{"id":757,"date":"2006-02-28T06:05:43","date_gmt":"2006-02-28T06:05:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/2006\/02\/another-catholic-fired.html"},"modified":"2006-02-28T06:05:43","modified_gmt":"2006-02-28T06:05:43","slug":"another-catholic-fired","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/02\/another-catholic-fired.html","title":{"rendered":"Another Catholic Fired"},"content":{"rendered":"

I weighed in some time back when Wheaton fired a philosophy professor who converted to Roman Catholicism but who said, in spite of what the President of Wheaton thought, that he could sign the doctrinal statement in all good faith. Now my alma mater, Cornerstone University, has fired a Roman Catholic <\/a>— but the person worked in technology and was not a professor. So the newspaper reports. Correct me if I’ve got anything wrong. I hope President Rex Rogers has an explanation for this somewhere. (Scroll down to “21 Feb o6 Students respond to firing of Grave.) (HT: Greg Mutch.)
\nOr read it here:<\/p>\n

Students respond to firing of Graves, WOOD-TV 8 story
\nSarah Heth 21.FEB.06
\nThere has been a lot of talk around campus about the IT staff member fired, allegedly, because he was Catholic. Reactions have been angry, upset, disappointed, and unbelieving. One might wonder, what with so many Protestant students on campus, what the Catholic students on campus think about all of this. The Herald caught up with six such students to get their response on the now infamous event.
\nAlex Marzolino, a Cornerstone sophomore who grew up in the Catholic church (although he would not consider himself a practicing Catholic now), and whose family is still Catholic, first reacted with disbelief. \u201cWhen I first heard about it, I didn\u2019t believe it,\u201d he said.
\nWhen he realized it was not a joke, Marzolino was not happy. \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s right. It\u2019s still a Christian religion. Other schools hire people of different denominations-why can\u2019t we?\u201d
\nHe was not alone in those feelings. Ashlee Ducat agreed. \u201cI don\u2019t think it was right, because if he\u2019s a practicing Catholic, he\u2019s going to church, and that\u2019s what he put down on his application.\u201d She went on, “There are a handful of Catholic students here. What are they going to do, kick us out next? I just didn\u2019t think it was fair.\u201d
\nJason Binder, a senior, was also disappointed in the affair. \u201cIn a nutshell,\u201d he said, \u201cI feel like the school often times doesn\u2019t think about how some actions play out in the future. I don\u2019t think they realize this affects the value of each student\u2019s degree.\u201d
\nAndrew Lindquist, a junior at Cornerstone, wasn\u2019t angry because they fired him, but that they hired him first. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t be mad if they had said first off that he couldn\u2019t have a job,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m more mad that after two days, they said \u2018you have to give up your church attendance.\u2019 I thought maybe they\u2019d have looked at it and picked up on it before they hired him.\u201d
\nAnother junior, Kate Fedoruk, had similar thoughts. \u201cI\u2026feel like, if it was something that was such a big deal, they should have noticed it first off,\u201d she said.
\nSami Jo Greiner, a sophomore, felt that because he got hired, this was actually a personnel problem. \u201cI take it for what it is: a guy who was hired when he shouldn\u2019t have been. It\u2019s not his fault, it\u2019s the fault of the person who hired. We need not discuss our policy, but we need to discuss the person who did the hiring, and why something like that slipped through,\u201d she said.
\nMost of the students felt that the man\u2019s denomination (Catholic) shouldn\u2019t matter. Laura Carlson is a freshman who, like Marzolino, grew up in the Catholic church, has a family that is Catholic, but would not consider herself a practicing Catholic anymore. \u201cI really thought that it was just ridiculous because you can\u2019t know a person\u2019s true faith by simply their denomination,\u201d she said. \u201cThere can be Catholics that have just as great of faith as Protestants.\u201d
\nFedoruk, who is \u201cnot Catholic anymore, but I still respect it,\u201d said \u201cIf he wasn\u2019t a Christian, that would be a different situation, but if it\u2019s simply a different denomination, then it shouldn\u2019t matter. They both believe in the same God, so I don\u2019t see what the big deal is\u2026Your worship style is different than mine, but that doesn\u2019t mean that I can\u2019t still love you and respect you.\u201d
\nOne big thing some of the students had a problem with was the fact that he was a technology staff member. \u201cHe\u2019s only a web designer,\u201d said Fedoruk. \u201cHe\u2019s not teaching theology. That\u2019s what I can\u2019t get over.\u201d
\nLindquist agreed that he had a problem with \u201cthe fact that he didn\u2019t have any interaction with the students.\u201d Carlson felt the same way. \u201cEspecially because it\u2019s a tech position,\u201d she said, \u201cand his faith isn\u2019t going to affect as many people.\u201d
\nThe students also felt that they have not gotten all the information about the situation. \u201cI guess I\u2019d like to see the school say something more about it,\u201d Binder said.
\n\u201cWe don\u2019t have all the facts,\u201d Greiner said. \u201cWe just have to wait for the facts to come to us.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here’s the earlier story:<\/p>\n

