Intolerance towards gay people is turning young Catholics away from the faith

This past week in Macon, Georgia, the Catholic high school Mount de Sales Academy, fired a gay employee, Flint Dollar, after he posted on his personal Facebook account his intention to marry. In response to the schools actions, hundreds of students and parents have organized in support of the teacher.

The discriminatory firing of gay employees at Catholic institutions reflect a growing trend that is seemingly at odds with the leadership of Pope Francis. Pope Francis recently ended discriminatory policies against gay priests serving in the Vatican and has critiqued many church leaders obsessive concerns over issues of human sexuality. Last year, in response to questions about a suspected gay priest serving within his administration, Pope Francis famously declared, “Who am I to judge?”

Despite this, gay employees have recently been fired at Catholic schools in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Washington and Arkansas, among other places. And in a select number of dioceses, like Cincinnati, Ohio and Santa Rosa, California, all Catholic school employees have been asked to sign contracts barring them from publicly supporting equal rights of gay people, lest they be terminated.

These actions are having a real and discernable effect in alienating younger generations of Catholics from the Catholic faith. The Pew Center reports that one out of every three Catholics born into the faith no longer call themselves Catholic. One of the leading reasons former Catholics cite for leaving the faith is the discriminatory policies Church leaders show towards women and gay people. According to the Pew Center, 66% of millennials and 59% of Catholics support equal rights for gay people.

“If the Catholic Church in Georgia wants to be relevant in future generations, church leaders should contemplate how their actions are alienating the next generation of Catholics,” said James Salt, executive director of Catholics United. “Lay Catholics want our faith known for its mercy and humility, as exemplified by the resonance of Pope Francis. By terminating the contract of a qualified teacher whose only transgression was a desire to live with the same dignity afforded everyone else, the Diocese of Savannah reminds us that Pope Francis still has a great deal of work left to do.”