Catholic school principal FIRED for being 'too traditional'？
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Summary
In this episode of the John Henry Weston Show with A.J. Barker, the former Catholic School Principal at St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception in St. Louis, Missouri, shares his story of being fired from a Catholic school.
Transcript
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We trust that good things can come out of this. I believe that. Has God really put this on my
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heart? Do I really love education? I do. Do I think I have a gift for it and for administration?
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I do. Okay, God doesn't want to waste these talents. He gives us. He's the one who gives us
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Hey, my friends. I've got someone here today who is very interesting. Now, imagine this. Imagine
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being a principal at a Catholic school and you're a young man with a growing family. You've got three
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kids. In fact, you've got three kids only if you're in the pro-life movement because you've got
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a three-year-old, a one-year-old, and then one who's just about to be born. But it's a few months
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before Christmas. Things are going well. School year's on. And all of a sudden, wait, what? I'm
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fired from my job at a Catholic school? No, they wouldn't do that. What kind of egregious kind
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of horror would I have had to have done? Like people have done all sorts of things. Would it be
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some kind of abuse situation or something? Nope. How about before you even got the job, you were on
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a Catholic podcast, a more traditional-sounding Catholic podcast, and you gave really beautiful
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advice on being in a marriage or getting a wife. Hmm. That would do it? Oh, yes, that would do it.
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You're going to want to stay tuned to this episode of the John Henry Weston Show with A.J. Barker.
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Thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it. It's an honor.
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Praise God. Let's begin as we always do with the sign of the cross.
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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
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If you don't mind, I would love everyone to hear the story from you. Tell us what happened
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and how this went down. I'm at my first principal job, and I'm about four and a half months into the
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job when I get called into a meeting and asked to resign, which I refused, and then was subsequently
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fired. But in order, I really think in order to understand the story, you have to go back at least
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to the start of me being there. So here I am. I get hired to my first principal job. It's June.
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I get there, and the first thing I do, this is actually more an observation on Catholic education,
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the state of Catholic education right now. The first thing I do is we have five out of 15 teachers
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left the year prior, and now we need to hire new teachers. And for me, I see this as quite a profound
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opportunity, because the economics in Catholic education are way off. I'll try and just briefly
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outline it for people. But, you know, if you were to take on an administrative role in a Catholic
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school of, let's say, about 200 kids, parish school, K-8, you'd be looking at an operating budget of
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about a million to $1.1 million, okay? And your tuition's been rising faster than the pace of
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inflation over the last 15, 20 years, but you're probably at around $5,000 a year in tuition.
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Now, what's interesting is that every Catholic school at best is going to receive somewhere
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between $3,000 and $4,000 per student. So that puts your revenue at $600,000 to $800,000. The rest of it,
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you have to try and secure through fundraising. So we're talking anywhere from, you know, $200,000 to $500,000
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of operating budget has to be handled by revenue. So this, I say this because I come to my role as a
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new principal with these things in mind, thinking deeply for years now on end about this. How do we
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address these major deficiencies just in the fundamentals of Catholic education? And then
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we'll get to the piece about the values and the actual Catholic faith and what we've done with the
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Catholic, you know, again, with the Catholic tradition and teaching our kids. So the first
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thing I do is I go, you know, I'm not going to hire anyone. I'm going to start to reshuffle things.
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I'm going to move things with scheduling, with what we do in the day. One of the things I did
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is I put in daily mass. And I did this actually, again, for a two-purpose reason. One is because
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I knew as I started to shift the schedule, I didn't rehire teachers, our class sizes were going to get
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bigger. And so I knew if our class sizes are getting bigger, we want to do something that
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offsets that. Like, we want them to be able to have more time in FIAD. We want them to have lunch
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recess. Well, we'd really like for them to have something at the beginning of the day. So there's
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kind of an offer. It can help with the balance of these things. And so there is this really practical
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standpoint, which says, let's open up something in the middle of the day so that we can handle
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every single day better. And I go to the priest and I say, hey, I've got this block of time.
