Church accused of workplace injustices - unfair labor practices sometimes stem from authoritarian structures - includes related articles

National Catholic Reporter, Jan 21, 1994 by Tim McCarthy

This is one of the first suits of its kind in the nation and many look upon it as a test case for the rights of church employees. Several former church employees said they had considered filing lawsuits after they were fired but decided not to do so because they did not have the resources to carry it through. In labor disputes, the church tends to hire hardball law firms that drag suits on for years and wear plaintiffs down.

So the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend may turn out to be a testing ground in many ways and it is well worth a closer look.

St. Joseph Day Massacre

The story begins in May 1985, when John D'Arcy, an auxiliary bishop in Boston, was installed as bishop of Fort Wayne-South Bend, replacing the retiring William McManus.

Under McManus, the Fort Wayne-South Bend diocese and the Archdiocese of Chicago had been party to a 1979 U.S. Supreme Court five-to-four ruling that the National Labor Relations Board had no authority over church-run schools. Diocesan teachers had asked the NLRB to enforce union organizing and collective bargaining laws in the church schools. The court's decision, while dodging constitutional church-state issues, left teachers in Catholic schools at the mercy of the local bishop.

McManus said he had already worked out an amicable agreement with his teachers. Thomas Hampson, then head of the diocesan teachers' group, told NCR at the time that he did not question McManus' goodwill. "But you can't count on his successor being as socially concerned or having the goodwill he does," Hampson said. The remark turned out to be prophetic.

Less than two years after D'Arcy's arrival, March 19, 1987, the feast of St. Joseph, members of the diocesan Religious Education Institute and Religious Education Office gathered in a basement meeting room in the building where D'Arcy had his Fort Wayne living quarters. Some of the employees had used the room for an informal study group, so they felt comfortable there.

Their comfort did not last long. They were told that, as a result of the recent organizational evaluation D'Arcy had commissioned, the Religious Education Institute was being abolished and several employees in the Religious Education Office terminated.

Louise Pare, who was Fort Wayne director of the REI, said was "all very impersonal" and there appeared to be "no awareness of the impact on lives," on people with "kids and mortgages." That sort of callousness is a common complaint of church employees who think they have been treated unjustly.

Pare, who is now in California working on her doctorate, said she believed there was a lack of honesty in the evaluation process. D'Arcy claimed the evaluation was to strengthen the diocesan organization, but it was actually a spurious process to change the organization completely, Pare said. "We had a saying," she said: "Evaluation equals elimination."

Sr. Jane Carew, who was part of the evaluation team, denied Pare's accusation of a prejudged outcome. It was a professional evaluation of all diocesan departments and everyone was consulted, she said. The REI was eliminated because D'Arcy wanted to unify the religious education office, Carew said.