SF teachers urge archbishop to remove handbook morality clauses
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Teachers and staff from four Catholic high schools in the San Francisco Bay Area are urging their archbishop to remove morality clauses from the faculty handbook.
Teacher Jim Jordan said Tuesday a petition with 355 signatures of teachers and staff will be delivered to Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone by union representatives.
Jordan is an English teacher at Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory and says the language used by Cordileone "undermines the mission of Catholic education and the inclusive, diverse and welcoming community we prize at our schools."
The clauses outline the church's teaching that sex outside of marriage, homosexual relations, abortion, masturbation and the viewing of pornography are "gravely evil."
State lawmakers have criticized the clauses and asked for a probe of working conditions at the archdiocese's four San Francisco Bay Area Catholic high schools.