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What do you think? Can we do daily mass? And he's like, absolutely. I mean, most priests,
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they'd have to pull teeth to try and get their principal to want to do daily mass. And I came
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to him with that offer. And he's like, yeah, absolutely. So we put in daily mass. From my
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perspective, I go, okay, the priest has greenlit it. We're going. Like, we're going to, we're going
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to roll now. If I have to take on heat, I'll take on heat. But we've got the principles. We know why
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we're doing it. We know what we're doing it for. We're going to make this happen. So we do. We make
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it happen. Suffice to say there are, there are families that are upset about it and we lose
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some families, but we don't lose that many. And because we didn't rehire teachers, we're not
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facing any struggle. Right? So, I mean, this is, this is key. This is a one, two punch where it's
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like, okay, this is really ready. And, and the real thing that, that was important here was we want to
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get to day one where we're living this out, where we're able to do it on day one. And we get to day one
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and then we get through the first month and the second month and it's going really well. And,
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and people are feeling it. They're experiencing it. So, I mean, again, you'll learn as we go
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through this interview, I, I really believe deeply in the Catholic faith. So I made sure that we got
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catechisms, you know, in, into the building in all the ages, um, the new St. Joseph catechism
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for, for the young, it's a, it's again, a sort of reprint of the Baltimore catechism.
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Um, I'm like, okay, I want to be doing these things. I want slowly, let's try and work logic
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into logic modules into what we're teaching so that learning becomes more intuitive for kids
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that we can really help, um, bolster how they think the skills of thinking, reading, writing,
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mathematics, right? We want to open up time in the schedule in different spots and close it down in
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other spots and really, really try and be thoughtful about this. And so we get to day one and, um, we
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navigated the summer where some families are mad and they left, you know? And, um, again, I'm
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going to throw this other piece into the story here briefly, which is the families that left
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were majority Catholic families. We had non-Catholic families and the Catholic families that left said,
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well, Hey, what about the non-Catholic families? You're doing daily mass. What about these families
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that are not Catholic? But the families that left were majority Catholic because in the Catholic
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church alone, you have this interesting dynamic, right? If people are upset with the Baptist church,
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they leave the Baptist church. If they're upset with the Lutheran church, they leave the Lutheran
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church. If they're upset with it, they leave it. But the Catholic church is the most glorious
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and beautiful institution in the history of the world. And so it's institutional footprint
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is robust. It's got hospitals, it's got schools, it's got everything that really makes up the
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infrastructure of our society today. And so what happens then is in the Catholic faith alone,
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you see the sort of unique dynamic where people sit around in it when they don't like it, right?
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This is real. And we all observe this. And so what happens is the families that leave that go,
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Hey, well, you know, what about our non-Catholics? They're fine with it because they're sending their
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kid to a Catholic school going, Hey, we want the faith. And mass at least can speak to them wanting
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the faith. You know, they're okay with Catholics being Catholic. And what happens though,
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is they leave and, um, um, there's now a flank of people that, that are upset and we get going
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with the school year. And this is my honest and earnest read on it, that we have this group that
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that's upset. We get going with the year and it's, it's beautiful and it's having an impact and it's
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transforming this community. And mind you, it's not a community that's, um, you know, traditional
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minded that's going, Hey, we're going to select for this. It's one that's going, you know,
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what? We're probably not in that camp at all, but we like this guy. We're excited for him as a leader,
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as a leader of our school. And I, I come to it and it's about bringing the faith. The faith that
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the saints teach is the faith that I was drawn to. It's the faith that I converted to. It's the
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thing that drew me out of the despair of the secular modern world. What were you before?
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Yeah, before I was an atheist, I was raised Lutheran. By the time I say, by the time I was 13,
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I didn't believe in God. And, um, and then I was an atheist. I was, I always say I was adamantly
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against that. Sometimes I get people go, well, did you really not believe in God? I say, no,
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I would tell people that I don't think there's a God, right? I don't know propositionally how you
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could get much more atheist than that. And I would argue on behalf of that atheism. And so by the time
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I'm in my, my mid twenties, I, I actually, I start this process, uh, football, I maybe mentioned this
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briefly in preview when you guys are asking for a little bio, but I was a football player for the
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Minnesota Gophers. I played wide receiver. I got into some, uh, drama there where I get an injury.
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I leave the team. I write a letter about why I'm leaving. Part of it is that, you know, being an
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atheist on this team, there's this culture of, of sort of evangelical Christianity. And, you know,
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so there's this kind of under this undercurrent of sort of oppression and things like that. And as you
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can imagine, the, the national secular media really amplifies it, loves it. The world of
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football, not interested. I actually, I transfer out to the university of Houston. And while I'm
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down there, I have, I have a marijuana habit. So I get arrested for, for smoking marijuana and kicked
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off the team and doors to football stop opening. And, um, it's in that time where I begin to really
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kind of truly reflect on my life for, for the first time where I'm really, really doing it. I always
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liked thinking, I always liked, you know, reading and, and, and arguing about tough, tough ideas and
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taking it in. But now I start really doing it in a more solitary sense. And, um, it begins this,
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this slow walk where I always say, um, you know, it's funny. My, my now wife was my girlfriend at
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the time broke up with me because she didn't think I was in a good place. And she was, she was actually
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Catholic, raised Catholic relatively within the faith, you know, through our time there as much
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as one could be growing up, you know, in the nineties and two thousands going to Catholic schools.
