Things that make you go...

So. After not writing much of anything an hour ago, I just came across an article that is making me crazy. It was in the Des Moines Register: "Former Waterloo teacher pursues lawsuit over job he lost after Catholic Church declined to annul his first marriage" and the full text is below.

These are the kinds of things that drive me absolutely crazy. It's why organized religion is going down the tubes... why the catholic church is failing miserably to do anything worth doing... and why I need to get back to finish a post that I've drafted about religion and the impact that it has on the long-term future of society. It's a very touchy subject, obviously... but one that I feel we are going to have to start talking about more and more if we're going to survive. Don't tell Al Gore, but I think it might be an even more important topic that global warming. And a whole lot harder to agree on.

32 years as a teacher, and they've fired him because he didn't annul his marriage before getting remarried? I've got to say... makes it really hard to understand why there is so much debate about gay marriage... why would anyone want to be married at all if that's how things are going to end up??

I'm so perplexed I can't even be angry. Please, someone tell me this is just being made up... I keep reading the last sentence of the article waiting for "And they all lived happily ever after."




Former Waterloo teacher pursues lawsuit over job he lost after Catholic Church declined to annul his first marriage

By SHIRLEY RAGSDALE
REGISTER RELIGION EDITOR

September 3, 2007
57 Comments


Tom and Molly Girsch had less than a week of wedded bliss before their lives were thrown into a turmoil that tested their marriage, faith and livelihood.

The simple civil ceremony performed before a handful of friends and family members in their backyard Aug. 4, 2006, launched the Waterloo couple's new life together.

It also began the end of Tom Girsch's three-decade career as a teacher and coach at Columbus High School, a Catholic school in Waterloo.

Over the next year, Girsch would negotiate a revised contract, the Cedar Valley Catholic Schools' board would take two votes on whether he could stay, and the archbishop would weigh in on the controversy. In the end, for lack of a church annulment, the social studies teacher would be forced to resign.

"The wedding was supposed to be a happy thing," said Molly Girsch. "We had been lucky (in love) once before, and we were overjoyed we could be lucky again."

Molly, 52, was a widow and a substitute teacher at Cedar Valley Catholic Schools. Tom, 59, divorced in 1997. They met through a mutual friend about 10 years ago and were friends before they began dating.

"We didn't think the marriage was going to cause trouble," said Tom Girsch. "But a few days after the ceremony, I got called to the office. When I walked in, (school officials) offered congratulations on my marriage and said they were happy for me. Then they asked if I ever got an annulment. I said I hadn't. Then they asked if I was aware that they could terminate me."

Church sees teachers as examples of faith

About half of U.S. Catholics, by the 20th anniversary of their first marriage, have divorced, according a 2002 study. The church does not make public the number of annulments granted.

While the Catholic Church recognizes that some marriages fail despite the best efforts of the couple, it views marriage as a sacred covenant that cannot be broken by civil divorce. While parishes give support to divorced Catholics, they may not remarry with church blessing unless they receive an annulment - a determination by church officials that their first marriage was invalid. Annulments do not nullify the first marriage, but are granted under the criteria that some element of the marital bond, while presumed to be present, actually was lacking when the parties married, according to the Metropolitan Tribunal for the Archdiocese of Dubuque.

When school officials suggested that if Girsch sought an annulment he might be allowed to continue to teach, he said he told them he'd have to check with his former wife, current wife and his family. He asked for some time, but by the end of the day, school officials notified him that he had 48 hours to resign or be terminated.

The difference between the expectations for Catholic teachers and teachers of other faiths centers around the Roman Catholic Church's beliefs concerning the sacraments and supporting the precepts of the church, according to Jeff Henderson, Dubuque Archdiocese superintendent of schools.

"In the Catholic Church, teachers are referred to as witnesses and examples of faith," Henderson said. "By contract, a teacher also agrees to conduct himself as a moral person, ... to be a community leader and faithful citizen of the church and state, and act accordingly at all times."



"So relieved people stood up for us"

News of the school board's ultimatum spread quickly.

