When Emily Herx first took time off work for in vitro fertilization treatment…. The Indiana grade school where Herx was teaching English was Catholic. And after church officials were alerted that Herx was undergoing IVF—making her, in the words of one monsignor, “a grave, immoral sinner”—it took them less than two weeks to fire her. Herx filed a discrimination lawsuit in 2012. In response, St. Vincent de Paul School and the Fort Wayne-South Bend Diocese, her former employers, countered with an argument used by a growing number of religious groups to justify firings related to IVF treatment or pregnancies outside of marriage: freedom of religion gives them the right to hire (or fire) whomever they choose. But in this case, the diocese took one big step further. And it’s is arguing that its religious liberty rights protect the school from having to go to court at all.
It was bound to happen eventually, I suppose. The Catholic Church has finally just come out and said it: because of “religious freedom,” the Church is above the laws of Man. When you have God on your side…and Lord knows that’s the Church’s raison d’etre…why should the well-fed celibate White men who run the Church be accountable to mere mortals.
The stunning arrogance behind this argument aside, the precedent set by it is truly disturbing. What the Catholic Church is claiming is that “religious freedom” (or at least their interpretation of it) allows them to do what they please, when they please, and as they please. So if they decided that a woman employed by the Church is taking slut pills birth control pills- evidently a mortal sin- they can make an example of her by kicking her to the curb.
I’m not Catholic, and I don’t purport to be an expert on Church doctrine. That said, even a unapologetic heathen like myself can recognize when the Vatican has gone completely off the rails. Though they couch their sexism and misogyny in the language of “God’s love,” the truth is that their position has NOTHING to do with God’s love or even the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It’s about an outdated, barbaric doctrine that aims to keep women (and their lady parts) under the thumb of well-fed celibate White men. It’s about power and control. Period. The argument that the Church isn’t accountable under the law because of “religious freedom” is simply the latest and perhaps most egregious example of a religious cult (that’s really what the Vatican has devolved into) gone completely out of control.
When a church can argue with a straight face that “religious freedom” means they don’t even have to show up in court, we’re not far from religious organizations deciding they’re accountable to no one but their convenient self-serving flavor of God.
The diocese argued that a trial on this question would violate its freedom of religion and appealed the judge’s decision to a three-judge panel on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. “[If] the diocese is required to go through a trial,” attorneys for the diocese and school argued, it would “irrevocably” deny Fort Wayne-South Bend the benefits of religious protection. Herx’s attorneys are fighting the appeal.
The Church is arguing that “religious freedom” means they aren’t bound by employment law, even though as an institution, Ms. Herx received a pay check for performing the duties of her job just as anyone working for a secular business would. Because of “religious freedom,” which seems to be code for “we can do whatever we damned well please,” the Catholic Church can summarily dismiss women for reasons having nothing to do with their job performance…and the Church doesn’t have to even be consistent or fair in the application of its policies. Evidently, “religious freedom” also means having the right to terminate a woman for things they’ve previously tolerated. Who knew hypocrisy was a “religious freedom?”
“It’s striking that this is still an issue, that people are still firing women for getting IVF and being pregnant and unmarried,” Melling says. “It all feels so medieval.”
It is also hypocritical, according to Herx. Other teachers in the diocese, she claims, have undergone hysterectomies, vasectomies, and tubal ligations without any employment consequences, even though the church teaches that deliberate sterilization is immoral. Herx and her doctor made sure that none of the embryos created for her infertility treatment were intentionally destroyed. Herx’s school principal approved sick days for her IVF treatment. And the diocese’s health insurance plan, which the diocese directly administers without the help of a third party, paid for Herx’s visits to the fertility doctor and the anesthesia she required.
Hmm…kinda make you wonder what might happen if the Church went after pedophile priests with the same zeal they persecute female employees like Ms. Herx, doesn’t it?
