General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums
Catholic School Threatens to Expel Student Over Sticker
February 11, 2018 at 9:52 am EST By Taegan Goddard
A Catholic high school in Greenwich, CT told Sophomore Kate Murray that “if she does not remove a Planned Parenthood sticker from her laptop, she cannot attend the school next year,” the Greenwich Time reports.
“Murray was told by the private Catholic school’s administrators Tuesday she has a choice: If she keeps the sticker, she can leave the school now or leave at the end of the academic year, her parents said. If she removes the sticker, she can continue to attend the school.”
“The sticker states ‘I stand with Planned Parenthood’ and is one of many on Kate’s laptop.”
In response, more than 2,500 people have signed a petition saying “I Stand with Kate Murray.”
###
https://politicalwire.com/2018/02/11/catholic-school-threatens-expel-student-sticker/
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Ohiogal
(41,030 posts)
TheBlackAdder
(29,981 posts)
TexasBushwhacker
(21,283 posts)They are just saying she can't come back next year. I don't agree with them but it is a private Catholic high school.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)and most particularly this student.
TwistOneUp
(1,020 posts)I'm sure this is something Jesus would do. <groan>
MineralMan
(151,532 posts)They are so afraid of sticker on the laptop of a 15 year old girl that they must threaten her with expulsion. While, as someone will no doubt point out, the privately run school has the right to do this, it is an extraordinarily weak move.
It illustrates how tenuous the faith is of those who cannot stand even an objection to a single issue.
Ohiogal
(41,030 posts)
Drahthaardogs
(6,843 posts)Which is not allowed at a Catholic institution. Your argument is obviously bases on a very limited knowledge of Catholicism.
MineralMan
(151,532 posts)
Drahthaardogs
(6,843 posts)Sola Fidelis. Sacred Tradition is just that... sacred.
But keep trying.
MineralMan
(151,532 posts)I don't really care what they believe, see. Perhaps you do. 
Drahthaardogs
(6,843 posts)You send your child to a Catholic school to get a CATHOLIC education. A child in open defiance of such an education really has no business there. Whether you agree or disagree with the tenants of their religion is irrelevant. They are sending their children their and paying their own money (not tax payers) to indoctrinate their children in the Church.
It's obvious you don't care and to that I would add you don't know either.
MineralMan
(151,532 posts)It's tenets, by the way. Not tenants. Tenets are articles of belief. Tenants rent apartments and stuff.
Drahthaardogs
(6,843 posts)Such a petty little thing. LOL
MineralMan
(151,532 posts)Drahthaardogs
(6,843 posts)Like the ball cap is the last refuge of the balding, the spell and grammar check is the last refuge of the he who is losing the argument.
MyOwnPeace
(17,608 posts)and I don't have or want a ball cap.
But I'm not sure you'd understand that...............................
tymorial
(3,433 posts)MineralMan
(151,532 posts)Sometimes, people let me know that I had done so, and I was always grateful to them, since it helped me to avoid such mistakes.
As it happens, "tenant" and "tenet" are two of the words someone told me I was misusing once. It's a pretty common error, since they sound somewhat alike. Once informed of my error, I never used them incorrectly again. I'm just passing that helpful information along, since it was useful to me.
So, my reaction to someone telling me I'm misusing a word is to correct my usage in the future. I say thank you when someone corrects me. Petty? Perhaps, but writing and speaking correctly is far from petty. Writing is how I make my living, so it's important that I use words correctly. It also keeps me from looking like I'm not fully educated. That's important, too.
tymorial
(3,433 posts)
ProfessorGAC
(77,265 posts)MANY (my parents included) sent their kids to Catholic school because the private education was a higher level of learning. I went to a Catholic high school. I didn't even go to church during HS, and the religion classes, after Sophomore year were community outreach things like reading to seniors, and helping out a teacher by playing board games with the smart little kids at some elementary school so they wouldn't get bored while the other kids were catching up to them. (I did the latter, and had two friends the did the former.)
