The following comes from a June 20 story in the Inland Valley Bulletin.
Four Southland parochial high schools are claiming religious bias and lack of due process in a federal lawsuit fighting a California Interscholastic Federation decision to pull their sports teams from mixed public-private school leagues and place them in new leagues made up of predominantly religious schools.
Lawyers representing Damien, Oaks Christian, St. Bonaventure and St. Lucy’s high schools filed federal lawsuits Thursday against the CIF State office, CIF-Southern Section and Southern Section commissioner Rob Wigod in hopes of reversing a decision that would place the schools’ athletic teams in playoff divisions and leagues comprised of parochial schools beginning with the 2014-15 school year.
The move is an escalation by the schools after they lost their appeals hearing with a Southern Section executive committee in March. At that hearing, attorneys argued from a range points, including religious bias in the case of Damien and St. Lucy’s, to lack of due process for all four schools during their appeals.
Both Damien and St. Lucy’s are currently in the Sierra League and in the Mt. SAC Area for playoff groupings. Under the new placements, Damien, St. Lucy’s and Pomona Catholic would be moved to the parochial area for playoff and league placement. Pomona Catholic is not part of the lawsuit.
“They did an area placement and moved three schools from the Mt. SAC Area,” said Los Angeles-based attorney Robert Prata, who represents Damien and St. Lucy’s. “The only three schools they moved from the area are the Catholic schools.
To read the entire story, click here.
When I taught at Marin Catholic (84-85) the football coach reported this same grousing from local public schools about our alleged “recruitment”. The real complaint is that public schools have district boundaries and Catholic schools do not. So the “publics” are blaming us for the consequences of their own rules!
The complaint isn’t just about the absence of boundaries, but also resentment that the Catholic schools recruit and enroll a lot of superior talent from within the local boundaries. It’s tough to blame the public schools for having boundaries – how else to administer the system? But these complaints have been going on probably for as long as high school leagues have existed, and there has never been resolution. The problem has shown itself to be unsolvable from the public school side when the Catholic schools continue a historical athletic dominance akin to the NY Yankees. Maybe the legal process has been defective in this case, and maybe there are pockets of religious bias, but at the end of the day don’t blame the public schools for essentially telling the Catholics that if you don’t like our academics, why should we allow you to come in here and deprive of us of a realistic chance to compete for a trophy. The Catholic schools have a right to participate in the public school athletic leagues? Doesn’t pass the smell test.
Rambler: Their policy (of district boundaries) may have a very practical justification. It certainly did in the days when nearly all school funding was local. But it is THEIR policy, something they and other public officials have imposed on them. For my part, they can take their football and do what they want with it.
The “smell test”, O Rambler, is the Great Commission. Check it out. Also, Catholicism is, and this may be a surprise to you, not the same as Amishism. Catholicism has and continues to integrate into the world, the whole world, spreading the Gospel and discipling the nations … including the world of high school sports and the petty governments who administer them.
That is how it was when I played in the 50’s, and we really had no problems with it. However it is just one more example of the hatred of anything Catholic even when it is not really Catholic in the Pubic (Public) School “System”!
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
Thanks guys … if I may respectfully reply to the last 3 comments to my first post … Go back to the May 2, 2012 article on this website about De la Salle High in Concord, which may have generated a record number of comments. Here’s the prototype of a self-identified Catholic high school which has surrendered its Catholic identity to every whim of political correctness over the last 20 years, while producing probably the most consistently dominant high school football program in the history of high school football. They regularly beat their local opponents by 6, 7, or more touchdowns. Again, for the past 20 something years. While De la Salle is the most extreme example, the Catholic schools historically dominate everywhere, and the NorCal and SoCal recordbooks bear that out. So Bill, I would say the publics SHOULD take their football and do what they want with it. The alternative is to let the Catholics do what THEY want with it, and the publics are justifiably tired of how that has worked out. Skai, thanks for complimenting my later post, but c’mon about the Amish. You’ve got it backwards. This isn’t about the Catholics going off on their own. It’s about the Catholics abusing their opportunities in the world, and then being excluded not by themselves, but by the public whom the Catholics shown no interest in evangelizing, but instead to use merely as fodder for their own self-aggrandizement. Kenneth, that’s right, the Catholic schools are not really Catholic. The De la Salle example shows the model of a monied, elitest prep school whose brand of Catholicism just ends up appearing distasteful to the common folks out there. There’s no Catholic mission here, guys – don’t blame the publics, the Catholics have brought this on themselves.
