Tithing Homilies
Last weekend, as I did the Masses in Blaine, Lummi, and Ferndale, I began four straight weeks of homilies about tithing. As we continue in this Partners in the Gospel process, I think it is essential that everyone receive a consistent message and set of principles around tithing, which means you need to hear from your Pastor. But I assure you, if you think it is a cross to hear about tithing once, please spare a prayer for me as I preach about it for four straight weekends.
My message is simple and consistent: tithing is a spiritual practice that is good for us, and percentage-based giving is both the most practical and spiritually effective form of tithing. Each weekend, I will try to use the readings as a jumping off point for this message. However, the good folks at Assumption have heard this exact message twice a year for five years, which has allowed me to go deeper with them over time, expanding our tithing homilies into invitations to concrete discipleship commitments. I will not be preaching on the expanded version of this except at Assumption this year (I need to keep things simple the first time), but if you want to get the fully developed system, you can read my 2022 tithing/discipleship homily here: https://frmoore.com/2022/10/29/october-30-2022-responding-to-love-concretely/
Pastor / Principle Meeting
I spent Thursday this week in Tukwila for the annual Pastor / Principal meeting with the Office of Catholic Schools. As much as I hate having to drive down to Seattle for meetings, this one is always worth it, as it allows myself and our school principal (this year, Mrs. Karen Evans) to connect ourselves to the larger Archdiocesan school system, reminding ourselves that we are part of a larger team and that we are surrounded by a whole network of support. It also gives the Pastor and Principal an opportunity to talk through high level school issues together, so that they are on the same page about important topics.
This year, our primary discussion was around HR practices in general, but especially around what is called the “lifestyle clause” of the ministerial covenant – the clause in every Catholic school teacher’s contract that requires them to live a life in accord with the moral teachings of the Church. In February 2020, two teachers resigned from Kennedy Catholic High School after entering same-sex marriages, resulting in a lot of student protests, and we had a similar event at St. Luke’s school in Seattle at the end of last school year.
After the Kennedy Catholic incident, the Archbishop assembled a committee to give him advice about the lifestyle clause, and the recommendations of this committee and his own discernment led him to modify the language of the clause starting in the 2023-2024 school year, something we discussed at the Pastor / Principal meeting two years ago. It was a slight modification, but it changed the lifestyle clause from an automatic termination issue (something that required a staff member to be fired immediately) to a performance issue (something that could be addressed through longer-term conversations and improvement plans). Granted, this change could allow a Pastor to become lax in holding his faculty and staff to Catholic standards, but I appreciated the change because it allowed me the (at this point, still theoretical) ability to work individually with a staff member not living a Catholic life, and to make a plan collaboratively to remedy the situation or to find a mutually agreeable exit plan.
The St. Luke’s incident was the first one to test the new lifestyle clause and, reflecting on how that went, the Archdiocese this year really wanted to focus on process – how to make sure all the stakeholders of a school (students, parents, teachers, pastor, principal, Archbishop, parishioners, the employee themselves, etc.) are considered and accompanied, how to make sure the process of improvement or termination is fair and consistent, and how to generally make sure everyone is treated with dignity and care, even when there is a tension that is difficult to resolve. I can tell you that, even beyond school issues, it was a very helpful exercise and reminder, especially now that so much of my work these last few months and likely future months has and will be staff oriented.
Fr. Moore 