Father Tom Held apologized, for no good reason, after a gay author visited his Catholic school

A Catholic priest in Michigan has been fired after condemning a gay author for no logical reason and inspiring a wave of backlash from parents and other members of his congregation who came to the author’s defense.

All of this began last month when Dominic Thrasher, an actor who turned to writing, visited his hometown of Beal City to read his new children’s book The Adventures of Cece and the Sheriff to the pre-K students at St. Joseph the Worker School. He was invited by a friend of his who worked as a teacher there; after all, March was National Reading Month.

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The event appeared to go wonderfully.

“It went amazing! Oh my gosh, it was so much fun," [Thrasher] said.

…

"The kids were so excited and I actually ended up staying for snack time too," he said.

Sounds great! And in the days to follow, there were no complaints from anyone, because why the hell would there be?!

All of that changed a week later, on Wednesday, March 13, when Thomas Held, the leader at St. Joseph the Worker Parish (the church overseeing the school), posted an apology on Facebook. He told the community (in a now-deleted post) that Thrasher never should have been invited to the school:

Dear school parents and all parishioners of St, Joseph the Worker.

Recently a guest who does not represent the values of our Catholic faith read to our pre-k children as part of our March is Reading Month activities. To my knowledge, the book and any related conversation was appropriate for our students. A St. Joseph teacher was present in the room at all times.

I was unaware that the guest had been invited, As your pastor I will see to it that a new vetting policy is put in place in order to minimize anything of the sort from happening again in the future.

Thank you for your fidelity to the Faith.

Fr. Tom Held Pastor of St. Joseph the Worker Church 

What the hell.

Seriously, that was intended as an apology, but it’s not even clear what Held was apologizing about. That’s how much he’s dodging the issue. What part of Thrasher’s visit violated Catholic values? What happened that requires a new vetting policy?

I can connect the dots for you, though.

Thrasher is gay.

That’s it. That’s the whole controversy.

His book isn’t about that. He didn’t discuss his orientation with the students. He just read them a perfectly non-controversial, light-hearted book. But the priest-in-charge felt the need to apologize to the entire community for the horrific crime of allowing a gay person to interact with children.

Even for the Catholic Church, that’s a level of bigotry you don’t often see. The Church has long held the position that gay acts, not gay people, deserve to be condemned. So to publicly condemn the invitation of a gay author to read to students makes no sense, even under the Church’s rules.

Thrasher was devastated. Partly because he has been the victim of this faith-based prejudice before. Partly because of his own health. He explained the situation to FOX 17:

“It just angers me, what he said," Thrasher said. "The way he made me feel like I'm a predator or like a convict or something coming into the school.”

Thrasher said this isn't the first time his sexuality has been an issue for others.

“12 years ago, I was asked to give this commencement speech at my alma mater, a private Catholic school," he said. "Then, once they found out I was gay — I've been openly gay ever since I came out, and that was at 21, so it was no shock to anybody, everybody knew that, but once they found out — I was disinvited to give the commencement speech because, being gay, I don't know, I'm going to ruin people or something?”

Thrasher thought life had already thrown enough obstacles his way.

“I was diagnosed with ALS a year ago," he said. "I don't have a lot of time, so I just want to share my gifts and my love to the world.”

It’s just a horrible situation all around because his visit to the school was literally a win-win for everyone. He got to read his book to kids, the kids enjoyed themselves, and everyone left happy. It was the priest who decided to ruin things by reminding everyone that the Catholic Church is fundamentally a bigoted institution.

Parents wanted answers. They wanted Father Tom Held to resign. One parent wrote an open letter demanding that resignation, adding that Held had an “inability to effectively represent the collective values of the parishioners.”

The day after Held’s letter was posted, on a Thursday, the school was closed “for safety reasons” due to the immediate backlash. On Friday (March 16), there was a massive walkout at the school. An astonishing 79 of 92 students stayed home in protest of how Thrasher was treated by the Catholic leaders.

The Diocese of Saginaw, which oversees the church, said that same Friday that Held posted that statement on Facebook because (unnamed) parents and parishioners apparently complained about how Thrasher was in a same-sex relationship. But… who cares?! He wasn’t asking to be baptized. He wasn’t trying to get married in the church. He was just reading to kids.

If the new rule is that practicing Catholics aren’t allowed to breathe the same air as LGBTQ people, then Pope Francis ought to come out and say that. Instead, the diocese couched their prejudice in religious weasel words, saying “we are all created in the image and likeness of God and called to love one another.” They seriously said that in defense of Held’s bigotry.

Cormac Lynn, the Superintendent of Schools, told parents that they were working on setting up a face-to-face meeting between them and Bishop Robert Gruss. Gruss said he had also reached out to Thrasher “in the hope of opening direct dialogue.” (For what purpose? Who knows.)

None of this was bringing the temperature back down. Parents were pissed.

In the weeks to follow, the intensity of the outrage only grew. There were protests on Sundays outside the church with signs saying things like “There’s nothing righteous about bigotry disguised as religion.”

And late last week, the diocese finally announced that Thomas Held would no longer be working with them. They announced that “it would be impossible for him to bring unity to the parish” and, therefore, he was resigning.

The division, lack of charity and the wounds caused by the division in the St. Joseph the Worker Parish community has brought deep sadness to the Lord Jesus, especially when we are living in the Light of the Resurrection we celebrated on Easter Sunday.  Jesus weeps when he sees division and disunity in the Body of Christ, his Church. It is not his desire nor his will. The Gospel of Jesus calls all of us to be a healing presence in the community in which we live and worship.

That’s a bizarre way of admitting that one side, and only one side, was causing those divisions due to a “lack of charity.” The diocese is literally blaming the congregation for its own mistakes. Bishop Gruss refuses to acknowledge the Church’s own role in promoting bigotry, and he won’t admit that Held went too far with his Facebook post.

So the good news is that Thomas Held will no longer be leading that church.

The bad news is that no one in a leadership position in the Diocese has come out and apologized for what he did to Thrasher. No one will admit Held’s statement was disgusting and inappropriate. No one will be held accountable for the latest stain on the Church’s reputation.

More importantly, Thomas Held is merely resigning from this parish. There’s nothing stopping him from taking over a Catholic parish a few minutes down the road and spreading his poison over there.

But as always, none of this will really matter unless parents who send their kids to St. Joseph the Worker School transfer their kids out of there. They need to abandon the parish, too. No more money going to the diocese. No more time wasted in that church. That’s the only way these people will ever learn their lesson. One of the parents who called for Held’s resignation even said to a reporter, “We can finally begin the process of healing and restoring the sense of unity that defines our community"... which is a lovely sentiment but only serves to give the Diocese more credibility than it deserves. The people of Beal City need to heal and restore without the Catholic Church getting in the way.

As far as I can tell, there hasn’t been a push from parents to punish the Diocese in the only meaningful way there is—by kicking them in the pocketbooks.

Thrasher responded to the Held’s resignation with a curt statement of his own: “A battle has been won, but the war is not over.” He added that the Bishop’s comments “basically gaslight and blame the parishioners for the reason why he's not going to be there anymore, which is still a shame.”

He’s right. And for that reason, any decent member of that parish should make plans to get the hell out of there. The Church leaders won’t change, and they’re better people than the Church leaders.