The OHRC vs. the Catholic Church
This wil be an interesting case to watch unfold, although also very worrisome. At its core, it pits Canada’s “human rights” busybodies against the Church’s authority within her own household (that us: against the authority of a priest or bishop to determine who can — or cannot — perform specific liturgical roles).
Predictably, the source of this dispute has something to do with “pelvic issues”:
The Catholic Civil Rights League commented today on the filing of a complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Commission against the Bishop of Peterborough for discontinuing the service of two homosexual men as altar servers at a parish church in the diocese.
According to a report published in the Catholic Register, Jim Corcoran brought the complaint after he was asked to give up his position as an altar server at Sunday Masses. Mr. Corcoran, who has acknowledged that he is homosexual, was relieved from those duties at St. Michael’s parish in Cobourg, Ontario.
On the face of it, I can’t see how the Ontario HRC could find against the Church on this matter. It would be different if this was an issue of someone being dismissed from a payed position, perhaps…but the role of altar server is not even a volunteer position! It is an unpayed role which certain individuals are asked to perform; it is assigned at the discretion of the liturgical director at a parish, or at the discretion of the priest in the absence of a liturgical director. (And the priest gets a say even if a director is present.)
Moreover, this hierarchy of authority exists outside of any national body; it is a component of Church law.
The only way the OHRC could enforce a ruling on favour of Mr. Corcoran would be to…well…either order that Ontario convert the Church into an organ of the provincial government, or else declare the Church illegal within Ontario. No priest or bishop is obligated to listen to a government body if that body presumes to dictate to the Church who can or cannot serve on her altars.
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