A CATHOLIC high school that didn't actually teach religion in a religion class. No indoctrination, no tenets (and the word is "tenet", not "tenant"
, no actual religion. Just an encouraged/enforced act of caring for the community.
You sure you want to continue down this road?
Drahthaardogs
(6,843 posts)You are mixing apples with oranges. They may have allowed you to not participate in religious education, but I can promise you they would not have allowed open defiance against the Magesterium.
I would also bet your "religious education" classes were watered down bullshit like reading to little kids because you were not Catholic.
ProfessorGAC
(77,265 posts)I was raised italian catholic and was a high mucky-muck altar boy at the cathedral school in the biggest city in the diocese.
My mother worked for the bishop's office and my dad was a big wheel in the Knight of Columbus.
You could not be any wronger than you are, and you should quit while you're slighly less behind.
In my freshman year, the kid who won the religion class medal was a PROFESSED atheist. He won the medal because his papers were so well done, arguing his point.
You have no idea what you're talking about.
Drahthaardogs
(6,843 posts)A student writing a thesis outlining atheism position is perfectly acceptable as comparative religious classes were and are taught. It's NOT the same thing as wearing a t-shirt saying PRO CHOICE Atheist!
ProfessorGAC
(77,265 posts)Given that you are someone who doesn't know the difference between "tenant" and "tenet', the gravity of your points is weak.
You can toss around what you seem to think are big words specific to the hierarchy, but that doesn't mean you know anything more about the church than anybody else, and in this case, likely far less.
Point 2: Nowhere did i say it was a comparative religion class. The history of and comparisons of religions was something they had at college in the philosophy department. These high school classes were not comparative religion. I'm mixing apples and oranges, yet you conveniently move the goalposts and the point. That's intellectually dishonest and lazy.
Point 3: I didn't even to go mass on the rare Sundays where i was serving because with the daily mass stuff, and the going to the bishop's house some mornings for his mass, i wasn't going to church on a "day off". All the priests knew that when i was in 6th grade. That was 50 years ago.
You want to pretend that the entire church has regressed into Mel Gibson territory of fundamentalism, you go ahead. The rest of us will act like it's the 21st century.
Drahthaardogs
(6,843 posts)I don't know know if I misspelled it or not, but to confer a typo or misspelling somehow makes all knowledge moot, is fucking stupid. But whatever....
Secondly, I don't believe you. No Bishop would allow that, Vatican II or not. Being an atheist despite a Catholic education is a mortal sin, and allowing a student to prostyltize to other students would make the nuns, priests, and any other teacher guilty of grave sin. In other words..THIS NEVER HAPPENED! But I applaud your creativity.
Third, if you think Magesterium is a big word, I question your knowledge of the Church. You sure as hell are not an Apologist.
Point 2 is bolstered by your assumptions that you had a dispensation from Sunday obligation because you served during the week. THAT ALSO didn't happen.
The Church has not progressed nor regressed. It has been relatively constant.
Nice try though. Maybe you should have paid more attention. You really have no idea what you are talking about.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)That, until the 1850s or so, abortion was acceptable until "quickening", or the first trimester(a lot of Catholics for a Free Choice spokespeople used to point that out on television in the Seventies until the Church essentially silenced the group).
Could you tell me why that would have changed, why the Church at that point would have decided that the faithful had an obligation to reproduce to the limits of its physical capacity for reproduction?
And you will recall that the Church nearly accepted contraception in 1968(Paul VI only said no because somebody pointed out to him that saying yes meant admitting that an early pope had made a mistake, even though the pope in question was not speaking ex cathedra at the time) so it's not as if the conversation on these matters is absolutely closed).
Drahthaardogs
(6,843 posts)The law has been consistent. The penalty has not.
I guess that is the simplest answer.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Why is it that, at some point in the mid-19th Century, the Church decided that forcing the faithful to reproduce as often as possible mattered more than, seemingly, anything ELSE?
That it matters today to the point of, of all things, threatening to expel a Catholic teenager from high school simply for putting a visual symbol of disagreement on a piece of personal property?
