The Perils of Working for the Church, by Phil Lawler

By Phil Lawler, Catholic Culture, Aug 05, 2025

Phil Lawler has been a Catholic journalist for more than 30 years. He has edited several Catholic magazines and written eight books. Founder of Catholic World News, he is the news director and lead analyst at CatholicCulture.org.  See full bio.

Two articles appearing on the internet today tell a disheartening story about what it means to work for the Catholic Church in America today.

Writing for The Catholic Thing, Randall Smith looks at the abrupt firing of three respected professors from Sacred Heart seminary in Detroit, and measures their dismissal against the standards of social justice (not to mention academic freedom) formally proclaimed by the Catholic Church. Smith concludes:

Archbishop Edward Weisenburger’s actions tell everyone that you work for the Catholic Church the way you swim on a dangerous beach without a lifeguard—at your own risk.

Of course that conclusion is not a new discovery. Ralph Martin, Eduardo Echeverria, and Edward Peters are only the latest in a fairly long line of loyal Catholics who have been dismissed from their posts not because of any misconduct or incompetence, but because their views, while fully in keeping with orthodox Catholic thought, were uncongenial to their ecclesiastical superiors. Anyone who works for the Church—as seminary instructor or religious-education director or newspaper editor or music director—could face the same fate. There are no union stewards to protect their job security; there will be no testimonial dinners to escort them gracefully into retirement. …