It was a controversy tailor-made for the TV cameras: A lesbian couple in the
liberal bastion of Boulder, Colo., had enrolled their children in a Catholic
parish school, only to see those children denied re-enrollment once the parish
priest learned of their home situation. When the story leaked last week,
Boulder's vociferous gay-rights activists mobilized to protest the priest, the
parish and the Archdiocese of Denver, brandishing signs outside the church that
plaintively asked: "What would Jesus do?"

For the reporters breathlessly covering the story and many Catholics, the
answer was obvious. Jesus would allow the children to stay in the school. He
would tell the teachers not to worry about the conflict between their duty to
teach Catholic doctrine on marriage and their desire to protect the feelings of
students being raised by a couple that flouted that doctrine in a particularly
obvious way. The solution, he would say, is simple: Drop the doctrine and focus
on feelings.

At least, that's what the Jesus of our contemporary imagination would say. He
has a habit of endorsing what we wanted to do anyway, especially when it comes
to sex. And unlike that intense and unsettling figure in the Bible — the one
who talked about marriage as the union of a man and a woman for life — this
Jesus never talks about tough choices or objective truth. He's all about hugs,
rainbows and doing what feels right — a sort of human Hallmark card in
Birkenstocks.

Appealing as this Jesus may be, his do-your-own-thing dogma has its drawbacks
in the context of Catholic education. For starters, it's difficult for Catholic
schools to justify their existence when their organizing principle is fidelity
to a milquetoast figure with such malleable teachings. And it's difficult for
students at Catholic schools to understand why they should be willing to suffer
ridicule for defending their faith when so many of their pastors, parents and
teachers are not.

It's no coincidence that after nearly half a century of Catholic education
based largely on the Hallmark Jesus rather than the real McCoy, many Catholics
have reacted with indignation to the Boulder situation and Denver Archbishop
Charles Chaput's response to it. An articulate defender of Catholic orthodoxy
with almost as many media critics as former St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke,
Chaput described the Boulder pastor's decision as an appropriate application of
the archdiocesan policy that requires parents to "subscribe to the school's
philosophy" — including what Catholic schools teach about marriage — if they
wish to enroll their children in archdiocesan schools.

"Many of our schools also accept students of other faiths and no faith, and
from single parent and divorced parent families," Chaput wrote in his Denver
Catholic Register column this week. "These students are always welcome so long
as their parents support the Catholic mission of the school and do not offer a
serious counter-witness to that mission in their actions. Our schools, however,
exist primarily to serve Catholic families with an education shaped by Catholic
faith and moral formation.... If parents don't respect the beliefs of the
Church, or live in a manner that openly rejects those beliefs, then partnering
with those parents becomes very difficult, if not impossible. It also places
unfair stress on the children, who find themselves caught in the middle, and on
their teachers, who have an obligation to teach the authentic faith of the
Church."

Anyone who thinks Chaput exaggerates the threat of weak Catholic identity at
Catholic schools should look at the recent study of Catholic college students
by Georgetown University's Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate. The
study suggested that Catholic students at Catholic schools may fare better than
those at secular schools in retaining the faith. Yet their levels of Mass
attendance and support for Catholic teaching on marriage and abortion are more
likely to decrease than increase during the years they spend on a Catholic
campus.

Disciples of the Hallmark Jesus may consider that encouraging news. For those
who want their children to learn a more robust and countercultural form of
Catholic Christianity, the Boulder decision was a necessary step toward
reconciling belief and practice, even in the hard cases.

Colleen Carroll Campbell is an author, television and radio host and St.
Louis-based fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Her website is
www.colleen-campbell.com.