Posted on 05/18/2014 6:34:44 PM PDT by Morgana
Kansas City, MO, May 16, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Coordinator of Social Ministries at the Jesuit-run St. Francis Xavier Catholic Parish in the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph has been removed from her duties after she revealed publicly in an interview with a local magazine that she had “married” her lesbian lover.
Colleen Simon – a lapsed Catholic and divorced mother of two adult children who now embraces the faith of her same-sex partner, Lutheran pastor Donna Simon – was asked to resign last week after 816 Magazine ran a profile of local community leaders which stated Colleen and Donna had been legally “married” in Iowa in 2012. That is a clear violation of Catholic moral teaching, which says marriage is a sacred union between one man and one woman.
Colleen refused to resign, telling diocesan officials that they would have to fire her if they wanted her to leave. She told the Kansas City Star it was not a principled stand – she merely wanted to ensure she would receive unemployment benefits upon her separation from the diocese.
The diocese opted to go ahead and fire her – a decision Colleen told the Kansas City Star she believes was made directly by Bishop Robert Finn. She said she was not surprised by the decision. “I knew this was a losing engagement,” she said. “I was just hoping for a longer engagement.”
Colleen claims the previous pastor at St. Francis Xavier knew she was in a same-sex “marriage” when he hired her last year (he has since been replaced). She said she spoke openly about her “spouse” and her “beloved,” but tried to avoid referring to Donna – who flies a rainbow flag outside her St. Mark Hope and Peace Lutheran Church – as her “wife.”
Still, the pair appear to have been very “out” in their local community. Multiple posts on Donna’s public Facebook page openly refer to Colleen as “my beautiful wife” – including a photo caption from the Easter Vigil in which she described her partner as “totes adorbs” – and on the day the diocese first contacted Colleen about the consequences of the article, Donna wrote on Facebook that she was “angry” and called the Catholic Church a “homophobic institution.” She also said, “It wasn't a secret that Colleen is married to me. She was honest with the parish and its leaders.”
Colleen herself hinted publicly at the nature of their relationship in print back in April, in an article for the Ecclesio blog entitled, “You Must Be A Pontiff.” In her bio for the blog, she described herself as living “with three dogs, three cats, and one Lutheran pastor, to whom she is legally married, at least in Iowa.”
St. Francis Xavier had been Colleen’s fourth job in the Catholic Church since leaving her former career as a pharmaceutical representative. Previously, she worked in the Virginia’s Diocese of Richmond as the associate director of the Office of Justice and Peace and the diocesan director for the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD). Prior to that, she worked for Commonwealth Catholic Charities as a regional coordinator for Justice and Peace. Both of those jobs were held under her previous married name, Colleen Barranger.
After her “marriage” to Donna Simon, however, she changed her name, relocated to Kansas City and took a job as a secretary at St. James Catholic Church before finally moving on to St. Francis Xavier.
LifeSiteNews contacted the Kansas City-St. Joseph diocese to request comment regarding Simon’s hiring and eventual termination. However, diocesan spokesman Jack Smith said the diocese was unable to comment on personnel matters.
The rainbow flag might be a giveaway, elca, not a real surprise, but it was great to see this lutheran and Catholic 'get along' so well. Ecumenism to its furthest extent.
Only because of their historical value. But the early church never recognized them as inspired. And I was responding to the charge that LUTHER removed portions of Scripture: and that is worth defending. Words mean stuff.
The bishop did report. However, being an adult with responsibilities beyond harassing the Catholic Church, he first took time to understand what exactly had happened himself, and having done so he reported it.
Either the mandated reporter law makes all of them criminally liable for every second they take to report, or it is selective persecution of the religious group the government does not like.
Sure he did.
Luther eliminated the deuterocanonical books from the Catholic Old Testament, terming them "Apocrypha, that are books which are not considered equal to the Holy Scriptures, but are useful and good to read".[4] He also argued unsuccessfully for the relocation of the Book of Esther from the canon to the Apocrypha, because without the deuterocanonical additions to the Book of Esther, the text of Esther never mentions God. As a result, Protestants and Catholics continue to use different canons, which differ both in respect to the Old Testament and in the concept of the Antilegomena of the New Testament.
But Luther did attest to the value of the Apocrypha for historical purposes. I don't see where your argument it.
. As for Esther: that part of the canon was closed even before the time of Jesus. If someone had a beef with it, it came well after Jewish acceptance of being Scripture: there were no Christians yet, obviously.
Luther eliminated the deuterocanonical books from the Catholic Old Testament, terming them "Apocrypha"Read much? If you don't like the Wikipedia article, fix it. See how far you will get.
well, there is also no doubt in my mind that every prosecutor, including the one in this case, relishes having a big fish on the line so they can make political hay and garner attention. That played into it, but the bishop gave them so much to work with.
“good job of opening up this thread to all the fervent Catholic bashers that exist on this forum...”
Oh please. They (the Catholic bashers) were just laying in wait like wolves to attack anyway. It’s what they do, it’s what they live for. I learned this as a protestant.
In fact I can honestly say to you that one of the reasons I left the protestant faith is because of the Bible and the fact books were missing and I felt Martin Luther had no right to remove them, or the ones he wanted to remove but was talked out of doing so.
For refusing to report a pedophile priest to the police.
“good job of opening up this thread to all the fervent Catholic bashers that exist on this forum...”
Oh please. They (the Catholic bashers) were just laying in wait like wolves to attack anyway. It’s what they do, it’s what they live for. I learned this as a protestant.
In fact I can honestly say to you that one of the reasons I left the protestant faith is because of the Bible and the fact books were missing and I felt Martin Luther had no right to remove them, or the ones he wanted to remove but was talked out of doing so.
Aren't the millions of people who divorce and remarry doing that as well?
The Diocwsw must remain silent on matters on employment or they would very likely be sued.
“Aren’t the millions of people who divorce and remarry doing that as well? “
Thank you Henry the 8th for that too!! Boy he loved divorce!
I don’t want to get into the whole Catholic-Lutheran argument, but I will say that anyone who uses Wikipedia as an authoritative source needs to rethink his research practices. Wikipedia can be edited by anyone, and while it can be a good general resource as a starting point, you should always regard what it says very warily. If you want to use something to support an argument, you should really use a source that people can agree is reliable and not subject to the kind of bias and inaccuracy for which Wikipedia is well known. Otherwise, even if you are 100% correct in your argument, people will discount it just because of your source...
They were deemed apocrypha waaaaaaaaaayyyyy before Luther. The original 1611 KJV had the apocrypha books included; but everyone knew they were not Scripture.
That and several books...
Only in one third of his marriages. He was equally a fan of beheading them.
Is it just me or only Smurfette has hair that blue?
Nope. He reported. As soon as he knew what exactly happened. As any reasonable man would.
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