Hundreds of Portland area families whose children attend Catholic schools are protesting western Oregon Archbishop Alexander Sample’s guidance that schools under the church’s umbrella not recognize transgender and nonbinary students’ pronouns and identities.
Sample quietly released the 17-page document in January, when it was billed as a “teaching and formation resource” and not a mandate for the 41 archdiocesan schools, which stretch from Portland to Medford and include Central Catholic High School and 15 K-8 schools in Portland.
But as the school year drew to a close, teachers and families around the metro area said some schools, including St. Rose School in Northeast Portland, began to treat the recommendations as requirements, including asking faculty members to pledge that they would uphold them. Rumors began to fly that more schools would be required to follow suit by next school year and that teachers who left as a result would not be welcome at other schools in the system.
At St. Rose School, a K-8 which experienced a boom in enrollment during the pandemic as families sought out schools that were open for full day in–person learning, at least three faculty members refused to sign off on the archdiocese’s guidance and their contracts were rescinded, according to an educator there who requested anonymity because they are seeking alternative employment within the Catholic school system.
Dozens of students responded by refusing to attend Mass and wearing pins and shirts in support of transgender rights, supported by parents who volunteered to provide child care. By the end of the year, many families had decided not to return in September, including 30% of families with kindergarteners, according to faculty members and parents.
“It is really hard to deal with leaving a place that you don’t want to leave,” said a former St. Rose School teacher, who was considering legal action. “I am doing this for the right reasons, but I don’t want to do it. It is a wonderful community. Everyone is so kind.”
The mother of a child who decided to leave St. Rose School after receiving notification that the archbishop’s guidance would be official policy by September said she was heartbroken. She, too, spoke on the condition of anonymity to guard her child’s privacy.
“We felt lucky to have this educational environment for our kids even as non-Catholics,” she said. “This entire situation is creating so much harm, in the name of preventing imaginary harm. It’s been hard to watch.”
Jessie Wimer, the principal at St. Rose School, declined comment, referring all questions to the archdiocese.
The longtime principals of both All Saints K-8 School and The Madeleine School, both in Northeast Portland, also resigned due at least in part to Sample’s position, educators and school families with knowledge of the situation said.
At The Madeleine School’s eighth grade graduation ceremony, Rev. Mike Biewend, who is retiring, did not mince words when speaking about the outgoing principal, Carol Glasgow. “All of us know about the so-called guidelines put out by Archbishop Sample,” Biewend said. “Miss Glasgow has given up her paycheck, her career, everything that she has done in her professional progression to be principal, because she said, ‘I cannot in good conscience support what the archbishop is asking [me] as a leader to do.’”
“For her, that document does not affirm the preciousness of every child,” Biewend continued in a speech recorded by the school and posted on its YouTube channel. “It does not go hand in hand with our mission statement of every child is welcome.”
Through a spokesperson, Sample declined to comment to The Oregonian/OregonLive. But the 17-page document, entitled “A Catholic Response to Gender Identity Theory,” makes his perspective clear.
“Catholic institutions and programs should not endorse gender identity theory nor enable any form of gender transition, whether social or medical,” wrote Sample, who has been in Portland for 10 years and is the last American residential bishop appointed by Benedict XVI, the predecessor of the current pope, Francis. “This means that names, pronouns, facilities use, attire and sports participation should depend upon biological sex identity, rather than self-perceived gender identity.”
On Thursday, Sample’s office notified school leaders that he had dissolved the archdiocese’s department of Catholic schools, a three-person office that advised and oversaw the 41 diocesan schools. The longtime superintendent, Jeannie Ray Timoney, was a casualty of the move, which Sample indicated would bring school operations more closely under his watch.
In response to the changes, a group of prominent Catholics — including parents and educators from 15 parishes and schools led by former NFL quarterback and Central Catholic graduate Joey Harrington — have formally requested a meeting with Sample to “express the concerns arising within their communities and invite the archbishop for further dialogue,” according to a message that was widely circulated among Catholic school families.
That group asked others in Portland’s Catholic community to contribute statements about their support for transgender, nonbinary and gender-nonconforming students; more than 1,000 people have done so. The Portland archbishop’s writing they object to stipulates:
— Pronouns used at school must match biological sex at birth.
— Schools should not have all-gender bathrooms beyond single-use facilities.
— Sports and extracurriculars “should be based on biological sex, rather than self-perceived gender.”
— Students who wear uniforms must follow the “code that accords with his or her biological sex.”
— “Catholic institutions should not post signage or display symbols in support of gender identity theory.”
The document is somewhat at odds with the direction of Pope Francis. Last week, the Vatican released the findings of a two-year survey of Catholics from around the world that calls for “radical inclusion” of the LBGTQ+ community.
Schools in the area have found themselves in wrenching debates over the topic. An educator who recently left St. Mary’s Academy, the all-girls Catholic high school downtown which is overseen by the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, said she quit after administrators there called a meeting to discuss Sample’s guidelines but wouldn’t provide the document for faculty members to review in advance. She requested anonymity for fear of retribution.
“I was someone who spoke up about this document, and I got in trouble for it,” said the former educator, who is now working for a nonprofit. “I was told, ‘Maybe you should reconsider working at a Catholic school.’”
The administrator who handled that meeting subsequently left the school, the educator said. She said she’s heard from her former colleagues that the school’s new leadership is more sympathetic to faculty and students who hold progressive values.
Catholic schools around the metro area fielded a mini-enrollment boom during the pandemic. Most of them opened their buildings for full-time school far more quickly than their public school counterparts, an attractive alternative for families alarmed by prolonged online school. And their tuition, subsidized by their churches, is significantly lower than at most independent private schools.
But if families in liberal Portland begin withdrawing their children because of the guidelines, it will be a significant financial hit, said Michael Winning, advancement director at the Franciscan Montessori Earth School in Northeast Portland.
“It will hit them all right in the checkbook,” Winning said. “There are more people leaving programs, moving from certain schools to others that apply these guidelines less rigidly. It’s snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.”
A handful of archdiocese-affiliated Catholic schools in the region have already begun a shift to a stricter, more classically influenced curriculum. At Christ the King K-8 school in Milwaukie, for example, the school has adopted the methodology of the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education, “at the direction of Archbishop Alexander Sample,” according to its website.
“Although we are the first school in Portland to make this shift, we will not be the last,” the school’s website reads. “The next step in that work is to shift our philosophy of education … from one of following the typical secular standards to [one] where God is the center of all knowledge.”
At Christ the King, Mass is now held multiple times a week, middle school health classes have been revamped to focus on “the theology of the body,” and plans are underway to begin teaching students Latin in place of Spanish, parents and grandparents said. Students there must also adhere to a strict dress code; wearing socks with logos on them can earn a behavior violation.
“It has gone from a place where they were happy and taken care of and got a very solid academic education to ‘Your academics are secondary, and we are trying to push you in this model of Catholicism,’” said a longtime Christ the King parent who left the school this year and asked for anonymity because she is sending her children to other Catholic schools in the fall and feared repercussions. “It has had the opposite reaction. The kids hate this heavy-handedness. It is pushing them away, making it not attractive to want to be a Catholic.”
— Julia Silverman, @jrlsilverman, jsilverman@oregonian.com
