Parents clash over students’ enrollment

Jeff Benson

The decision by Catholic leaders to allow a gay couple to enroll two

adopted boys in St. John the Baptist School has enraged some parents

who want the children removed from the classrooms.

Eighteen parents signed a letter last week, demanding the school

accept only families that sign a pledge to live by Catholic doctrine.

Two kindergarten-age boys, adopted by a male Costa Mesa couple,

would be kicked out of school because the church believes

homosexuality is sinful. Marriage and adoption by same-sex couples

were outlawed by the Catholic doctrine in 2003.

Father Martin Benzoni, pastor of the Costa Mesa church, doesn’t

dispute that homosexuality is not accepted in the Catholic faith. But

he’s also caught between defending that covenant and protecting the

educational freedoms of two students caught in the crossfire.

St. John the Baptist does “not approve of homosexual unions nor of

the law that permits adoptions,” Benzoni said in a press statement,

but he felt the children should still be accepted there.

Since the children were baptized Catholic, the adults responsible

for them have an obligation to raise them in the Catholic faith, he

said. Furthermore, they’re subject to the same educational

privileges, because they live within the boundaries of the St. John

the Baptist parish, he said.

“As pastor, I am working on this situation as prudently as I know

how,” Benzoni added. “Using traditional principles of Catholic

pastoral practice, my aim is to maintain the integrity of our moral

teaching and sacraments, while at the same time show genuine care for

the salvation of all those involved.”

Jean Forbath, who founded the nonprofit shelter Share Our Selves

in 1970 at St. John the Baptist Church, said she’s upset the church

community is torn by the whole issue, but she believed Benzoni took

the right approach.

“We’re proud of the stance our pastor took,” Forbath said. “The

father did exactly what Jesus would do. Parents are quoting all kinds

of regulations and laws and thinking, but what they’re forgetting is

the one commandment that really counts -- to love your neighbors as

you love yourself. Until we can see our neighbor as someone who’s not

a miscreant and an outcast, we’re not doing as Jesus would do.”

Michael Joseph Sundstedt, a Newport Beach attorney representing

the group of parents that wrote the letter, could not be reached for

comment, nor could any of the parents.

One parent, John Stephens, who has 13-, 10- and 8-year-olds

attending the school, said he sympathizes with the homosexual couple,

because they’ve been swept up in the controversy after they made a

bold decision to send their children to the school.

“As for a moral covenant solution, I just think that most parents

in school, if not all of them, are sinners in a lot of ways,” he

said. “I certainly don’t want my kids’ admission into the school to

be based on my morality.”

Just as bad, he said, is how the issue would affect the children

as they mature.

“These kids are baptized Catholics, so they’re entitled,

therefore, to be members of our parish, which includes going to our

school,” Stephens said. “No one suggested the kids did anything

wrong, so I don’t see how anyone could exclude them from the school.

“Even if you took the position that homosexuality is a bad thing,

logically you would want the kids to get a good Catholic education so

they could eventually get exposure to the faith on the issue of

homosexuality.”

* JEFF BENSON covers education and may be reached at (714)

966-4617 or by e-mail at jeff.benson@latimes.com.