Rambler, well worded, but I stand with my comment on Amish Catholicism: I continue to find myself culturally distinct from almost all Catholics … Because most of them confuse culture with relgion, and I don’t. I don’t because I have had to learn Catholicism from no knowledge. Everything is fine in a religious context, but when we all depart from the parish and return to our cultural lives, there is little in common. My criticism is that Catholicism as practiced today by unholy bishops and uneducated laity and clergy has reduced itself to a bland spirituality being manipulated by a strong collection of culturality. The glaring contrast: “Faith, Family and Tradition” vs “Go into all the world and preach the Gospel and disciple the nations”. The first is a construct made up by men and the second is a command given by Jesus. Take your pick.
The inner city “B” team football players that walked over our west L. A. team in 1962 were all taller and heavier than I was, at almost six feet. So, for a football team today to walk all over all public school teams tells me that the recruiting is being done for the biggest and the best from the entire state … wouldn’t be surprised if the recruiters even move the families of the players into their daily commute area.
In other words, what the recruiting results in is a professional type team playing against the local yokul teams. So, it makes more than sense to put them in a different league … not that we would call it segregation, no, of course not.
Please read my comment about professional high school football teams vs local yokul teams. Isn’t that why the recruitment? To bring home the bacon?
They’re just jealous because God is on our side on the field.
Really? What about the many Catholic kids playing for the local public schools? Some of them have opted out of Catholic education to avoid distortions of the faith entrenched from decades of Mahoney’s Religious Education Conference. Too often the best way to raise a kid Catholic these days is to stay as far away from the Catholic schools as possible. Maybe God is rooting for those kids.
“What about the many Catholic kids playing for the local public schools? Some of them have opted out of Catholic education to avoid distortions of the faith entrenched from decades of Mahoney’s Religious Education Conference”: Excellent observation, Rambler, totally excellent!!!
There are well instructed and badly instructed youngsters in both the public and Catholic schools. Much of it depends on the parents. Well instructed parents can counteract some of the bad instruction. A great deal has to do with how the parents are living their Christian lives.
Children live what they see most times. Both my husband and I quit smoking in our twenties when we decided it was bad for us, and I did not want our children to smoke. My mother and step-father could not say much to me about it because they both smoked. None of our adult children, sons in law or older grandchildren smoke. Our quitting paid off.
“They’re just jealous because God is on our side on the field.”
God is on the side of ‘Truth” and not all Catholic schools are proclaiming the truth. Some Catholic schools invite pro-abortion, pro homosexual agenda politicians to receive awards on their campus.
Expect more persecution, because we have brought this scourge upon ourselves. Our Catholic schools will not receive the same protection, the same respect, the same treatment and the same blessings that they once received when they veer off and make compromises. I love sports. I went to an all girls Catholic school and as a freshman through my senior year in high School I played on the varsity volleyball and the varsity basketball team. Sports are valuable when placed in the right perspective. All work and no play makes Jack and Jill dull children.
Sports has now become an even greater false god to many. We see schools and parents that often place sports as a priority over their children actually learning the teachings of the Catholic Church. Many of these parents send their children to Catholic school as a recruiting step to be recognized by some pro-team. When a high school senior girl watches and attractive pro-abortion politician receive an award on her Catholic campus what message is that sending?
