Catholic School Expels Protestant - for Objecting to Blasphemy!

by Christopher A. Ferrara

        On June 19, 2002 Associated Press reported that "An honors student at Kellenberg Memorial High School has been told not to come back for her senior year because she has refused to sing a medley of songs from the play Jesus Christ Superstar. Megan Gaffey says she and her family consider the songs blasphemous."

        Kellenberg is a Catholic school - at least in name. In an attempt to justify the expulsion of an honors student, Brother Kenneth Hoagland, principal of the school, says "the challenge to the songs only brought to a head almost three years of conflict with the family who ‘did not accept the school’s notion of Christianity.’" Hoagland advised the parents to "seek a school more in line with their philosophy."

        And what is Brother Hoagland’s "notion of Christianity" and his "philosophy"? As AP reports, the school’s chorus was required to sing several selections from Jesus Christ Superstar as part of its spring concert. When "Gaffey, a member of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Franklin Square, said the medley was offensive … she asked to be excused during that medley or not to participate in the concert. Instead, she was removed from the chorus."

        An honors student is removed from a chorus and then expelled from a supposedly Catholic school because she does not wish to blaspheme the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity by singing songs from a Broadway show that makes a mockery of His name. This is Brother Hoagland’s "notion" of Christianity, his philosophy.

        AP notes that the Kellenberg School "was founded by the Marist Brothers. It’s 98 percent Catholic and all students must be Christian." Well, it might have been founded by the Marist brothers, but it obviously no longer represents what that great order once stood for. The Marist order was founded by the decree of Pope Gregory XVI in1836, approving of the erection of "Priests of the Society of Mary," or Marist Fathers for short, as a religious institute. One of the professed members of the Marists at its inception was Saint Marcellin Champagnat.

        But like almost all the other religious orders, the Marist order has been devastated by the "renewal" of Vatican II. Now what is left of the order runs "Catholic" schools in which the "Priests of the Society of Mary" - what an abuse of Her Holy name! - expel Protestants, not for heresy, but for refusing to blaspheme the Lord Jesus.

        How sad this state of affairs must make the Woman in whose name the Marists were formed in the 19^th century. The Mother of God saw it all coming at Fatima, some 85 years ago. But they tell us at the Vatican that the prophecies of Fatima all "belong to the past." That is a lie. The Fatima prophecies warn of a very real and very disturbing present for the Church and the world. They call it the "renewal" of Vatican II.