Notre Dame priest resigns over policy on
gays
By PATRICIA
LEFEVERE Special Report Writer
Holy Cross Fr. David Garrick said his resignation last month from
the University of Notre Dame was done as a heartfelt protest of the
institutions refusal to grant homosexuals explicit legal protection from
discrimination.
Garrick, 53, a professor of communications and theater and a
playwright, has taught six years at the South Bend, Ind., school. He told
NCR that he resigned after learning that he had been wrongly and
secretly dismissed from his duties as a minister in the Basilica of the
Sacred Heart, the main church on campus, where previously he had said Mass,
preached and heard confessions. He claimed that the suspension is the result of
his having come out as a gay celibate priest in the campus newspaper -- The
Observer -- on April 4, 1996.
The priests resignation letter, published in mid-March in
The Observer, sparked demonstrations on campus. On March 24, some 300
faculty and students gathered for a two-hour speak-out in support
of Garrick. Attending students told NCR that the rally was an unusual
occurrence on what several described as a non-activist campus.
Attendees called on the administration to adopt a
nondiscrimination clause in matters of sexual orientation, to recognize a
student-run group -- Gays and Lesbians of Notre Dame and Saint Marys
College (GLND/SMC) -- and to end alleged discrimination against gays and
lesbians.
A week later the Observer printed the names of 1,300 students and
staff who signed a letter seeking equal rights for gays and lesbians and
support for Fr. Garrick. Students and professors planned a five-hour teach-in
for April 2 on homosexuality and equal rights.
Some students and teachers said they intended to participate in a
National Day of Silence from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. April 8 to symbolize the
silencing of gays, lesbians and bisexuals. Students will distribute cards
explaining their silence. Some 120 colleges and universities will take
part.
Garrick told NCR that he was amazed by the support shown
him by students, colleagues and fellow priests. He said that his earlier
coming out letter was intended to manifest solidarity with other
gays and lesbians on campus -- for whom coming out is often a needed step
toward self-acceptance.
But Garrick said he did not find acceptance for his own stance
from some of those in the highest echelons of the university nor from the
provincial of the Holy Cross Community at the time of his coming out.
Garrick said that the basilica was his main arena for priestly
ministry. That ministry has now been barren for a year and a half,
he said. Last November, he said, he learned from a member of the basilica staff
that he had not been invited to continue his ministry because an order had been
sent suspending Garrick from duties at the church.
The priest said he learned about the order when he inquired why
his name plaque had been removed from a confessional at the church.
According to Garrick, the informant told him that the suspension
order came from Holy Cross Fr. Richard Warner, who directs campus ministry and
is also special counselor to Notre Dames president, Holy Cross Fr. Edward
Malloy.
Garrick said the reason he was given for the suspension was
because my sermons were poor, which was news to me, and that they were
considered too long and eccentric.
Garrick has refused to reveal his source to the press but told
NCR that he disclosed it to Warner during a meeting in January and that
Father Warner denied that hed given the order. He acknowledged that
he had difficulty remembering, but he thought someone might have given
it.
Garrick said he asked Warner for evidence of letters or complaints
against him but was shown none. I was disappointed that he was not
willing to look into the matter. He said he told Warner that he was
thinking of resigning.
Warner did not return NCRs calls, but Garricks
religious superior, Holy Cross Fr. John Jenkins told NCR that he and
Garrick had discussed his decision to resign effective the end of the current
academic year. We have had several honest but mutually respectful
disagreements about some of his concerns and claims, Jenkins said.
Jenkins called Garrick a valuable presence at the
university and said he and others had urged Garrick not to resign. He is
a dedicated priest, who has always had and continues to have full
faculties to preside at the Eucharist and hear confessions or perform any other
priestly ministry wherever he is invited, Jenkins said.
In an April 1 release, Jenkins said neither he nor Warner had
written a letter removing Garrick from presiding at Mass or hearing confessions
in the basilica. Further, he wrote, no order ever was given
by Father Warner or me or anyone else removing Father Garrick from liturgical
duties at the basilica or elsewhere.
The pity is, Garrick said, he will never again be invited to
minister at the basilica. All this because Ive gotten very close to
the openly gay students on campus, he said. I still have a hard
time believing that they didnt view me as a resource rather than as an
opponent, he said.
Garrick said that his resignation would have been unnecessary had
the universitys nondiscrimination clause listed sexual orientation
according to the teachings of the Catholic church as a protected minority
status. The priest maintained that his ministry was suspended because some
Notre Dame officials and his religious superior were strongly opposed to
my coming out. Its amazing how little being celibate meant; it was being
openly gay that mattered, he said.
University spokesman Dennis Moore acknowledged that Notre Dame is
not free of prejudice, but he said he thinks there is probably more
of it among students and faculty than among the administration. Gays and
lesbians are thoroughly integrated into our community, he told
NCR, noting that sexual orientation is not a factor in hiring, granting
tenure or promoting faculty and staff.
There is no magic solution to the almost decade-long
effort by the GLND/SMC organization to gain university recognition, he said.
Many at the university, he said, had philosophical and theological objections
to such a move. The major stumbling block, Moore said, is
that people want to reduce the recognition issue to a question of civil
rights. However, he said, the church does not view all sexual
orientations as morally equal.
Graduate student Kristine Boeke said the universitys refusal
to adopt a nondiscrimination clause for gays, lesbians and bisexuals and to
recognize the GLND/SMC group is tied to fund-raising.
They have to answer to a pretty conservative board of
trustees and to many conservative alumni who provide much of the funding. The
administration is afraid of portraying a too liberal view of Notre Dame across
the country, said Boeke, whose graduate work in American history focuses
on civil rights.
Boeke said she disagreed with Patricia OHara, vice president
for student affairs, who rejected the GLND/SMCs letter of application for
recognition, because it didnt match the teaching of the Catholic
church, according to Boeke. I told her that the views and
objectives of the College Democrats, College Republicans and Baptist Student
Union -- all officially recognized -- didnt match those of the church
either.
Boeke said she wished that Malloy, the president, would support a
legally binding clause to eliminate discrimination against gays and lesbians at
Notre Dame. After efforts last year by the Student Senate, Faculty Senate,
Campus Life Council and several other campus groups to urge the administration
to add such a clause, Malloy responded with the Spirit of Inclusion
statement.
The document constitutes Notre Dames policy of naming
homosexual students and faculty as welcome members of the university whose
dignity will be upheld. But the document is just paper words, it means
nothing, according to Lawrence Bradley, a former history professor who
has been associated with Notre Dame since entering its law school in 1957.
Bradley said that Notre Dames faculty and students will have
to become confrontational if they want full equality for gays and lesbians.
The general policy here is one of foot-dragging in the hope that people
will get tired of the issue, its leaders will graduate and interest will
wane.
National Catholic Reporter, April 10,
1998
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