Mustachioed investigative duo Phil Matier and Andrew Ross continue to dig into Bay Area religious tensions this week, now reporting for the Chronicle that the nuns of Marin Catholic, a Catholic, co-ed college prep high school in Kentfield, marched out of their classrooms last Friday to protest a gay non-profit that sponsored an anti-bullying Day of Silence.
Wait, you ask, wouldn't that logically make the nuns pro-bullying? Of course not! The sisters maintain that they were in fact acting out against the the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network that promotes the event, and is in fact an anti-Catholic organization. The nuns are just being pro-Catholic, everybody.
Naturally, it wasn't all 60 teachers who were so ruffled, but five members of the Dominican Sisters of Mary order who left their classrooms in a huff when students handed out fliers about the nationwide observance.
Let's stop there to note that the school declined to formally honor the Day of Silence. No, it wasn't even celebrating it. Merely a morning prayer was read over a PA system “to acknowledge and pray for students everywhere who have the experience of being ostracized, marginalized or silenced by bullying,” according to a letter from the school following the incident. But apparently students handing out fliers about a day their school won't partake in was enough to set them off, and the nuns told the school's principal in advance of the walkout. I guess he said it was... okay? They stayed off campus for the rest of the day, too.
Sister Clare Marie, one of the nuns to leave her students, wrote that although she does "not support bigotry or any kind of prejudice," she and her fellows "were compelled to act out against an event promoted by a group that “believes actively in promoting homosexuality in all classrooms, K-12.”"
The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network has sponsors including McDonald’s, Target, Google and the NBA, and a spokeswoman for the group clarified — as if it were necessary — that “We are not trying to convert anyone...We are just trying to make sure schools are a safe environment for all kids.”
This sister class act came just a day after 100 local Catholic leaders signed a full page Chronicle ad asking the Pope to replace San Francisco's Archbishop Cordileone. That move was itself a response to his "morality clauses" added to the contracts of teachers and staff at Catholic high schools in the Bay Area. Just going to guess that the sisters of the Marin Catholic High in Kentfield walkout don't mind the morality clauses as long as they don't include obligations to, you know, not abandon their students for the day.