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Um, and, and so she's, you know, I, I just, I don't think, I don't think you're in a good place.
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I don't think you're ever going to be. It was really her take. And, and I actually, I thought
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she was right. The bottom line was ultimately I thought she was right. Now that I was, I was alone
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and football ended and the girl who would become my wife, um, you know, is breaking up with me.
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I care a lot less about football and a lot more about the heartache. And so I set, set myself out on a
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mission desiring how one can love better. Cause I, one thing I was convinced of is that you can
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love well or not. You can fail. You can want to love someone well and not love them well.
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And so this, this is a beeline to Christ on the cross and to the Catholic faith. You know,
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the Lord brought me through that and, and consummated that. And in, uh, 2018, Easter vigil,
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2018, I was confirmed into the faith and, um, you know, been there since. So the sort of seminal
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work that converted me, um, was Joseph Ratzinger's introduction to Christianity. You know, I've been
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reading enough. I was well disposed. And when I, when I read that the scales fell and I believed,
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and I, I believe totally. And I believed in the church to me, I've always kind of viewed myself
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as what I'd call a Catholic or nothing Catholic. If it's not all of it, I don't think it really
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makes sense to me. Right. But, but so here I am, I'm, I'm one over to it. And, um, yeah,
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so here I'm at the school and I'm bringing the faith and I'm bringing that testimony. And when
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families are, you know, well, we're not there in the, we don't know that we believe that I can
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relate. I can relate. Cause that's me. That's it. And you know, our kids, they're disaffected.
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That's me. I know how this goes. And we get to October and here's where the story picks up. We
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get to the October and, and the priest, my boss comes to me and he says, you know, AJ, um, I just
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had a stack of papers dropped on my desk with things that you've written and spoken about publicly.
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And, uh, this person was not happy and they're not related to the school. They don't have a kid
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in the school. Um, and it also, they're, they're, they're elderly. They don't have a kid or grandkid.
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And, um, they're not, so they're also not associated to one of the families that left the school.
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But there's suspicion that all this stuff, it's a smaller town that this stuff is sort of moving
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in this way. And I said, okay, I said, father, um, you know, I always try and speak
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honestly and earnestly in my faith. I try and be respectful. If I fail in it, if I fail,
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let me know. Cause I want to get right with God first and foremost. Anyways, but what emerges
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that there's, there's a podcast that I did called Dumper Christian masculine podcast with
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Tim Gordon, Will Noland, um, Royce White, Nick Stumphouser, where we're talking about dating advice.
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And, um, you know, so I go, okay, this is the one that's kind of risen to the top. I go,
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okay, well, rewatch it. I mean, I think I recall trying to, again, speak earnestly and honestly
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and well, and I rewatch it and rewatch it. And I see that, okay, it's, it's, it's what I thought,
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you know, that the piece of advice I gave was that, um, when, when trying to figure out who you
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should marry, look and see if they have a capacity for suffering at all. And I even said, they don't,
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they don't have to be great. They don't have to be Padre Pio. It's really just, do they hate
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suffering or do they kind of think something good might be able to come from it? Because this is really
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going to map onto the Christian life of virtue. Um, there's even a way that all the vices can be
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understand, understood as springing from desires not to suffer under different aspects, the capital
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vices. So, I mean, it's really, I mean, and then of course, Christ suffers most perfectly.
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And so again, it's like the priest, he goes, man, I've watched it three to four times, which I'm like,
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oh man, you know, it's a lot, you know, but, uh, he goes, he goes, I've watched it. What you said
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is beautiful. And you are really moderating force on this podcast. The podcast itself can be pretty,
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um, controversial. Let's put it that way. Yeah. Yeah. No, it can, it can, it can, it can trigger
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a listener who's, who's not ready, uh, for what they're walking into, which is, I think, why this
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became the piece that spread because it was the one where you could drop it on someone's lap, tell them
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to make a moral judgment on it and you'll struggle. You'll struggle through it. Right. Especially if
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there's aspects of humor involved with things where, um, now you're trying to go make, you know,
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a propositional set of anathemas. You know, that's not how our church works when they're
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doing the council of Trent, they're not taking satires and, and, uh, anathematizing them.