It reads to the outsider as a paranoid rejection of modernity and the autonomy of women, or perhaps even fear of the idea that a woman might possibly have some other role in life besides being a mother or a nun.
Drahthaardogs
(6,843 posts)They are no more so than the Muslims or Mormons.
However, last I checked this is still America and if you (or the guardians of a minor child) want to belong to a religion that treats women like second class citizens, it is their Constitutional right.
It completely baffles me when people complain about Catholics being Catholics.
I feel sorry for this girl, but her beef is with her parents, not the Church.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)I said it struck me that they were making a harsh statement against it by changing the punishment(and in so doing changing almost two millennia of an effective practice of not fixating on natalism).
I'm not sure her beef is with her parents.
They weren't obligated to leave Catholicism just to support her on this, and there have been polls of the U.S. Catholic laity showing a little over half of it actually identities as pro-choice in all circumstances.
Drahthaardogs
(6,843 posts)Catholics are all about obedience. Christ was obedient unto death on a cross. They remind you a lot about that.
As you can probably guess, I attended a lot due to my parents as a youth. As a child, our priests were very concerned about social justice. Abortion was not the focus it is now, but my priests were Jesuits and social media didn't exist, so I must accept that my experience may have been cloistered due to our remoteness growing up. I don't know.
I don't view Catholicism the way a lot of others do. It kind of is what it is. Take it or leave it, as you will; but expecting to change it a fool's errand. There is no room in Catholicism for dissent.
To answer your question, I don't know why. I personally believe the modern Church has too much Thomas Aquinas in it. They have lost the mysticism that the Orthodox have not.
Yet strangely, Thomas Aquinas would say a three month old fetus only has an animal soul. So despite their embracing of so much of the Saint's beliefs, that one was eschewed.
Anyway, if the girl feels this way she would be better served to simply find a school outside of the Faith. She's not winning this one.
Maeve
(43,489 posts)Nevermind the other services provided for women's health by those same clinics...
MineralMan
(151,532 posts)It's a little sticker on the laptop of a 15-year-old girl. Why would anyone care about such a thing? It's fear on the part of the leadership of that school that one sticker on one laptop might destroy all they've built up over the centuries. Irrational fear. Nobody cares what a kids laptop sticker says. It could be the latest rock band singer. Or a sticker of a cute kitten.
It's an enormous over-reaction. If anything, the school's focus on this will make her little sticker more powerful that it ever would have been had they just ignored it altogether. The school's administration is clearly stupid and did exactly the wrong thing over this.
Maeve
(43,489 posts)That and the fear/hatred of difference that has become a hallmark of American churches....
Downtown Hound
(12,618 posts)smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)
Jake Stern
(3,146 posts)The Church's teaching is that abortion is a grave sin.
To me this is no different than a private school run by Muslims demanding a student remove a sticker depicting Peppa Pig.
They run the school and they set the rules.
procon
(15,805 posts)a stick on a schoolgirl's laptop, it time for them to admit defeat. This story is a tale of women throughout time, and the symbolism of Eve seeking knowledge, is too rich to ignore.
A young woman sought knowledge about how her own body functions. She didn't get the information she needed from her elders or her mentors. She used her laptop to investigate and gained awareness, then she went to see the experts at Planned Parenthood. There, she learned truth and became knowledgeable, and it troubled her that the adults who were supposed to teach her factual data had instead lied and deceived her and her classmates. The girl was strong and challenged the status quo, proudly flaunting her newly acquired knowledge by adding that sticker to her laptop to encourage other students to learn the truth.
It comes as no surprise that the church is trying to intimidate this young woman and silence her. Their position is so weak and unsubstantiated that it cannot even withstand the single light of truth and knowledge shared by one girl.
