This is my hometown, here's the local paper's article: http://www.postcrescent.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060509/APC0101/605090635&SearchID=73244344458013

I don't know how I went through all but 2 years of Catholic education (including college) and never knew all of this crap. Either I had really crappy nuns and priests instructing me or I flat out was zoned out until I was 21. How did I miss the insanity?

You know, she probably should have been fired for trying to have kids. Reproduction isn't a right. The majority of the people on the planet right now don't have enough food to eat.

It's just fucking stoopid to even be considering making more babies right now. Let's see about feeding the people that are already here first.

You have to wonder how many teachers, male or female, have been fired for using artificial insemination.

Pinkko, I honestly can't tell if you're being sarcastic or serious. If it's the latter, I respond with complete bewilderment and confusion, and would like for you to elaborate on your position, for curiosity's sake.

I seem to remember the problem pro life-ers have with in vitro fertilization stems from the fact that it involves the creation of multiple embryos. All of which aren’t used and are subsequently destroyed. The idea that it removes sex from the context of marriage is new to me. Is that really the arguement?

I have a friend whose Catholic priest refused to baptize her daughter because she wasn't "conceived naturally". So, does that mean Jesus shouldn't have been baptized? Or is it that we are "playing God"? If it's the latter, then why does the Catholic Church support sustaining life artificially (i.e. Terry Shiavo)? Isn't deciding to keep someone alive via machines like playing God? And how is assisted reproduction any different? There are so many inconsistancies that it makes my head spin.

Sarah
The idea that it removes sex from the context of marriage is new to me. Is that really the arguement?

Its part of the argument, but not a full explanation. In Virto fertilization also does what you speak odd of above. Beyond that however, it commodifies life. Makes human life into a utilitarian end that couples can demand from science rather than a gift from God. Perpetuating the conception that human life must conform to the wishes of the autonomous adult rather than the other way around. As a practical matter this results in any number of perversions in society. One of which is the delaying of childbirth to later and later ages, as couples regard children as a consumer good rather than the natural fruits of marriage. In Vitro becomes our right, so we screw around in college with multiple partners, spend 5 to 7 years having sex in the city as young professionals and then finally “settle down� and expect nature to conform to our aging bodies. Science is called to the rescue at which point couples, after expending much cash and emotional stress are jerry rigged into conceiving. (Sometimes having litters of children as a result). At this point they causally relate their experiences to their Catholic school employer and are astonished to learn that it maintains a consistent ethic of life.

An interesting spin on in vitro -- a process called GIFT. Gamete intrafallopian transfer. It's a method that was developed specifically for religious couples to be able to use other fertility processes to conceive if "natural" means weren't working. First, the couple has sex into a "special condom" which collects the sperm, so the sex part is included in the process. Then, eggs are collected from the female's ovaries and put into a dish, and then both the eggs and sperm, SEPARATELY, are introduced into one of the fallopian tubes [where fertilization occurs]. This allows the sperm and egg to join inside of the female's body, for sex to be involved, and for no embryos to be discarded. Unfortunately, this doesn't work for couples whose source of infertility is sperm immobility or egg impermeability, it only works for couples whose infertility is rooted in mechanical barriers that prevent the sperm from getting into the fallopian tube [or the egg from getting into the fallopian tube]

Since the firing, the Romeneskos have stopped practicing Catholicism.

She obviously wasn't practicing Catholicism anyway.

The church has a right to teach what it does. It has a right to have teachers that will uphold those teachings. She had a contract. If she was stupid enough to sign it without understanding it, why is that anyone's fault but hers?

While the school may be within its legal rights to fire, its position seems to be highly hypocritical. It seems Ms. Romenesko was fired not for having an in vitro fertilization, but for telling her supervisor what she was doing.

From the hometown article:

"ACES is not interested in nosing around its employees' bedrooms, or policing their private moral decisions, Gill said...But Romenesko made her transgression impossible for her superiors to ignore, Gill said, by telling them that she intended to undergo in-vitro fertilization. "

"But never in Marquette University theology professor Michael Fahey's experience has a teacher lost her job for going through in-vitro fertilization.

Based on what The P-C told him, Fahey, who is a priest, said that ACES and the diocese had more latitude than they may have realized with respect to Romenesko. It appears to him she allayed most of the church's objections.

For example, she chose a doctor whose clinic does not destroy embryos or perform "selective reduction." Also, the sperm came from her husband, rather than a third-party donor.

"I would find it very unusual that you would get professional Catholic moral theologians to object to that," Fahey said."

Reading between the lines clearly indicates that the school had a 'don't ask don't tell' policy on in vitro fertilization. The issue wasn't that teachers not practice it, but that the practice not be made public. By failing to misrepresent her pregnancy as natural rather than through IV, Ms. Romenesko was fired. Thus the real issue was not at all Ms. Romenesko's use of IV, which the school probably could not care less about, but the chance that she would embarass the school's public image. Ironically, by following the Catholic church's teachings on telling the truth, Ms. Romenesko forced the school to fire her for transgression by risking to expose its own hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy is the tribute that virtue pays to vice.

(not that I subscribe to the analysis above)

Yes yes, the Catholic Church has a right to practice its beliefs. As a matter of fact, every Christian has the right to interpret the Bible and do as it pleases, even if it defies current standards of decency. Bring on the incest!

There IS actually a percentage of liberal Catholics who are too busy CONTRIBUTING to the greater good rather than playing dress-up in Roman collars and habits. They are often looked down upon by their conventional associates, and have to stick together. My dad used to have them over to the house, dressed in hiking boots, drinking wine, and playing classical guitar. It's too bad they are overshadowed by their awful counterparts (my dad actually received a death threat from a parishoner who didn't care for his liberal views. Classy!).

I see these articles and just marvel at their priorities. Of course, I managed to piss a lot of these people off when I was a kid for initiating the successful implentation of an altar girl program in our church, when I was all of 9 years old. Hee hee!

The sad part was, my dad had to actually ask my mom for an anullment later on, to ensure he could get a particular job. Subsequently, he was screwed out of the last year of his working career by a beast of a supervisor who again, hated his liberal views (so much for equal opportunity - evidently this "god" doesn't believe in unions!). Luckily this story has a happy ending, since he was working on a long term freelance project for that diocese, and now is charging them out the ass to finish it.

The best part? I can totally trash the church, since in their eyes I technically no longer exist anyway (post-annullment).

I'm sorry you feel that way P.B.

I can’t say two things with certainty however.

1) Pride is a sin.
2) The annulment does not make you a Bastard in the eyes of the Church.