were separate from the school program. She chose not to go on the trip. (Schrooten said Friday that St. Thomas first argued her partner presented a "moral dilemma" to students and only later focused the issue on not being married.)

The campus newspaper Aquin reported the story in November, prompting a flurry of responses. Some students applauded the university's defense of Catholic values; others accused the university of bias. A university employment committee rejected Schrooten's claim that she was discriminated against because she is a lesbian.

Kennedy said university officials were always polite and at times seemed embarrassed about the questions. She and Lawton are longtime professors on campus who have lived together for 12 years and whose relationship is no secret. They led a St. Thomas-sponsored trip in 2002 and accompanied St. Thomas students on a 2003 Semester at Sea program; no one asked them then where they would sleep.

Kennedy began planning the month-long Australia trip two years ago. It included four departments and studies ranging from refugees to human rights. Lawton initially planned to come at his own expense but eventually took on an administrative role.

Neither is Catholic. They believe they got tangled in the hard line the university took with Schrooten. They say they're not angry with the university but want to know what the legal boundaries are.

Religious institutions have had employment decisions based on moral conduct upheld, as long as that was the real reason for the decision and the rules were evenly applied to men and women, said Marie Failinger, who teaches law at Hamline University and edits the Journal of Law and Religion.

These conflicts have been an issue with religious Protestant universities more often than Catholic institutions, but "it's a growing trend for Catholic universities to take their Catholic identity more seriously," she said. "Maybe you'll see more of these cases in the future."

St. Thomas officials hope to draft a new travel policy this month. Faculty members are expected to discuss the issue at a meeting Feb. 3.

Landry, the theology professor, recently asked the question, "What would Jesus do?" and noted that in the Gospel of John, Jesus did not judge an unmarried Samaritan woman with a partner.

"He does not seem excessively concerned about the bad example she sets for her hearers, only that she is doing good and bringing others to faith," he wrote. "I thought I worked for the kind of institution that followed the example of Jesus."

Landry wrote in an e-mail that the response to his essay from faculty and staff has been overwhelmingly positive: "There are a lot of people who are worried and/or angry about this."

If they don't follow Catholic teaching, why the heck would they want to get married in the church anyway? Because the parents want it. As a side note, many of the people I speak of don't attend Mass weekly, or at all. Yet, they are still married in the Church. Weird. I don't want to come across as judging people, per se. It's not my business. Rather, I question the actions of an institution that makes rules, then breaks them, or finds loopholes. Penance or not, I firmly believe it is the Church's duty to make rules and laws, and follow through with them. Period.

"Not too long ago, a co-habitating couple would not have been allowed to teach in PUBLIC school."

Very true. But back in those days, teachers were role models and were expected to be. Teaching was a respected profession taken on thanklessly by characters of the highest moral fortitude and most righteous set of values. they taught with passion and authority. They knew the names of their pupil's parents. Today, they don't get paid to know everyone's parents and the proffession is more and more reduced to objects of Union Labor. The educational system has been hyjacked by the teachers unions and it is almost becoming a dirty job. It really is to bad, there are some great teachers out there that will never get the recognition they deserve because teaching is associated with polotics.

{What do you consider the Church's teaching on, say, the death penalty. Because as far as I know, the Church's teaching is that a government has the legitimate right to use the death penalty, as long as it does so justly.}

Pope John Paul II the second never spoke infallibly about the death penalty. But, the Catholic Church opposes the death penalty in nearly all cases, and Pope John Paul II often spoke out against capital punishment. Read Catholic teaching, personal stories and a prayer to end the death penalty. Rome has been lobbying the US for many years to abolish the death penalty. They have gravitated against all killing (war, punishment, etc) in the past 20 years. It has become as much about politics as it is about saving souls that are about to be judged. It is sad in my opinion. For those who believe that killing never solved anything, try and imagine what the world would be like today if the Jews/Romans would not have killed Jesus Christ. Killing, dying, fighting for righteous and just causes is a good thing. It sounds bad, but when you save someone's life in a mugging by shooting and killing an attacker, God loves you for it. This little test that our Lord puts our souls through in the form of human flesh is short and trying. It is not meant to be simple and there are right answers to all questions. We get 80 or so years to prepare and make wise our souls in preparation for our stay in the Kingdom of God.

www.americancatholic.org/News/DeathPenalty/default.asp

That said, I believe the catholic church has it wrong. This position that the church has taken has evolved. It was never summarily stated at the last Vatican Council. The Jesuits at Xavier University are (were) pretty adamant about the biblical interpretation of "Thou shalt not kill" being incorrect. It more closely translates from original text into "thou shalt not murder." There is a difference.

There are those that assume Jesus to have had a gentle peacenik type of personality. They like to picture Jesus as a soft spoken kind of person that was against all violence. He was not. He got angry with people, was enraged and destroyed a market that proprietors set up in a temple, he condemned people for their actions and even once said, "He who causes a child to sin should have a millstone cast around his neck and thrown into the deepest see."