MichMary
(1,714 posts)I am sure she knows the Catholic Church's feeling on abortion and birth control. If she wanted facts, or services, she could have quietly gone to PP, gotten what she needed and never mentioned it. Instead, she chose to display a PP sticker. This is the same exact thing as the redneck kids who wore American flag shirts on Cinco de Mayo a few years ago. They wanted to be provocative, defiant, in-your-face. So did she.
procon
(15,805 posts)What's wrong with you! Why does she have to shut up and let the Catholic Church continue to flaunt eons of institutionalized ignorance, superstition and pontifical dogma that defies science and medicine? Religious indoctrination and ancient cultural taboos have forced women to remain meek and silent since the dawn of time, so just stop it! The isn't the Bronze Age, and that young girl can speak her mind and assert her 1st amendment rights, just as she can stand up for women's rights and demand equality. We should all damned well be flaunting that concept instead of subjecting another generation of women!
What the hell is wrong with you! How do you link science based information about human sexualty and a woman standing up in the War on Women to fight against gender prejudice and sexism? Explain how you made that gargantuan leap to somehow equate women's basic civil rights, to the ignorance and intolerance of racism, and the unmitigated hatred spewed by white supremacists who try to hide their ignominy under a flag?
Damn! Why are you even mouthing these shallow rightwing tropes in DU without even thinking about what they actually mean???
MichMary
(1,714 posts)It's a Catholic school, not a public school. They make the rules, and she can choose to follow them and continue to go to that school, or she can go to a public school and do whatever she wants.
There is a reason she or her parents chose a Catholic school, and I doubt that is is so that she can undermine the Catholic Church from within.
Demit
(11,238 posts)It's pretty much like when your parents said "as long as you are under my roof, you follow my rules."
The Catholic Church is not going to reverse its dogma based on one schoolgirls's sticker. Private Catholic schools are not democracies, as the nuns used to tell us. And the girl knew that going in, which is the only point the poster you are responding to in such high hysteria about science, sexism, etc etc is making.
Drahthaardogs
(6,843 posts)Even had a couple guys in cow suites.
This thread reminded me of that.
Cartoonist
(7,579 posts)You're on a roll, baby!
Drahthaardogs
(6,843 posts)Cartoonist
(7,579 posts)I was just teasing you, but now I see that you do have problems with the English language.
Drahthaardogs
(6,843 posts)In the age of autocorrect, typing with thumbs, etc., typos happen.
I also have huge hands (size 14 ring) and thumb typing is hard
MichMary
(1,714 posts)the racist rednecks probably did have a First Amendment issue. A public school, which is a government institution, can't limit people's right to self-expression. So, if they told the kids not to wear USA stuff, or sent them home, or even told them to turn their shirts inside out, that was a violation of their First Amendment rights.
RobinA
(10,478 posts)<<Why does she have to shut up and let the Catholic Church continue to flaunt eons of institutionalized ignorance, superstition and pontifical dogma that defies science and medicine?>>
Because that's what they do? The Catholic Church doesn't hide what it is. It's their way of the highway. Some people want that and it's their prerogative to go where they can find it. If you don't like what that particular church has to offer you go someplace more fitting. You don't go into a vegetarian restaurant and start a scene about wanting a steak, you go to where they serve steak.
You could argue that there are better ways of handling youthful rebellion, but ultimately, Their house, their rules.
MineralMan
(151,532 posts)has made the girl's sticker far more important now. That's what they don't understand. By making this into a news story, they have expanded that student's statement into a far larger thing than was ever intended.
People are really stupid, at times, as this story illustrates.
Drahthaardogs
(6,843 posts)There are 1.2 billion Roman Catholics in the world. Another half a million if you include other Rites like Coptic and Orthodox.
Do you really think the opinion of a 15 year old girl in America matters AT ALL to the Magesterium?
The silliness here is the girl and her "protest". The only one who is paying any attention is her.
Drahthaardogs
(6,843 posts)And subjugate herself to that authority.
That's kind of the POINT of going to a parochial school. If she did what you say, good for her, but it's time to go to another school.
procon
(15,805 posts)Her parents might insist that they want her indoctrinated, but clearly she is resisting and doing so in one of the few ways open to her. Can a child go enroll in a public school without parental knowledge or consent? I dunno, is that legally permissible, it seems that an adult would have to sign some sort of official paperwork.
Mariana
(15,630 posts)She's a minor and her parents determine which school she must attend.
