Outed by grief: Catholic school fires widowed teacher over same-sex marriage
A Louisiana teacher lost his job over a same-sex marriage the school had quietly ignored for years—until a parent dug up the past
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A Catholic high school in Louisiana fired a teacher for being in a same-sex relationship after a parent connected the dots while reading a years-old obituary of the teacher’s former partner.
(This story is seriously that messed up.)
Mark Richards had been teaching music for over two decades at St. Francis Xavier School in Metairie — their mission is to “unite Church and family” — and by all accounts, he was an excellent teacher. Two years before he began working there, he met a man named John Messinger, and they eventually got married in 2014.
That posed a problem for Richards because Catholic schools require their staff members to sign morality clauses saying they accept Catholic dogma on matters of abortion, homosexuality, etc. Even if being gay isn’t considered sinful by the Church, acting on it or being in a same-sex partnership is absolutely considered a problem.
But Richards continued to sign the contract every year after 2014 because, like so many of his fellow educators, he just assumed the morality clause wasn’t really enforced. (There’s no way to police who’s having sex outside of marriage, who’s obtaining an abortion early on in a pregnancy, etc.)
As he explained later, he figured that part of the contract was more of a “wink and a nudge.” After all, everyone who knew him already knew he was gay.
Not only was his homosexuality not a big secret, Richards said students and staffers were “very sympathetic and supportive” after Messinger died of a heart attack in 2023. They knew the two men were married but they didn’t care. Love is love, and a great teacher lost his spouse, and their humanity overrode the archaic, bigoted beliefs of the Catholic Church.
An obituary for Messinger written at the time said “He is survived by his husband of 22 years, Mark Richards of New Orleans, Louisiana.”
Somehow, and for no apparent reason, a parent in the community recently came across that obituary. Who was it? Why were they looking for this information? We don’t know the answer to either question. But that parent told school administrators that Richards had been in a same-sex marriage. (Richards suggested the person may have been “disgruntled.”)
That’s all it took. After two decades at the school, Richards was unceremoniously fired last week.
Richards quickly sent parents at the school an email explaining why he wouldn’t be returning next year—presumably to push back against any nefarious allegations and to make sure his story was heard before the school took away his email access. He told everyone about the morality clause and his deceased husband. He also said:
I have not been in violation of the morality clause for the last two years, and no one can find any incident of my acting inappropriately with anyone – let alone a student.
It wasn’t an apology for lying when he signed the contract, because he had nothing to seriously apologize for. It was more like an admission of something the community already knew—and something the administration knew, too, but they had been willing to ignore up until that point. (Richards said “his principal and co-workers knew about Messinger.” They didn’t care, however, as long as he kept that side of himself private.)
Richards added: “Teaching your children has been one of the joys of my life, and I treasure the memories.”
In response to his email, the school soon followed up with one of their own, attempting to justify their decision:
Dear St. Francis Xavier Family, As you are already aware from a previous email, Mr. Mark Richards is not returning to the faculty of St. Francis Xavier for the 2025-2026 school year.
We apologize for the way in which you received this news and acknowledge with great respect the emotion around this announcement.
The decision to offer contracts is made annually to each administrator and member of the faculty. No administrator or faculty member is guaranteed a contract for more than one year.
After much thought and prayerful consideration, we determined that Mr. Mark would not be given a contract for the upcoming year.
While we can confirm this, as Mr. Mark already made this announcement, we cannot, by law, comment any further on the reasons behind this decision other than to note that the email you received did not provide a fully accurate description of the employment situation.
We feel it important to state that this decision is final and will not be revisited. Should you have concerns you wish to express, please send them to us, and we will respond as we are both pastorally and legally able.
The music and band program will continue at our school.
Please know we strive to always make decisions that uphold the teachings of the Catholic faith that are in the best interest of our school.
Please join us in prayer for our St. Francis school community and for Mr. Mark.
Some of that is bullshit. They could have just confirmed why they fired him—because of who he was married to—but instead they said his email “did not provide a fully accurate description of the employment situation.” That’s completely unnecessary and only opens the door to more baseless allegations against Richards.
As it stands, though, a great teacher was fired because school officials found out about his secret past… as a great husband to his male partner.
To be clear, the school has every right to fire people for violating their contract. This isn’t about the legality of getting rid of Richards. This is about the ethics. The Catholic Church has no leniency for employees in a healthy, loving, same-sex relationship, but they’ll bend over backwards to protect sex predators.
That’s not a cheap shot, either, as the Guardian noted in its article about Richards:
A longtime music teacher at a Catholic school in the New Orleans area recently lost his job when it was revealed to an evidently “disgruntled” parent that he was another man’s widower, igniting a scandal within an archdiocese that has otherwise largely been occupied with trying to reorganize its finances in federal bankruptcy court after its clergymen spent decades sexually molesting children.
…
St Francis is one of numerous archdiocese of New Orleans affiliates that are being counted on to contribute to what is expected to be a nine-figure settlement resolving a bankruptcy protection case filed by archdiocesan leaders in 2020. Those officials made that chapter 11 bankruptcy filing mainly in an attempt to dispense with hundreds of clergy molestation claims dating back decades as affordably as possible.