"It was like a tidal wave of e-mail in the Catholic community," said Kathy McCoy, a friend of the Girsch family. "Tom got thousands of supportive e-mail messages from students, current and past, from all over the world."

Cedar Valley officials were also hearing from people, according to George Scully, a Waterloo Catholic. Scully said he believes that uproar led the school and archdiocese to negotiate a revised contract with Tom Girsch.

The agreement, signed Sept. 7, 2006, specified that Tom would immediately seek an annulment through the Metropolitan Tribunal of the Archdiocese of Dubuque. If the annulment wasn't granted, he would submit his resignation, which the school board could accept or reject. He also agreed to work with the school board to "heal the wounds that may have been created by the situation."

Although many Catholics receive annulments, Girsch's request was denied. The annulment proceedings are secret.

Girsch submitted his resignation to the Cedar Valley school board July 12. He told the board that his resignation was extremely painful, but that he was meeting all the stipulations in the revised contract. Six of Girsch's supporters and his attorney asked the board to reject his resignation.

Brendan Quann, attorney for the archdiocese, told board members that it was an unfortunate situation, but that they had to vote not out of sympathy but in favor of the laws of the church, according to the meeting minutes.

"This situation is not about Tom and his performance, but about the precepts of the church and Tom knowing these when he signed the contract," said Quann, who went on to warn the board that not accepting the resignation would set a precedent for future special requests.

When the board returned from executive session, the Rev. Lou Jaeger, pastor of Sacred Heart Parish, made a motion to regretfully accept the resignation. In a show of hands, Girsch's resignation was rejected, 8-6. The room erupted in applause.

"I thought it was over," said Tom Girsch. "I was so relieved that people stood up for us and that everybody was honorable."

His sense of relief evaporated soon after, when Dubuque Archbishop Jerome Hanus sent a letter to the school board insisting that the board follow church law and archdiocesan policy.

A special board meeting was called for Aug. 6 to reconsider the vote. On Aug. 2, Girsch sued the school and archdiocese, asking the court to bar the second vote and force the board to issue him a contract.

On Aug. 6, Black Hawk County District Judge George Stigler refused to act, stating he didn't want to get involved with church business. That evening, the board reversed itself, voting unanimously to accept Girsch's resignation.

Most people in the room interpreted the archbishop's letter as a threat to remove church funding from Cedar Valley schools. They could not survive as a private school, people agreed.

Girsch left the meeting without a job, and without benefits.

"It's difficult not to be bitter"

"Tom was the face of Columbus High School in this community, and after 32 years, they threw him away without a pension or retirement," said McCoy. "That's great thanks for all the students he's helped. It's difficult not to be bitter."

When it comes to church matters, the archbishop holds the cards, according to Waterloo attorney Tim Luce, a former Cedar Valley board president. "The archbishop is the president of every corporation in the church. It's a tough deal. This would have been easier if Tom hadn't been such a good teacher," said Luce.

Tom and Molly Girsch have stopped attending St. Edward Catholic Church - where Tom attended as a child and where his children were reared - after their parish priest, the Rev. Jerry Kopacek, spoke about Tom's case from the pulpit.

"Tom was used as an example by name, and I thought it was in poor taste," said Patricia Connell of Waterloo, who attended the Saturday evening service.

"Father Kopacek spoke about Tom's divorce and remarriage, that he didn't get an annulment. He said the local school board was given the job of accepting Tom's resignation, and when it did not, the archdiocese had to remind them to follow Catholic doctrine. He used it as a springboard to review church rules on marriage and annulment."

Kopacek denies "giving any details about the nature of the case."

"I would never do that," Kopacek said. "It would be totally inappropriate. I spoke on the general process, what annulment is about. There are a lot of misconceptions."

Girsch's breach-of-contract lawsuit is pending.

"Fighting the church is difficult for us," he said. "They never want to talk about the legal part of this, they want to push the church part. They wrote a contract stating if I fulfilled it I could teach. I fulfilled it. I won the vote, and it should have been over."