Drahthaardogs
(6,843 posts)Her parents. The Church isn't going to change it's Catechism for her.
Either conform or go elsewhere. Simple choice really. I have no issues with this as it is a private school.
X_Digger
(18,585 posts)
TheMastersNemesis
(10,602 posts)Where I went to school in the 1950's the Catholic grade school is down to one room where there was a room for every grade at one time. I believe many schools have closed over the years.
Plus very few people are now joining nunneries and the priest hood.
Kirk Lover
(3,608 posts)
Atticus
(15,124 posts)builds it's entire curriculum around their peculiar religious dogma, you agree that they can pour that dogma into your child's mind. Public schools are one of the great equalizers in our society and shake a lot of that superiority bs out of most kids. "I'm going to heaven and you are not!" would get your clock cleaned for you at my elementary school.
tymorial
(3,433 posts)I went to a Catholic High School. I did take religion class because I was required but the rest of the classes were the standard subjects taught everywhere else. The religion class certainly taught Catholic dogma but I was also taught evolution in science just like the high school.
The school was safer and had better facilities than the public high school. This is still the case. I had a public education until high school. Junior High was a nightmare.... kids fighting, guns in the school, drug deals. That never once happened in high school.
I never agreed with the church's opinion on many matters of morality; homosexuality, contraception, abortion etc but I wasn't going to seek to cause an issue by protesting the point. I expect their reaction would have been the same. I am not a practicing Catholic anymore but I still respect that school and am grateful for the education I recieved. My daughter will have the opportunity to go there if she wishes. If not we will find another because the public school is a pit. I know that comment will offend some here but facts are just that
MichMary
(1,714 posts)having trouble learning math in their public school, so they enrolled him in a Catholic school, just for that subject. They were fundy Christian, but recognized that the Catholic school was better for that child.
The fact is that they have better discipline because they can kick out the disrupters.
Atticus
(15,124 posts)up were religious indoctrination facilities first and schools second. They actually urged their students to proselytize their faith among the "heathens" like me and my friends. At about age 10, I recall running home crying because an older kid who lived up on the "right" side of the tracks had taunted me with the news that I was doomed to "burn in Hell for all eternity" because my family attended the Methodist Church and not the Catholic.
I do agree that some public schools are dangerous and provide precious little education. That is a national disgrace and SHOULD be corrected. Maybe instead of building a wall we could repair some schools, replace others and pay teachers commensurate with their responsibilities and dedication.
TheMastersNemesis
(10,602 posts)If anything I learned a lot of theology and philosophy in the Catholic school system. What drove me away was the paranoia and fear and guilt you learned in the process.
lostnfound
(17,630 posts)Hours spent discussing are debating what was right and wrong was part of the curriculum...including a conscience and consciousness toward poverty, the weak and oppressed of the world.
The Maryknoll sisters as well as Jesuit intellectualism were big influences in liberalism for millions of us.
The irony here is — depending on the teacher — that this girl and her classmates might well get asked in a Moral Guidance class to play a role in a mock debate on controversial subjects like abortion or the death penalty or euthanasia or a variety of other church teachings.
tymorial
(3,433 posts)I had to debate homosexuals serving I the military. This was right around don't ask don't tell. I forgot all about that. Thanks for the memories!
n2doc
(47,953 posts)Nothing's changed, I see
eleny
(46,176 posts)They're terrified of her influence on others.
Hubby just gave me a small sticker with that phrase on it when it arrived in the mail. I'll follow her lead and slap it on my pocketbook. Isn't it great when young people can lead an old lady like me? I love it!
MichMary
(1,714 posts)I assume you aren't enrolled in a Catholic school, so go ahead. No one will care. This girl wanted a fight, and she got it. And it's a fight she is going to lose.
eleny
(46,176 posts)She'll make her decision for herself and I wouldn't judge her one way or the other. To me that means she wins either way. Catholic schools deserve the fight. Having attended them in my formative years I understand them quite well.