As of Sunday, the most recent settlement offer was for the archdiocese, its affiliates and its insurers to pay between $180m and $230m to about 600 abuse survivors. But attorneys representing hundreds of those survivors oppose that deal, saying it is far less than the $323m settlement approved in late 2024 in a similar case pitting about 600 clergy abuse claimants against the archdiocese of Rockville Centre on Long Island, New York.
The crimes that took place within this archdiocese could cost them around $200 million, but they’re taking no chances when it comes to the employment of a beloved openly gay music teacher who lost his husband two years ago and hasn’t done anything wrong.
If there’s any upside to this, it’s watching the community rally around Richards. The parents in the community appear to be overwhelmingly on his side, judging from comments they’ve made to the press and a petition to get the archdiocese to rehire him that’s generated over 2,100 signatures so far.
"I would like to see the morality clause change," Katheryn Lee said. "I’m activated. I would like the line regarding homosexuality in the morality clause that educators sign to be removed. Your identity is not your morality. I hope we have a voice in this. It’s just emotional."
"So, what I am doing by being vocal about this is something I actually told my family today — that one day, they are going to look back and say, ‘I’m so proud of you, Mom.’ I hope that’s the message I can personally send in my home, one that they will carry into the world,” Kristin Giefer said. “Being homosexual is not a crime. My children and I watched the news yesterday, and they had tears in their eyes. They understood what was happening. They obviously have a million questions because, again, going back to this whole teaching inclusion but practicing exclusion idea, they’re conflicted and asking, ‘Why would the church do that? Why would the church say that? That’s not what Jesus would do.’ It’s not fair. It’s just about human dignity to me. That’s what it comes down to. Didn’t the pope say homosexuality isn’t a crime?”
“The whole incident was just shocking,” Rick English said. “I would like them to really change the morality clause with the archdiocese. I mean, we’re not angry with the school at all. St. Francis is a great institution; it’s a great school. The staff, everyone’s fantastic, especially Mr. Mark. But this morality clause within the archdiocese just has to be reviewed because it’s a violation of human rights. To me, it’s a social injustice at this point.”
Those statements are beautiful. They’re also proof of how even people who send their kids to Catholic schools don’t understand just how bigoted the Catholic Church actually is. The Church has always been opposed to same-sex marriage, calling homosexual acts “intrinsically disordered.”
Pope Francis, despite headlines suggesting the opposite, was notoriously anti-gay. Yes, he said being gay is not a crime, but that didn’t mean he supported same-sex marriages. In his 2016 exhortation Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love), the pope wrote that same-sex unions “may not simply be equated with marriage.” He also agreed with the belief that “there are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to Gods plan for marriage and family.” It was the same old bigotry with a slightly gentler tone.
(Pope Leo XIV, in case you’re wondering, holds the same views on this topic.)
Why do the parents not realize that the problem isn’t with school officials but the Church itself? The answer is obvious: A lot of them send their kids to Catholic schools because they’re culturally Catholic or just think the education will be good, but they don’t really give much thought to Church doctrine itself. They just assume religion is a virtue and they’re often ignorant about where the Catholic Church stands on matters of morality. The same can be said of many Catholic school teachers, who take those jobs for any number of reasons that have little to do with adherence to Catholic doctrine. They either don’t know what the Church’s beliefs are or they look the other way… until it hits home. (There’s a reason most practicing Catholics are far more tolerant of gay couples than the pope or the Vatican. In the United States, 61% of Catholics support marriage equality.)
The petition is almost laughable for that reason:
… it is imperative that the archdiocese revisits their morality contracts. The current Pope Leo XIV has advocated for inclusion and understanding, yet the existing terms fall short of these values. Updating these contracts to reflect the Pope's more inclusive perspective would be a step in the right direction towards embracing diversity and love for all, embodying genuine Christian values.
They don’t get it. The new pope, just like the previous pope, believes gay couples are inherently immoral. The archdiocese takes its cues from the top. If anything, the morality clause already reflects “the Pope’s more inclusive perspective.”
The archdiocese won’t revisit its contract because doing so would be to oppose its Catholic identity.
It’s heartbreaking to see what happened to Richards. And I love seeing parents and students stand up on his behalf. But if you send your kids to a Catholic school, or you choose to work there, you don’t have any right to be upset when the administration decides to enforce Catholic doctrine. It’s your responsibility to know what you’re stepping into before you sign the contract or pay the tuition.
If these parents really care about Richards, they should honor him by walking away from the archdiocese, removing their kids—and their tuition dollars—from St. Francis Xavier School, and sending them to a local public school where who teachers love and marry isn’t used as a weapon against them.
"The Catholic Church has no leniency for employees in a healthy, loving, same-sex relationship or women who abort babies, but they’ll bend over backwards to protect sex predators."
Fixed it for you, Hemant.
New pope, same as the old pope, same as the old pope, same as the old pope ........