Jeffrey Miller

A Pennsylvania College professor is out of a job tonight.
Father James St. George says he was fully vetted when he was hired to teach at Chestnut Hill College, a private Roman Catholic institution in Pennsylvania. But the schools says that they did not know he was gay, and has since let him go.

Now Father St. George is wondering whether a letter from a local lawyer may have done him in. [Of course his behavior had nothing to do with it]

Father St. George doesn’t exactly hide the fact that he’s gay. But he says he never brings it up in class.

“My sexuality has never come up. I’ve never once said i’m gay,” [Except on his public blog]

Father St. George is part of the Old Catholic Church Of The Americas, a faction that broke away from the Vatican back in 1870. In his church, priests are allowed to marry and be gay.

A quick Google search when the college hired him would have revealed that, but the college said in a statement, “it was with great disappointment when we learned through St. George’s public statements of his involvement in a gay relationship with another man for the past 15 years.” [Source]

Technically he was not fired for having same-sex attraction, but for engaging in homosexual acts. The fact that he didn’t mention he was part of the schismatic “Old Catholic Church” is also relevant. He also advertises himself on a wedding web site “Interfaith Ceremony, Same Sex, Single Religion Ceremony.”

He is also available for “Anniversaries, Christenings, Eco-Friendly / Green Weddings, LGBT Weddings / Ceremonies, Memorials”

So what exactly is an Eco-Friendly Green Wedding? Do they throw guaranteed biodegradable rice and the wedding gowns are made of recycled wedding gowns? Or perhaps drag recycled tin cans behind the couple’s Prius?

It is interesting the story of the Old Catholic Church which went into schism after the 1st Vatican Council over papal infallibility. They were seen as hardline on change and of course now allow pretty much everything except of course belief in papal infallibility. When you through Peter over the side pretty soon you crash on the rocks of modernity.

Chestnut Hill College President Carol Jean Vale statement:

“As president of Chestnut Hill College, a private Catholic institution, it is imperative that I clarify the conditions of our College’s decision not to issue a new part-time teaching contract to Jim St. George. St. George served as adjunct instructor in our School of Continuing and Professional Studies from January 2010 to February of this year teaching a variety of courses in religion and scripture.

“At the time St. George joined our faculty, he presented himself as Father St. George and openly wore a traditional Catholic priest’s collar. While St. George appears to be an ordained pastor-he leads St. Miriam, an independent and self-described reformed Antioch-rite Catholic house of worship located in Blue Bell, Pa.–his church allows priests the option to engage in same-sex partnerships.  This is contrary to the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church.

“It was with great disappointment when we learned through St. George’s public statements of his involvement in a gay relationship with another man for the past 15 years. It is important to note that this information came to our attention only after St. George chose to make his private life public information on his blog.

“While we welcome diversity, it is expected that all members of our College community, regardless of their personal beliefs, respect and uphold our Roman Catholic mission, character and values both in the classroom and in public statements that identify them with our school.  For this reason, we chose not to offer an additional teaching contract to St. George.” [Source]

Kudos to the college President for acting correctly.  Now we need to pray for Father James St. George.

Whenever I get something from Baronius Press a review is almost superfluous.   They bring us spiritual classics in a high quality binding and every book I have read of their has been to my good.

Apologetics and Catholic Doctrine by Archbishop Michael Sheehan is no exception to this rule.

A classic high school text which was used to teach for more than four decades the Faith to generations of English speaking Catholics around the world. Unique in presenting the Faith in a clear, persuasive and understandable manner. Since its demise in 1962 after selling nearly 500,000 copies, no other textbook in English has repeated Sheehan’s successful presentation of the Faith. The new Baronius edition has been updated by Fr. Peter Joseph, of Wagga Wagga, Australia, and is fully endorsed by Cardinal Archbishop Pell.

I am not one to think that everything was better before, something St. Augustine also spoke against, but this textbook is hard to imagine as being adopted in the decades after and including the sixties.  Textbooks of this latter period are often and deservingly mocked for their watered down content and total lack of apologetics content.  Things are certainly getting better in this direction, though the Jesus coloring book textbooks are not yet gone from the scene either.

“Apologetics and Catholic Doctrine” is a wonderful mixture of presenting theology, philosophy, and apologetics.  This is a rather in-depth book of 650 some large pages and each and everyone of them worthwhile.  It presents a very full explanation of the faith that starts with belief in God and presents some of the well known ways of knowing God with explanations and examples in Archbishop Sheehan’s unique hand.  I’ve read all of these proofs before and they are put rather well here.

In many ways this is much like a Catechism on Catholic Doctrine that takes more time with each area to help explain the faith and to answer common objections along the way.  This textbook is not watered down in any way and in fact I think if you placed this book on a felt banner they would mutually annihilate each other.  This book which I would assume targeted at the high school audience does not assume the audience to be dummies unable to go deeper into the subject.  It pulls no punches and accurately presents the faith and then helps the student to not only understand the faith, but how to defend it.

What I found amazing is that since this book was edited by Fr. Peter Joseph to include the Second Vatican Council, magisterial documents, etc; it was able to do so as if this content was always part of the text.  There was no feeling of this being spliced in.  This updated information fit write in to the deeper presentation of the faith as the rest of the book contains. There were many things I loved about this book and the clearness of the definitions was very good.  For example the chapters on Actual Grace and Sanctifying Grace were very clear. Simply this was not only an informative read, but a joy to read.

I would highly recommend this for private reading, a school setting, and certainly a home school setting.  This is pure theological and doctrinal goodness with solid apologetics to boot.