Katie Stanfield & Luke Stier 14.FEB.06
\nLate last week, WOOD-TV 8 ran a news story accusing Cornerstone University of firing Tony Graves because of his Catholic faith. The WOOD-TV 8 report aired on Thursday, Feb. 9 during the 6 p.m. news and again Sunday, Feb. 12. During that report, Graves said that Cornerstone University officials gave him an ultimatum: \u201cI was told to deny my religion, change my religion, or get fired,\u201d Graves said.
\nWOOD-TV 8 acquired a tape recording from Graves of the meeting in which he was fired. On the recording played during the news report a man, who Graves claims is a university official, said, \u201cYou could opt to change your church attendance to one that falls within that definition of a theologically conservative and evangelical, biblical church.\u201d
\nGraves had applied for a job in the Information Systems department at Cornerstone. Because of school policy, which requires all staff and faculty to attend an \u201cevangelical, biblical church,\u201d all applicants are required to list the name of the church they attend as well as sign the Cornerstone confession of faith. Although Graves listed a Catholic church, the name of which has not been disclosed, on his application, the Cornerstone official who hired him failed to see this until two days after he had been employed at the university. The Herald was unable to learn the name of this official.
\nOnce the church attendance issue had been discovered, Graves was told that he would have to change his religious affiliation or the university would have to terminate his employment. On the recording of that meeting, the same voice can be heard telling Graves, \u201cYou would not have been hired in the first place because of the church attendance policy requirement.\u201d\u201cI chose to stick with my religion.\u201d At that time, after only two days on the job, Graves was fired by Cornerstone University.
\nJeff Herman, director human resources, said, \u201cWe have a process we go through [when hiring new employees]. We try to follow it as best we can. It is a process.\u201d Herman felt that overall the university handled the situation in a \u201cprofessional, appropriate way. We are who we are.\u201d
\nWOOD-TV 8 reported that Graves had filed an employment discrimination lawsuit with the Kent County Circuit Court. The case was, however, settled out of court and because of a settlement noindisclosure agreement between the two parties reached this past January, neither side can talk specifically about the case. However, Rex M. Rogers, president of Cornerstone University, told The Herald that the timing of the situation was \u201crelatively recent.\u201d WOOD-TV Target 8 investigator Henry Erb said that the interviews conducted with Graves were from last June and at no point during the story would Cornerstone officials talk to the station.
\nAlthough law prohibits hiring discrimination based on religious beliefs, there are rights set forth to protect religious organizations in these cases. According to Timothy Visser, attorney and adjunct business law professor at Cornerstone University, the school falls into this category. \u201cA religious organization like the college has a religious right,\u201d he said.
\nRogers said that he was pleased with the way the situation was handled once the error had been discovered. \u201cOur people handled this matter professionally and appropriately with a Christian spirit,\u201d he said. \u201cThey did a very good job.\u201d He also cautioned the Cornerstone community from jumping to conclusions about the situation. \u201cWhen you hear or see something on the news you\u2019re getting a very limited piece of information, or even misinformation,\u201d he said.
\nCommenting on e-mails he had received from members of the CU community, he said, \u201cI cautioned those I wrote back to about making snap judgments. They don\u2019t have all the details.\u201d
\nDuring an interview with The Herald, Rogers stressed that the university\u2019s employment policies are a matter of self-definition, not judgment. \u201cWhat we don\u2019t want to imply is that because we\u2019ve defined ourselves a certain way that means we\u2019re pointing fingers at somebody else,\u201d he said.
\nOther Christian colleges, such as Calvin, have similar hiring standards for faculty members, but the standards for staff members at some of these institutions are more lenient. When asked why Cornerstone holds the standards it does, Rogers said, \u201cA staff member at this institution can be just as influential in modeling and teaching a biblical worldview, and ministering to and counseling a student as any faculty member. We want all of our community to be involved in our mission and thoroughly supportive and committed to the same belief system.\u201d
\nWhen asked why these principles do not apply equally to students, why, for example, Catholic students are invited to attend the university, Rogers said, \u201cStudents are receivers of the product, not the deliverers of the product.\u201d
\nRogers said he sees the situation as the university being true to its core values and beliefs. \u201cIf the message someone takes away from it is that Cornerstone is faithful to its faith, then OK,\u201d he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I weighed in some time back when Wheaton fired a philosophy professor who converted to Roman Catholicism but who said, in spite of what the President of Wheaton thought, that he could sign the doctrinal statement in all good faith. Now my alma mater, Cornerstone University, has fired a Roman Catholic — but the person…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":298,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"yoast_head":"\nAnother Catholic Fired - Jesus Creed<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/02\/another-catholic-fired.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Another Catholic Fired - Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I weighed in some time back when Wheaton fired a philosophy professor who converted to Roman Catholicism but who said, in spite of what the President of Wheaton thought, that he could sign the doctrinal statement in all good faith. 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