Yes, these complaints have gone on for as long as high school leagues have existed but good cause brings up the most important point. We see what took place in the Supreme Court. Our Lady of Akita warned the clergy about making compromises. One Catholic High school in Orange County that is recognized for it recruiting programs produced students who plotted and murdered both of the parents of a friend. What morality or teaching was taught at this school where not one child’s conscience had received the proper formation to stop such evil. Had the parents of these children taught these boys any Catholic teaching that would have been the foundation to a good conscience? Another Catholic High in Orange County that is also famous for it’s sport’s programs, has been known to fire teachers who teach from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. One teacher was even admonished for handing out little pamphlets on the examination of conscience. Another Catholic high school is famous for every parent having an Obama sticker on their car. So good cause is partially correct. It is not about the jealously of others that has caused the Supreme Court ruling or the jealousy of public vs. Catholic schools. Our Catholic school system is failing in teaching the Catholic faith. Many have compromised so our protection is now compromised. Our God is a jealous God and the ruling in the Supreme Court should be a serious wake up call to Catholic schools who have placed the false god of sports, or the false god of making $$ over teaching our children the true value of their Catholic faith.
I went to public school in the 1950’s, and I was in the Girls’ Athletic Association at our high school. We played tennis, swimming, archery, field hockey, baketball, softball. badminton and another game our teacher invented that was a mixture of girls’ football, soccor and hocky. Both the boys teams and the girl’s teams only played other public schools. It was called intermural. The same with the private schools, so I do not understand all this confusion.
In public schools, now, Anne T., the boys and the girls are in the same phys. ed. classes.
I have been a coach and teacher in a public school for over 25 years. I consider myself to be as much of an orthodox Catholic as anyone on this forum. I am distressed on a daily basis against society’s bias and prejudice against anything Catholic, but I don’t see this particular situation as such. In our C.I.F. section (not the same section as the one mentioned in the story) private schools do have athletic advantages over public schools. The fact that private and public schools will not be placed in the same league, may be done to level the playing field in the interests of fairness. It will not eliminate competition between the public and private schools. There are still multiple opportunities for public schools to play private schools in preseason contests, tournaments, and playoffs. There are many, many examples of prejudice against anything Christian in our society today, I just don’t see this as one of those in any shape or form. Before I am dismissed as just a “public school teacher”, let me just say that there are many good, orthodox Catholics teaching in public schools throughout our country. We bring the gospel to our students in many ways, when opportunities present themselves. I get the idea that many posters on this forum consider anything “public school” as evil. It is often not so. Like in much of what people read in the media, you may only hear about the extreme cases, but there are many good people teaching in our public schools and sharing their faith the best way that they can.
But it is getting harder and harder to counteract the bad influence in the public schools, at least in California, because some of it has been put into the textbooks.
Also, they want to put through a law where girls are allowed on boys’s teams and vice versa. To me that is just crazy.
I think there is less persecution of Catholics in public schools than in Catholic schools.
Skai, it seems that perhaps you brought a dislike of Catholic schools into the Catholic faith with you. I am glad that I went to Catholic school. It wasn’t perfect but I think as a whole Catholic schools are better than public schools. In Catholic schools you can mention God, there are religion classes and students also get the opportunity to go to Mass sometimes and hopefully also go to confession. Your statement of 6/30, 4:28 PM makes no sense.
PA, you sure wallow in emotion, don’t you? No matter what argument I present for discussion, you take it as an insult to gays or sensitive boys. Why don’t you simply engage the argument?
A. I have always posted that there are good Catholic schools and also ran Catholic schools. I’ve often described the difference I observed. B. PA, Catholic kids in public schools can also go to Mass. C. Teachers and kids in public schools not only can mention God but they can wear Crucifixes, Crosses, have campus Bible studies, Catholic CCC clubs, decorate their shirts and jackets with OLG logos, and draw demons on their notebooks … they can also socialize with heathens, pagans, skaters, dopers, sluts, pimps, insane teachers and administrators and play hooky. Don’t tell me they can do that in Catholic schools, PA. Can you survive in your Catholicism while in the midst of raging demoniacs? Oh wait, you are not surviving even in the company of nice sensitive people around you who do not label you as a heretic … PA, I think I’ve found the cure for you. Something you’ve never tried before: This saturday, hop on the city bus, and get off in the red light district and go to a gay bar and explain to everyone there about how peaceful you are. And if … no, when someone challenges you to a fight, then go for it … let ’em have it right in the kisser, PA. Then you can blog about your feelings during the entire event … that is if there is enough blog space available … say, ten zillion zoomobytes of space.