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Right. And so you have this kind of this dynamic where you're like, all right, this is,
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this is combustible. It's combustible. If we're being honest, it is. And, um, but,
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but like in all things, I, I tried to speak well, I tried to speak honestly.
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So set this clip up for us. Where is this in the conversation?
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Each of us came to the show with, with one, one rule we were going to contribute that you look
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for. And so this one is the one now we get to my turn. And so I offer my rule.
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What I think to look for is, um, a person's capacity for suffering. So how well do you think
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that person can suffer? And I'm talking, I always make the joke, like, you know, in, in,
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the dark night when Joker looks at the, the Asian dude who works for the big bank and he points at
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him, he's like, you know, I know a squealer when I see one and that's him. Like, that's what you're
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going for is like, when you're in the presence of someone, you can be like, is that person capable
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of suffering? No, they're, they're not going to be Padre Pio yet. Like I, I get that. I get that.
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You know, they're not going to be Mary Magdalene, you know, perpetual penitent or something. But,
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but the point is, and I would say, actually, this would be the even deeper distinction.
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The point is to say, um, are they someone that hates suffering or are they someone that kind of
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has the instinct to think that there's something good that comes through it? Because those are the
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two poles. They're the people who hate it. They want nothing to do with it. They're going to flee
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from it. And all these things that you're talking about are going to be signs, especially if you go
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back to your early ones, Tim, related to them withholding affection, you know, retaliate. I call it a
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retaliatory boycott. So someone retaliates with a boycott. That's, it's very spiritually immature.
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That's very spiritually immature. And it's a root of a lot of other problems. And, um, so to me,
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if someone's activating that there, they not, it's not just that they're not good at suffering yet.
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They hate suffering. And there's there, that's a no go to me. That's, that's an actual like no go.
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Whereas if someone you're like, all right, I feel like this person could suffer. Another way I put it is
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like, how well could this person be Jobed? You know, if they were Jobed, how well could they
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handle it? No, they're not going to handle it like Job. They're not going to get every single thing,
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you know, physical, spiritual, social thrown at them. Um, because that was by, by divine providence
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for that one thing to take place in that way. But, but it's a good image of it. How could that person
00:18:05.360
be Jobed? How would they handle being Jobed? And most people, you can look at them and go just like,
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you know, the Joker in Dark Knight. Nah, that one, I know a squealer when I see one,
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if they're still in the camp where they hate suffering, they need to get to the point where
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they sinned and, and in hatred of suffering in not seeing the divine providence of suffering,
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they rejected and wanted nothing to do with it and turned from it. Cause that's, that's probably
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the biggest error in their whole life. Right. And now we just, we have a culture that doesn't
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believe in confession, doesn't believe in repentance, doesn't believe in penance, doesn't
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believe that these things can get course corrected. So that's where the generations then come
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in where we have generations of people who have lived with this parents who have sinned
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against their own suffering, who then had kids who then sinned against their suffering.
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And now they have kids. And now here we are third, fourth generation on where it has totally fallen
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from the norm to confess, to be penitent, to repent for things, to try and turn around,
00:19:00.620
to try and catch out your own faults. And now it just runs amok.
00:19:03.660
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00:19:35.480
I mean, that was beautiful. What did people have a problem with with that?
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It wasn't about that. And it was acknowledged that what I said was beautiful. I mean, those
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are the words that were repeated. What they said is that what they wonder is, how much do you
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believe the other things other people were saying on it? And for me, I go, well, hold on. Yeah,
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hold on, hold on. Because at the depths of it, I believe what they believe. I believe in the
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headship of the father in the home. I believe in the natural. There's real distinctions between
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men and women. They're not merely symbolic either. These are real things. And so this
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is kind of a trap. How deeply do I believe in it? Well, I very deeply believe in it.
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What came to be was, again, it was less about, you know, what do you say to this? What do you say to
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this? What do you say to this? Because we can go do that. We can we can parse that. But it's more.
00:20:30.080
Hold on. The fact that you believe that aspect. I don't know. You know, I mean, that's where now
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and I should say the people there's a split. The people in the school advisory council,
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the trustees, there's a split. There were people that really supported me. And I'm really grateful
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for that. And I mean, they did. They voiced it to me. And I know the efforts were there. I mean,
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these are people that were really grief stricken as we were even going through this, as they felt this
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mounting. And so I'm eternally grateful to that. But then there were others who said, you know,
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this is more proof. You know, we've kind of had a problem with the way he does things in general.
