A longtime music teacher at the Catholic School in the New Orleans area recently lost his job when he was discovered by an obvious “disgruntled” parent that he was a widower of another man, igniting a scandal in the archbishop, which was otherwise busy with an attempt to rethink his federals, after priests, after priests.
In an email to the community members at the Archdiocese School, from which he was fired, Mark Richards explained that he had been fired as a parent notified the employees of an obituary about his husband, who died of a heart attack in September 2023.
Richards’ email mentioned how his employment contract at St. Francis Xavier’s school in Metaria, Louisiana, contained a clause of morality forbidding teachers to “negotiate a marriage in the rules of the Catholic Church” and “actively participate in homosexual activity”.
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He wrote that he had signed the annual renewable contract and morality clause – which is required by all the teachers of the archbishopric, but it was historically far from the conventional accepted – with “winking and pressing, since it is no big secret that I am gay.” St. Francis Xavier’s community was comfortable enough with his marriage to her husband, John Meager, that “everyone in the school was very nice and supportive” after his death.
But this changed when the parent who alarmed the local church officials for the Neritr of the Medager – who pointed to Richards as his husband – complained. He said he was fired on June 25 as a music teacher and director of the St. Francis band after 21 years at the school, “And the reason for this termination is that I am a gay man.”
“I have not been in violation of the moral clause in the last two years and no one can find any incident with my acting inappropriately with anyone – let alone a student,” added Richards, who met with a brass for two years before he started working in St. Francis and then that he will be married to him in 2014, but again Rychd. He will tell him that he will tell him that he will tell him that he will tell him that he will tell him that he will tell him that he will tell him that he will tell him that he will tell him that he will tell him that he will tell him that he will tell him that he will marry that you were married. “Unhappy,” he reports that he has found that he has been mentioned in the obituary of a brass, which has been published nearly two years earlier.
As NBC’s New Orleans branch reported WDSU on Friday, Richard’s email sympathized with the sympathy of many parents at the school that kicked him out. A petition organized by parents supporting Richards, calling his shooting “unfairly” and exalt him as a “bean of kindness and understanding in [students’] He lives, ”has collected about 1500 signatures, the station and the news information from Louisiana Nola.com was noted by everyone.
One mother, Catherine Lee, said to WDSU: “I would like to see the change of the moral clause.”
“I would like the homosexuality line in the moral clause that teachers sign to be removed,” Lee said. “Your identity is not your moral. I hope we have a voice in this.”
A father named Rick English said to the station that he believed that the clause of morality at the center of Richard’s dismissal was a “violation of human rights” that should be reviewed. “For me, this is a social injustice at that moment,” he noted.
Both Nola.com and WDSU announced that the school administrators sent an email to St. Francis’s community, confirming that he had not renewed Richard’s employment contract, while claiming that he did not provide “a completely accurate description of the employment situation”. But administrators said they could not develop, citing unspecified legal reasons.
“This decision is final and will not be reviewed,” the school employees’ email says. “We always strive to make decisions that maintain the teaching of the Catholic faith, which are in the best interest of our school.”
In the meantime, Richards had written to St. Francis’ parents: “Your children’s learning is one of the joys of my life and I appreciate memories.”
Still, as he put it on WDSU, Richards felt betrayed by those who decided to fire him.
“It’s just a back in the back,” Richards reports. “It’s just a time to stop. The rest of the free world doesn’t think homosexuality is a big deal.”
St. Francis is one of the numerous branches of the Archbishopric of New Orleans, who are relied upon to contribute to what is expected to be a nine -digit agreement resolving a bankruptcy lawsuit, brought by Archbishte leaders in the 2020, these employees made this chapter main Dating Back Decates as possible as possible as possible.
As of Sunday, the most settlement proposal was for the archbishopric, its affiliates and its insurers to pay between $ 180 million and $ 230 million to about 600 survivors of abuse. But the lawyers representing hundreds of these survivors are opposed to this deal, stating that it is much less than the $ 323 million agreement approved at the end of 2024 in a similar case, which is directed to about 600 clergy for the Archbishop of Long.
Any proposed agreement will need support from two -thirds of the survivors who vote for it to receive approval.