As for putting the sticker on my handbag I wouldn't be surprised if someone approached me about it at the stores. Right wingers have approached me before when I wore my Dem buttons. And I know how to deal with any negativity calmly if it happens regarding PP. No doubt, you know that Planned Parenthood makes all sorts of services available. I take the opportunity to remind people of all the good they do and then move on. It's painless.
MichMary
(1,714 posts)or her parents chose the Catholic school? Maybe her public school is failing, or dangerous. Maybe that's where her friends go. Whatever. I doubt that if she has to leave over this and go to a school that she chose not to attend in the first place will feel like a "win" to her.
She will make her choice, and the school will act based on that choice. The one thing I can guarantee is that the church isn't going to change their dogma and become abortion-/birth control-friendly based on her actions.
Maybe you get out more than I do, but I never encounter strangers who would harass someone over a sticker on their personal property.
eleny
(46,176 posts)I've had people make a short, snide remark. Things got pretty heated in '16. And I think of my area as being fairly liberal. But I suppose emotions ran high and Trump riled folks up.
Nice chatting! 
MichMary
(1,714 posts)I guess I don't get out much.
I also tend not to have bumper stickers, buttons, or even post political stuff on Facebook. Maybe I'm missing out on something, but OTOH, I get a lot less aggravation!
rurallib
(64,824 posts)I think she would be much better off to get away from there.
I tried to get out when I was young and my Dad said I could transfer. Then he asked me where I was planning to live.
The next two years were not fun for our household.
Demit
(11,238 posts)Both her parents are lawyers, they're proud of their daughter, sounds like they want to raise a stink as much as she does. Btw, they love the school.
The school has a lengthy response in the article, which maybe DUers with the reflexive response of horror at the terrible indoctrination inflicted on Catholic students would benefit by reading. For example, the school is not a religious dungeon. It has a junior ethics and morality course in which students debate their views on topics including abortion and the death penalty.
MichMary
(1,714 posts)does not, at least the way I read the sticker, violate church doctrine or specifically advocate the murder of innocent babies,” said Brian Murray.
Sounds like he is actually pretty fervently anti-choice. Interesting.
Thanks for posting.
Demit
(11,238 posts)some kind of in-your-face statement openly advocating abortion. I see it as him meaning "what you would call" the murder of innocent babies without saying it.
My suspicion is, this being Greenwich CT, that this is a prestigious school in the community and it offers an excellent education. I suspect the parents are backing their daughter's play with an eye to it being a great bit of activism/societal engagement that she can refer to on her college application. She'll probably enclose a
tearsheet of this nice article in with it.
That might be a little cynical, but then I went through 12 years of Catholic school 
Initech
(109,260 posts)
Drahthaardogs
(6,843 posts)Every year.
They are not concerned
The Velveteen Ocelot
(131,203 posts)If you don't want to be stuck having to obey stupid, oppressive rules, don't go to a Catholic school.
Dawson Leery
(19,580 posts)Demit
(11,238 posts)sudden surge of students into the public school system, your taxes would surge too, to support the expanded system. So be careful what you wish for, lol.
OnDoutside
(20,868 posts)TeamPooka
(25,577 posts)left-of-center2012
(34,195 posts)Tell priests to put their 'sticker' away !
melm00se
(5,172 posts)that this Catholic School, in many ways, is like DU.
Adhere to the dogma and ideology or out you go.
clementine613
(561 posts)You shouldn't have to surrender your freedom of speech at the door to your school.
MichMary
(1,714 posts)Freedom of Speech all the time. In the workplace you are probably told to keep your political opinions to yourself, especially with customers, but probably also with co-workers (unless you are absolutely certain that they agree with you.)
Anytime you wear a uniform you are voluntarily surrendering your right to self-expression.
This is no different. In a private school, you follow their rules.
And--"private, religious education should be illegal?" Really? How far do you think you would get with that idea?
YOHABLO
(7,358 posts)MichMary
(1,714 posts)Do you mean they get to decide if she can have the sticker? Or, do you mean they should decide whether to pull her out and send her elsewhere?
Cartoonist
(7,579 posts)The Catholic Church, in all its ignorance, just set this girl on the path to atheism.