OK, PA, here is what you have to do to overcome your wimpiness. Enroll in a ninja course and learn how to put the hurt on someone. You may find it exhilarating. Of course what comes round goes round, so you’ll also have to put up with a bit of hurt as well. Learning this, PA, may reward you by breaking you out of your nun’s good little boy syndrome.
“I think there is less persecution of Catholics in public schools than in Catholic schools.”
Skai, sad to say but in many cases that is the truth. This is why many Catholics still homeschool their children. I also agree with what anonymous wrote at 2:21. I have often witnessed the most incredible Christian charity demonstrated by public school teachers. I also have Catholic friends who teach in public school and I know they often take the extra time to teach morals and values to their students and fellow teachers. Parents can specify if they do not want their children to have specific sex ed classes in public school but if you ask for your children to opt out of these sex ed classes in a Catholic school, you are persecuted and treated as if you are just not with the times.
Sports are one thing. Understanding why you were created comes in handy, and it is very important, even on a playing field. Parents need to pay attention. There is often more of a danger of your child’s faith being distorted or compromised in a Catholic school. Catholic parents who do not practice their faith or attend Mass often think that their children are getting the best education just because it is a Catholic school. Exorbitant tuition costs are not the measure of a quality Catholic education.
Catherine, it all depends on which public or private school and who teaches or is principal there. Some or most public schools have both boys and girls in the same sex ed class. I think that is wrong because it breaks down modesty, and the youngsters cannot ask teachers how to avoid certain situations to stay out of trouble. Of course some teachers are in “trouble” themselves.
Anne T.,
No education is as beneficial as a good authentic Catholic education. This is what our country needs. My daughter’s public high school special ed class brought in speakers from a free clinic who showed the special education students condoms in the school colors. When I telephoned the school principal (a Catholic) he said, Oh I just don’t know how this has happened, people have lost their way and I don’t know what to do about this kind of thing.” I respectfully and kindly asked him what happened to him and why had he lost his way in not protecting students from this kind of sex education and not knowing what to do about it. Anne, I often had to face that principal at Mass and in my very neighborhood. Why weren’t parents notified and why had he not informed all of his teachers that this would not be acceptable? He was only embarrassed because the local newspaper exposed it and he admitted that to me. We need men and women who truly care about obedience to all Church teaching, not just some that never impact their comfort zones. The martyrs went against their comfort zones and this is why they are among our best examples.
Anne, At a local Catholic school the teachers showed the students sexual role playing cards to both boys and girls. These suggestive role playing cards were very bad. They WERE definitely designed to break down the barriers of modesty between boys and girls. One role playing card asked a young girl to demonstrate how she would walk up to a boy to let him know that his zipper was down and that she could see things. They wanted the students to role play this on stage in front of other students. This was done at a Catholic school and the program is promoted by Kaiser Permanente. My point is that Catholics truly do need to be aware of what their children are learning in Catholic schools. I was asked by a friend to accompany her when she went to speak with her pastor about the terrible sex education books that were being taught to her grandson. The pastor backed up the selection of the book. I asked the pastor if he had ever read the book and I asked him to please read some specifics pages in the book. He opened the book to the selected pages and he started to read them. His face immediately turned beet red. I asked him why his face turned so red when reading the material and he was quiet. I also asked him if this kind of material should be taught to students as young as the fourth grade after the announcing of the vast sex abuse scandals. I asked him if he would like to teach those specific words and that specific material to fourth graders and then have a little fourth grade boy or girl come up to him after class while they were alone and ask him to explain it better. I asked him if that book was jeopardizing the reputation and safety of teachers who might be placed in that terrible type of compromise as well as violating the innocence of the students. This very same pastor had just printed in his bulletin a special notice comment that his parish was having a terrible problem with finding hosts being thrown on the floor under the pews. I asked him if he thought that there was a correlational causation factor between all of the sex abuse scandals and the total lack of respect for obeying Church teaching hence the disrespect for the Blessed Sacrament. One of the beautiful Gifts of the Holy Spirit is Wisdom. We see this pervasive lack of Wisdom in many of the actions that are taking place within the Catholic Church and in our Catholic schools. There is one cure. That one cure is Fidelity to all of the Magisterial teachings of Christ’s True Church on earth.
