Let's see, there is also the priest at my former parish. My son did his Eagle Scout project for the parish: he made a bedding around a the Church Sign and put in a great deal of landscaping which he had procured. When he first laid out the basic framework of the bed, he invited the priest to come over and look at this design. Well, right in front of me, the priest starts batting his eyes at my son, mincing around and saying, "oh, the bed's too bid! oh, the bed's too big!" wink, wink, nod, nod, and so on. I couldn't believe it! But I should not have been surprised. I left my previous parish because THAT priest asked my son in his Catholic school eighth grade class to step to the board and draw a picture of an adult circumsised male-including, yes, you guessed it, his penis. In my outrage I contacted then Cardinal O'Connor. Well, after the hubub ensued and other parents came forth with similar stories, this priest was not removed from the parish or priesthood, but told to refrain from entering the school. The assistant to Catherine Hickey, Superintendent of Schools, spoke with me and asked me if this measure was satisfactory. I said, no! of course not. Would the Foreman of a Ford Motor plant be restricted from running and overseeing the assembly line for heaven's sake? I have since learned that this same assistant (whose authority as a School Administrator, btw, was nil-only a Priest in an Administrative position could truly mete out a punishment, a fact not lost on me) has left his position: why? Seems he told the people downtown (at the Chancery in NY) that HE had been abused by a priest as a boy and HE couldn't bear these confrontations any longer.
On another note: when I moved my kids to a new Catholic School, soon, I learned the sex ed program would be "Growing in Love". I fought a hard battle there and had it removed, but not before earning the disdain of many who did not like my outspokeness regarding this tripe passed off as catechetical fare. It openly endorses teaching fourth graders about anal sex and many other perversions and has been explicated from many diocese by activists.
In spite of it all, I remain a religious education teacher. What do I teach? I subvert the catechism book in my care for dissemination by teaching mixture of Father John Hardin's series: Faith and Life. This I mix in with the Baltimore Catechism. Since the DRE doesn't ever bother really overseeing my classroom, she's none the wiser. V's wife.
Bless you! It's a shock to the system when we encounter these situations. It defies conprehension! I encountered a similar situation in my (now former) RC parish. The pastor asked me to teach one of the Confirmation classes. The materials used were strictly new age - on the first night of class we were instructed to bring a large rock, enough smooth stones to hand to each student, pillar candles, a boom box, mood music and the last item on the list was a Bible. The DRE then asked for volunteers to perform a liturgical dance on the feast of St. Lucy.
Like you, I fought back and won. But the pastor moved on to more serious abuses. Attending Mass on Sunday became a penitential rite. Most times I kept my eyes closed to avoid seeing the visible abuses but that didn't stop the ears from hearing the audible ones. I tried to enlist other parishioners in addressing these problems. Their reaction was to turn on me. They like our "light in the loafers" pastor and feared having him taken from the parish.
I left there two years ago and found a very orthodox priest. Ironically the former pairsh with its liturgical abuses and 'catholic lite' homilies is growing in leaps and bounds while the small parish priest who serves up orthodox homilies each week is struggling for survival. The truth hurts egos, it seems. No matter, we're working to build the parish up, one parishioner at a time.
God bless you for your continued work at that parish! Rest assured of my prayers for you and your students.
You continue doing what you need to do, without losing faith. The Church is God's, not man's.
-Theo
You go girl! 8-)