I think Jesus was an A type personality. He was an incredible leader, articulate, wise, strong, confident, perfect.....well, he was and still is God.

If many leaders in the Catholic Church are opposing the death penalty, they are doing it from their personal convictions. There is no teaching against that in the Catholic Church, but there is not, could not be, a dogmatic teaching that a properly used death penalty is against the teaching of the Catholic Church. Pope John Paul II did not speak infallibly that the death penalty was wrong, because he knew he could not change the teaching of the Church. I think that American Catholic link, does not explain Church teaching adequately. There is a difference between what a pope or bishop personally teaches and dogmatic teaching of the Church.

Here's the "Jesus" he's following:

Itching ears: Making a "real" Jesus to fit the present time

. . .A stripped-down, Buddha-like Jesus is just the Jesus for our times. He is serene to the point of lobotomized. He makes no demands, brings no conviction of sin, is a hollowed-out vessel to be filled with what America's itching ears long to hear.

I agree with you in fact.

Until at least 1958, the Catholic Church's endorsement of the death penalty as morally acceptable and appropriate for certain severe crimes was beyond dispute. The teaching had been carried over from the time of the Apostles all the way to Pius XII's death in 1958. But then came the New Church eclipsing the True Church with Pope John Paul II. Then came the "encyclical" Pacem In Terris. Then came Vatican II. And of course the rest is history. With its overemphasis on man and a distorted view of his dignity, the New Church started to make capital punishment, perennially endorsed by the Catholic Church, a "life issue." Pope John Paul II rallied hard against Capital Punishment during his tenure. It was Judge Scalia that really stirred things up when he publicly announced that Rome and the Pope had it wrong. Since then, the message from the Vatican has been that the death penalty is wrong.

I ask you in all sincerity, because I do not know, what is the difference between what a Pope teaches and the dogmatic teaching of the Church? If the Pope and the Vatican in Rome are teaching that the death penalty is immoral, then where does one go to learn the "official" doctrine, position and/or teaching of the Catholic Church?

[As usual, the great unwashed public has a better grasp on reality, Christianity, and the Bible than theology professors do. Following are letters in today's St. Paul Pioneer Press.

Professors violate doctrine

Paul Tosto's Jan. 3 article, "University asks cohabiting couple to get two rooms," will be a great humiliation to St. Thomas University, not because of the University's stand on cohabitation and other Catholic teachings and doctrine on which it should stand firm, but on the fact that one of the University's theology professors apparently did not read St. John's gospel carefully (if at all) because, while Jesus did not judge the woman who sinned and He forgave her, he also added "do not sin again." This is a very important factor.
SISTER JANE DE CHANTAL SMISEK Mendota Heights

When a theology professor says, "If sin and vice become disqualifying factors, students might have to start teaching themselves," it's a sad commentary on today's professors. Still, if we believe God is everywhere and knows everything, isn't it true that He knows what the sinner is doing? This could be an interesting debate that a community should follow with heightened interest.
PAT DUNN Roseville

It appears the University of St. Thomas has more to do than regain moral high ground. It has a theology professor who appears either to believe fornication is not un-Biblical or who finds no problem in thumbing his nose at the Bible. The university would be better served by a professor who does not lack a clear grasp on his subject matter.
CONNIE PEASE Roseville

The article of the two cohabitating professors reminds me of the Star Trek episode in which Capt. Picard reprimands Worf for killing a rival in revenge, saying that anyone who feels he can't live up to his duties because of his cultural beliefs should resign.
Now before we hear the usual kvetching and tired cries of "discrimination!" "homophobe!" the professors should be reminded that they work for the church, which has rules as does any employer. An unmarried cohabitating couple, no matter how "cool" in today's society, contradicts Judeo-Christian values, and working for or being part of the church while doing so would be like an Orthodox Jew eating a bacon double cheeseburger.
Anyone who takes issue with the church's teachings and biblical values really shouldn't work there.
KEVIN QUIGLEY St. Paul

ONLY "Catholics" should hold faculty positions in major disciplines at "Catholic" universities and colleges. It's basically corporate "fraud" (on the level of professional ethics) to allow non-Catholics to hold positions of authority and instruction at "Catholic" institutions. There is no end to the absurdities, dilemmas, and conflicts involved when non-Catholics are given the keys to Catholic classrooms. What do you do when they start spouting anti-Catholic propaganda at students? What do you do when they practice immoral behavior, etc.?

The Land O'Lakes experiment after Vatican II has been an absurd and laughable failure. Catholic colleges and universities need to return to being "Catholic." End of story.

Professors that don't want to be Catholic should seek jobs elsewhere. No one has an automatic "right" to be a professor at a Catholic university. This is a stupid controversy that never had to happen if the university hired only "Catholics" for faculty positions. There is no secure way to police the sexual behavior of non-Catholic faculty members and there presence opens the door to these kinds of ridiculous absurdities. Educational leaders should have thought this through back during the giddy Land O'Lakes period when they "opened the windows to the modern world."

"Cardinal Ottaviani, call your office..."

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