Thank you sweet sister in Christ for rolling on! Your grandfather would be pleased!
I wanted to commend the public school teacher and coach who expressed that he or she does the very best that they can to bring the gospel to public school students. Since we are fast becoming a pagan nation in need of brave and courageous missionaries wouldn’t you agree that a public school student can be positively influenced by the moral teaching of a public school missionary teacher who has the backbone to care enough about teaching morality. On the flip side a Catholic school student can be immorally influenced if parents are not paying close attention. Our nation is starving for God and what better place to start than feeding Jesus’s little lambs once again with the authentic teachings of his True Church on earth in our own Catholic schools.
Catherine, your post of 7/1, 2:19 PM was excellent. I agree with you here.
Catherine, my husband went to Catholic school when he was very young, and our youngest daughter went to a Catholic high school for awhile. We really wanted to keep her there to get her away from some bad influences in our neighborhood — teens who were not interested in getting an education, etc.– but it just got too expensive for us. It really helped her, though. She did better in her algebra there because by the time we car pooled back and forth, there was no time for nonsense with any of her friends, just for home work. They had sports there too, which she had always liked.
When I was in public school and still a Protestant, one of my friends got kicked part way down the hall by some Catholic girls because she told them Catholics were going to hell. I told her something like, “You should not have told them that.” She was always preaching to them. I think that taught her a lesson, though. I was not about to defend her unless they really, really were in the wrong or were going to seriously hurt her. I never got bullied but once, and I took care of that fast by pushing back since I had not deserved it.
Actually, I was not there when the incident happened, but I knew at least two of the girls who kicked her and got along with them fine. More than likely had I been there the incident would not even have happened.
“quality Catholic education”: Of faithful Catholics what percentage went to Catholic schools? Of non-Catholics who became Catholic later, what was their background? Interesting what Jesus can do, such as forming His Church with people none of whom were Catholic.
Anne T, I never got bullied either but I think it was because I was nice to everyone and never had a bad word to say about anyone and I went to Catholic school. The only person who wasn’t that nice to me was a snarky priest who called himself “the perfect one.” But I felt sorry for him because a friend of mine who he loved very much died a tragic death. I think if I went to public school I may have been bullied because I was different.
PA, Jesus got bullied, but you didn’t. Some day, PA, you need to pick up your Cross and become brave enough to get bullied.
PA, had you gone to a public school, you would have been jumped into a gang, and protected. Hopefully the right kind of gang would have enlisted you first, before the gays got to you. But maybe you would have loved being in a gay gang.
Skai, you don’t know that Jesus got bullied as a child. Since he was without sin, it is probable that he didn’t get bullied and he was surely loved by the other children.
PA, did you lose your reading glasses? I did not say that Child Jesus was bullied. Have you ever heard of the Crucifixion, PA? Please check your Bible and read about it … no, wait, your reading glasses are lost … Go Mass next Triduum and pay attention, and you’ll learn about it.
The domination of the top-tier high school football programs by parish schools has resulted from a great deal of effort over decades by people who have deluded themselves or at least extravagantly over-estimated the benefits of those programs.
What is the value of a dominant high school football team in the Great Commission, I wonder? A few high-school trained genuflecting athletes in televised end zones on Sunday afternoon? I think that’s about it.
