OHIO
U.S. Catholic
By Scott Alessi
In what seems to be a growing trend these days, another employee of a Catholic institution was fired for making a personal choice that conflicts with the moral beliefs of her employers. And this time, the former employee is taking the church to court.
A federal judge has allowed Christa Dias, a former teacher at a school in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, to take the archdiocese to court over her 2010 firing. Dias was let go when she informed the school that she was pregnant, but somehow they knew it didn’t happen in the natural way. According to CBS News:
“The Enquirer reports Dias was initially fired for being single and pregnant but once her employer found out that could violate anti-discrimination laws, both federal and state, she was fired for being artificially inseminated, which is considered ‘gravely immoral’ by the Roman Catholic Church.”
The AP reports that Dias is a non-Catholic computer teacher and had no role in teaching the faith, so she argues that her personal decision of how to have a baby shouldn’t affect her employment. But the archdiocese says that having an employee who doesn’t follow Catholic teaching sets a bad example (though I have no idea how parents or especially students would have any idea how their teacher’s baby was conceived, nor should they).
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