Catholic Priest Reinstated at NIH After Proving Case of Religious Discrimination

[Meshuga]

When searching for this story I saw a website with catholic members protesting, coming to hasty conclusions saying that Father Heffernan (whose story is included below) is a victim of "secularists" and "atheists" at the NIH when in fact he is a victim of a ruthless Christian fundie supervisor who wanted to have a one-size-fits-all approach to chaplaincy (with this supervisor's own size being the standard).

Father Heffernan was fired as retaliation since he was outspoken about the new chapaincy approach (he didn't think it was in his place to minister to non-Catholic patients since he would not be able to fulfill their spiritual needs and for non-Catholic clergy to minister to Catholic patients for the same reason) and the people who testified in his favor were also fired, including my congregation's Rabbi who is also fighting this out with an even stronger case against the NIH for their blatant retaliation.

---

WASHINGTON, March 1 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A Catholic chaplain who has been responsible for ministering to patients at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center has been reinstated after proving that he had been fired for his Catholic beliefs, attorneys from Kator, Parks & Weiser, PLLC, announced today. In a February 23 decision the Merit Systems Protection Board wrote "We concur in and adopt the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's finding that the agency discriminated against the appellant on the basis of religion and retaliation for equal employment opportunity activity."

(...)

While NIH argued that it had terminated Father Heffernan for, among other things, failing to attend entry-level continuing education programs, the EEOC found otherwise. Specifically, the EEOC found that:

"A preponderance of the evidence establishes that the Supervisor's
decision to discharge complainant based on the failure to comply with the
training certification requirement was motivated by discriminatory and
retaliatory animus."


The EEOC decision went on to document animosity at NIH towards Roman Catholics including:

-- Testimony from a contract chaplain who stated that the Supervisor would
joke about Roman Catholic priests being pedophiles. She also testified
about a conversation in which the Supervisor stated he "would never
hire another Roman Catholic priest again"
-- Another chaplain who testified that Heffernan's supervisor boasted that
he had a degree in psychology and that he had done things to provoke
Father Heffernan in order to get rid of him;
-- The contract chaplain said Father Heffernan's supervisor told her that
the instituted the continuing education requirement "to get rid of
Father Heffernan."

http://sev.prnewswire.com/religion/20070302/DCTH01201032007-1.html

[cosmik debris]

1. Do we need any more reasons to keep the government out of

the business of religion and keep religion out of the business of government?

And, if religion is such a charitable thing, why can't the churches provide this service without having to be paid?

[NMMNG]

2. When in doubt,

blame the "secularists" and "atheists". They're the source of all evil in the world. :sarcasm:



(When searching for this story I saw a website with catholic members protesting, coming to hasty conclusions saying that Father Heffernan (whose story is included below) is a victim of "secularists" and "atheists" at the NIH when in fact he is a victim of a ruthless Christian fundie supervisor who wanted to have a one-size-fits-all approach to chaplaincy (with this supervisor's own size being the standard).)