CV NEWS FEED // An Indiana court ruled in favor of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis in a case surrounding a guidance counselor who was dismissed from her position at Roncalli, a Catholic high school, because her 2018 same-sex “marriage” in violation of her contract and Catholic teaching.
Shelly Fitzgerald, who appealed the decision, was responsible for communicating the Catholic faith to students and families, and advising students both practically and spiritually as they discerned their vocational path at and after Roncalli.
Fitzgerald’s suit against Roncalli High School and the archdiocese of Indianapolis was dismissed in September 2022 on First Amendment grounds.
According to a press release from Roncalli’s legal team at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, Fitzgerald was fired after revealing that she was “in a same sex union,” violating the contract she signed which required her “to uphold Church teaching in both word and deed.”
“Religious schools exist to pass on the faith to the next generation,” says Joseph Davis, counsel at Becket, “and to do that, they need the freedom to choose leaders who are fully committed to their religious mission.”
Davis calls Indiana’s federal court initial decision to throw out the case “common sense.” He continues: “Decisions about who conveys the Catholic faith to Catholic school children are for the Church, not the government. Many parents entrust their children to religious schools precisely because those schools help to pass on the faith.”
Fitzgerald’s lawyers, a legal group called Americans United for Separation of Church and State, argue in their appeal that the application of the First Amendment’s ministerial exception is inappropriate in Fitzgerald’s case since she is not a member of the clergy.
“The First Amendment rightly gives religious employers special solicitude to choose important religious figures to teach and preach the faith. It does not give them the power to choose what laws apply to them and when,” the appeal says.
Vice president and senior counsel at the Becket Fund, Luke Goodrich, expressed confidence that the appeal would go in their favor, just as the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in a similar case last year, which involved another guidance counselor from Roncalli.
“We anticipate another ruling affirming this core constitutional right and ensuring that the Archdiocese can continue providing an authentic Catholic education rooted in the dignity of every human person,” Goodrich said.
