There has recently been a spotlight on my alma mater, Notre Dame Preparatory School, for refusing to list an alumna’s marriage to another woman in its Class Chatter, on the basis that gay marriage is not in keeping with Catholic Doctrine. Class Chatter does include non-Catholic weddings, civil ceremonies and second marriages, so the exclusion of gay marriage is pointed, particularly in Maryland where same sex-couples enjoy the same legal standing as their mix-and-match counterparts.
Traditionally, NDP churns out the type of progressive Catholics that have been reinvigorated by Pope Francis I, who explicitly told the Church hierarchy to calm down about gay stuff and concentrate on serving the poor. Thus many of us were surprised and disappointed that the school that taught us to be loving, just and wise would do something so exclusionary, unfair and foolish.
The Class Chatter Matter made me ponder an alumnae publication that includes helpful commentary on everyone’s life choices and how they line up with Church Doctrine. Thus I give you, Class Chatter, Super-Catholic Edition!
“Catherine Thompson Abingdon was promoted to SVP at Halliburton, a warmongering company responsible for suffering all over the world. She genuinely does not appreciate the irony of the Jesus fish on her Lexus…Bridget Ulrich Sampson and her husband Isaac welcomed daughter Ella Suzanne, born at GMBC on February 3 and weighing 7 pounds 10 ounces. Big sister Jamie (2 ½) is very excited! Big sister Jamie is also technically a bastard, as she was conceived when her parents were cohabitating but not married! Bridget and Isaac say that they do not plan to love their out-of-wedlock child less than their legitimate child…Congratulations to Cameron Linzert Jennings, who recently passed her boards and is an OB/GYN! Cammie occasionally performs late-term abortion procedures as a part of her job, but mostly she provides excellent healthcare to low-income families so we’re going to call this one a push…Amy Anderson married Richie Sullivan (Calvert Hall Class of 1996) at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen on July 23, 2013. Amy has doubted her sexuality every since she got really drunk at a sophomore Gym Meet party and went to second base with her aerobics committee co-chair Patricia Irvington. Patricia pretended like it didn’t happen the next day, so Amy did the same. Amy never thinks about that, ever. Not about how embracing that part of herself would alienate her from her family and her religion, the twin pole stars of her life. She definitely did not think about it during her wedding, not for one weird, fleeting second when she faced her groom at the altar and considered that she wasn’t just doing this to herself, but to him too. That did not happen. None of it happened. The reception was held at Baltimore Country Club, where everyone danced up a storm!”