I’ve listened to “boosters” discuss their strategies for enlisting and enrolling young kids in these programs and there is no doubt that it is they, and not God, for whom they look forward to the receipt of glory.
So good for the CFA. Now, these over-developed semi-pro teams can beat each other up instead of grabbing empty glory by beating those their Freshmen teams could beat. I hope the 5-5 records that result will result in some re-consideration of the existing paradaigm.
I just noticed that Thomas Aquinas College has no football program. I doubt if they miss it.
Football is good. It is a contact sport and important for those who are proclived towards it.
I think you are right, Brian S. The students will most likely excel much better academically. I do think everyone, though, needs exercise to keep the body healthy and strong, but that can be done at a gym or just by an exercise program at home. There was a report about a year ago that said playing sports in high school benefited one all ones life and such people were much healthier, as long as it was not over done, of course.
Probably playing in high school is much better than college for a person health wise because the stress is more on having fun and sportsmanship than making money.
Oops! college football is not professional, but it is more stressful, and can lead to playing professionally.
Despite his extreme Hatred for the Catholic Church, Pope & Magisterium – notorious homosex activist Tommy ‘T.P.’ Ammiano (who got his start in politics as a ‘bendover comic’ on the frisco club circuit)…
– has been welcomed, honored, and given free reign to spew his MISANDRY (Hatred of Men & Boys, Masculinity and Normal Heterosexuality) at the parish from the Altar of catholic (small ‘c’) from the Pulpit in Churches in Frisco and the bay area – as an act of tolerance.
Tommy T.P.s latest attack on society comes through making Mandatory the Denial of the scientific facts of Gender (AB1266 – the new Law on Gender after Brown signs it) – and will directly effect all those who engage in ‘sports’ – on Caesars turf.
“California lawmakers pass bill to allow transgender students to pick which restrooms they use
July 03, 2013Associated Press – SACRAMENTO, CALIF. – State lawmakers are sending Gov. Jerry Brown a bill that would require California’s public K-12 schools to let transgender students choose which restrooms they use and which school teams they join based on their gender identity instead of their chromosomes.
While some school districts around the country have implemented similar policies, the bill’s author says AB1266 would mark the first time a state has mandated such treatment in statute.
The bill would give youths the right “to participate in sex-segregated programs, activities and facilities” based on their self-perception, regardless of their birth gender…”
Along with other Ne-Exterminationist Misandry codified in to ‘law’ by a legislative body itself unfit to pass gas, are allowances for the Retroactive change of Birth Certificates – to reflect the current fetish / perception of whomever wants it.
Some of the consequences of this Orwellian Doube-Think include the ‘restoration’ of college sports eligibility – under a new ‘gender alias’, like the guy who came back to school after His playing days as a Male were over, to play basketball on the Mission College Womyn’s team. (“Gabrielle Ludwig, a transsexual basketball player at Mission College…”)
The ugly implications for sports, locker rooms, restrooms and the rest of ordered society, are just what Tommy T.P. and the rest of the Larry Brinkin Posse
( Leading California gay rights leader arrested over child porn possession https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/leading-california-gay-rights-leader-arrested-over-child-porn-possession?
https://townhall.com/columnists/michaelbrown/2012/07/09/ted_haggard_larry_brinkin_and_glaring_media_bias/page/full/ ) Demand, in the name of ‘tolerance’.
However – there is at least one ‘up-side’ to all this, as last seasons Championship Male Team can come back as ‘new womyn’ and under the TTP Rule have both a new identity and New Eligibility that means they can become the Womyn’s Champions too…
And nobody better say nuthin bout it – or else the Gaystapo gives a visit.
I say it is time to abstain from taking Caesar’s Coin, and thus cease to do the dirty work for Caesar’s stooges..
(**Dear Moderator – there is no ‘edit’ function for this board, and my first two attempts scrubbed part of the post. Here is the Full post on the third try.)