Principal receives new contract offer

Michael Miller

Sister Mary Vianney, the principal of St. John the Baptist School for

31 years, has been offered a contract to return in the fall, quelling

parents’ fears that church officials were planning to displace her.

Father Joe Fenton, a spokesman for the Roman Catholic Diocese of

Orange, confirmed that Vianney had been offered a contract for the

next school year. Father Martin Benzoni, the pastor of St. John who

has authority over personnel, was not available for comment.

The announcement came after two days of protest by parents and

students, who held a prayer vigil at the private Catholic school on

Monday evening and who had planned to picket the diocese office in

Orange on Wednesday. Many suspected that the church wanted to dismiss

Vianney due to her alleged opposition to a proposal, made last month,

to bar same-sex couples from visiting the campus together.

Parents close to Vianney said she objected to the proposal, which

appeared in a May 6 memo distributed to teachers. Suzi Brown, the

school’s parent auxiliary president, said that Vianney and church

officials would meet privately with parents today to discuss the

same-sex-couples policy, which the school has not officially adopted.

Word of Vianney’s retention first spread among parents on Tuesday

night, as several reported speaking with her about the news. Joanne

Krikorian, a mother of four whose youngest child graduated from St.

John two weeks ago, called the church’s decision “the best news

ever.”

“I called her and said, ‘Is it true?’” Krikorian said. “She said,

‘It’s true.’ She was elated as well. You could hear the happiness in

her voice. It hadn’t been there in a month.”

Mary Neiger, the mother of a sixth-grader at the school, said she

believed that the parents’ demonstrations had influenced the church

in rehiring Vianney.

“She’s a very well respected and loved individual, so I’d hope

that the voice of the parents would be heard,” Neiger stated.

In addition to the prayer vigil and the planned picketing at the

diocese, members of the St. John community had started a campaign,

called Save Sister, to fight for the principal’s retention. Brown and

others created a website early this week inviting parents to post

comments about Vianney and to donate money to her order of nuns.

With Vianney’s employment secure for next year, the school still

faces the issue of the same-sex parents. In December, 18 parents

signed a petition asking the school to remove two kindergarteners who

had been adopted by a male Costa Mesa couple.

While Benzoni defended the boys’ right to attend the school, he

noted at the time that the Catholic church did not condone homosexual

unions or adoptions. The May 6 memo, which Fenton said the diocese is

still reviewing, suggested a new rule that would allow same-sex

parents to visit the campus but not as a couple.

* MICHAEL MILLER covers education and may be reached at (714)

966-4617 or by e-mail at michael.miller@latimes.com.