Rally Around Our Friend Kathy Wednesday, May 21st, 2003

Editors Note: St. Joan of Arc Religious Education Director Kathy Itzin was named one of the 18 winners of the Archdiocesen Educators of the Year awards. She was to have received her award at a dinner on the evening of this report. The Archbishop instructed the awards committee to remove Kathy's honor because she is a lesbian. With only 24 hours to mobilize, many SJA members staged a hurriedly organized protest at the awards dinner at St. Patricks Church in Edina. Janice LaDuke of the webteam offered her thoughts on this crazy period.For more details on the situation, view the Open Letter from the Pastoral Council of St. Joan of Arc.

Janice LaDuke was baptized at St. Joan of Arc but her parents left St. Joan's in the early 70's and went to a more traditional Catholic church instead. She's very glad to have found her way back to St. Joan's in 1994!! Janice is a librarian by profession and has been working in the library of a healthcare consulting firm since 1997. In her spare time, she enjoys listening to all kinds of music and working on her home near Como Lake in St. Paul. Janice is also Echo Thoren's assistant every Sunday at the 11:00 a.m. service.

Around 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday, May 21st I received a phone call from a fellow parishioner. She was very upset … and asked me if I had heard about the Itzin thing … and the Tuesday night Bible Study group was all upset about it … and did I know about a planned protest?? This parishioner does not have Web or email access and has often told me she feels disconnected from events in the Parish because a lot of news is disseminated online and she often feels left out. Well, here she was coming to me (supposedly, well connected person) and I did not have the foggiest idea of what she was talking about.

I spent the next hour trying to find out what was going on. I checked my email for the first time that morning and already had 2 emails from fellow parishioners. Here we go again! And, here is Catholic Parents Online (CPO) attacking again. Here is the Archbishop caving-in again.

Cristine Patlan is organizing a peaceful protest at St. Patrick’s in Edina from 5:30-6:45. Father George Wertin is encouraging us to have signs mentioning tolerance and love, feelings that are hard to express when one feels attacked and violated.

So, here I go after work with two other parishioners to St. Pat’s in Edina. We arrived about 5:30 and there were already 20-30 people there. Within an hour the group had exploded to at least 200. A real-life Rainbow Coalition. People of all ages, sizes, races, sexual preferences, carrying signs, banners, singing together in support of an awesome woman who did not do anything to deserve this horrible treatment except love a woman.

I was really upset and discouraged most of the day before I arrived at St. Pat’s and took my place in the group of so many! So many people came from at least 4 different parishes (St. Joan’s, Pax Christi, St. Stephens, St. Francis) to speak out against this injustice on such short notice.

Then Kathy’s partner, her son, her sister and her brother-in-law were there and thanked everyone on Kathy’s behalf for being there and supporting her.

Once I got home I felt a little better. I say a little better because there is still a lot of work to do and a lot of questions that need to be answered but I’m not sure they will be answered. The Archbishop still refuses to meet with the Parish Council after the Mel White brouhaha and I’m not hopeful he will meet with anyone now. The word from the Archdiocese is he was out of town. Was he really or did he just not want to talk to anyone? What happened to the open dialogue that he wanted to have with everyone when he was appointed Archbishop? Why does CPO seem to have his ear and no one else does?

Julie Madden said there will be more action to come. I hope so.

Jeanne Morales has been active at St. Joans for the past year. She loves working in her garden, attending the St. Joan of Arc Bible Study and sneaking off for camping trips when she has time. Jeanne can be reached at moralesj@Macalester.edu.

Janet Brown is a member of our Pastoral Council as well as former SJA Preschool coordinator. Janet, her husband Mike and their children have been active at Joan of Arc for several years.