See update at bottom of the post!

I’ve been thinking a lot about Bishop Robinson’s speech before the Creating Change conference last year. You can find the entire speech here, and for today I’d rush you along to part two, in which Robinson says, “There is risk to be involved when you tell the truth.” It’s a fact that most everybody knows, and someone recently got a personalized reminder of it from the Catholic Church.

I wrote about Father Geoff Farrow back in October. Farrow is a Catholic priest who stood against Bishop John Steinbock of the Fresno diocese by refusing to endorse California’s Prop 8 (the one that removed civil rights from gay and lesbian Californians) from the pulpit. As expected, Father Geoff has been removed from his charge in the Catholic Church. His pension rights were immediately stripped, as were his health benefits.

Father Geoff Farrow pays the price for our civil rights.

But that wasn’t enough for the Catholic Church. Late last year, Father Farrow had been seeking employment with the Los Angeles chapter of an ecumenical charity. CLUE, or Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, provides assistance to the working poor throughout California.

Father Tony of the Bilerico Project reports:

CLUE derives a significant part of its funding from the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Los Angeles.

Today I spoke with a member of CLUE’s board of directors, Rev. James Conn, a Methodist minister and Director of New Ministries for the California-Pacific Conference of the United Methodist Church. Reverend Conn had been directly involved in the recruitment and interview process involving Father Geoff.

I asked him if CLUE had denied Father Geoff a second interview specifically because the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles threatened to cut off all its significant funding for CLUE should Father Geoff ever be offered the position in question.

As Father Tony goes on to point out, Father Geoff was not attempting to pass himself off as a Catholic priest in good standing, nor was the position he was interviewing for related to the split between him and the church.

Let’s be blunt about what Cardinal Mahoney of the Los Angeles archdiocese is doing: In the middle of the biggest recession in decades, he is threatening to shut down a charity that helps the poor in order to keep a former priest from earning a living.

Shame on you, Cardinal Mahony. Shame on you for laying aside the words of Jesus and the needs of the poor in favor of mob tactics and pride.

Update: Father Geoff has confirmed Father Tony’s reporting of the incident.

In brief, I had applied for the position of Executive Director of a non-profit organization in Los Angeles. I had very successfully completed the lion’s share of the interview process and was all but assured that I would be given the position. I had one final interview left with the Board of Directors on December 15th, 2008. Two days before that interview, I received a phone call from a Board Member informing me that the final interview had been canceled. He was extremely apologetic and explained that they had received a phone call from the Archdiocese threatening them with disaffiliation if I were to be hired as the Executive Director.

…

I have received first a command and then, “warnings” not to publish, not to speak with the media, and not to make public appearances. I am in a “David and Goliath” scenario with powerful churchmen who have the staff and vast wealth of the institution at their command. I was effectively blackballed by the Archdiocese from obtaining the position at CLUE-LA and I am aware that the hierarchy may try this and other means to attempt to intimidate me into silence.