00:21:07.840
And this is more proof that that this this guy is is is not only unacceptable, but that there's
00:21:13.620
something sort of wicked moving him. You know, it's a sort of psychologizing of the motives that get
00:21:19.360
you to a place where you believe the faith in the way that that I do that many people my age,
00:21:24.020
my peers, that we do believe the faith that we're trying to live out. And so it was from there
00:21:29.460
where now it mounts and it becomes about them. And the key point here is that, you know, the
00:21:34.400
Christian faith, we do not believe in guilt by association. I don't get to go to confession
00:21:38.520
and confess to other people's sins. I go to confession, I confess my sins. And even that I
00:21:44.660
want to be clear that that would be a debt if I even just impute that that is the verdict on other
00:21:51.160
people. That's unfair. That's unjust. Because again, the vector of where these men are pointed
00:21:56.320
is toward the faith and is toward the traditions of the faith and the reality, the practical reality
00:22:02.600
of it. And I've said to many people, these are men that my friendships with them have strengthened
00:22:08.200
me, have refined me, have made me better. This isn't something where you take someone where
00:22:13.480
someone else goes, well, I don't like how you said that. And then you go, oh, yeah, not my friend.
00:22:17.100
I don't I don't know that guy. That's that's not how the Christian life works. I'm firmly
00:22:21.300
convinced of that. Now, I'm not the authority on what the Christian life is. But again, reading
00:22:26.320
the saints, reading the gospels, reading scripture, this this to me and in conversation with with
00:22:32.400
priests, with my own parish priests who's separate with priest friends that I know, really
00:22:38.080
being able to feel feel firm in that foundation. Is this is this a firm foundation to stand on?
00:22:43.580
For me, it's it's it's not let me start by justifying myself. Let me ask, hey, four other
00:22:48.960
priests that I know that are good friends that have dined at my house and met my family.
00:22:53.480
What do you what do you think? And when it goes four for four and it's no, this is this
00:22:58.660
is not how the faith works. We don't we don't do this. Then I can then I can feel confident
00:23:03.500
say, OK, we're not going there. Right. It's not nothing good will come of it. And in the
00:23:09.280
wake of this, the same thing holds that as the school and not the whole school, but the
00:23:15.840
people at the top sort of fell to this pressure of it. The same thing holds that I'm not to
00:23:21.280
now unruly criticize them for these things, because things are hard. Right. Fears mount.
00:23:27.820
There are there are real realities. These things that that principle of charity is ruthless in
00:23:33.140
its extensions. But it's the whole foundation of the faith. If you don't have it, you don't
00:23:37.400
have the faith. And so for me, I think what became clear is the test for me going through
00:23:43.000
this was to work really hard to retain charity, even as it became clear that I might be staring
00:23:48.800
down the end of the end of my job here, which is scary and serious. And I mean, aside from
00:23:55.600
being thrown in jail, there's not much that's more serious, particularly in your situation.
00:23:59.780
I mean, you're you're a young dad. You've got you've got three. Well, three for us. But
00:24:04.160
for most people, they'd say you two and one on the way. But what's your wife say?
00:24:09.760
My wife is the most amazing woman I've ever met. I love her more than anyone. And it's
00:24:17.040
like I constantly I find myself to talk. Hey, we continue to pray for them. We continue.
00:24:21.880
She's because she's like, what, you know, how on earth? And she's, you know, she's guns
00:24:26.460
blazing for it. And she knows what I'm like. I'm that to the thousandth degree when I'm, you
00:24:33.300
know, initially interacting with the things. She looks at like, how how could they do this?
00:24:37.480
I mean, we have a young family. We have young kids. There's not anything that happened within
00:24:41.900
the time that I was even principal there. We're talking about something that was prior
00:24:45.560
to me even being principal there. How on earth did they get to the place where they do this?
00:24:50.220
And and she knows, you know, I came from being an atheist. That means I came from being a secular
00:24:56.380
liberal. That's what that means. If I was an atheist, that's what that means. And my wife,
00:25:01.640
when we got back together, had to find herself reverting to the faith, right? And she didn't
00:25:07.460
have to, but that's my witness. This is what's transformed me. And she loves me and she's
00:25:12.680
moving toward it and she's learning those depths of it. So she's she's she's in agreement with me,
00:25:18.400
not, you know, a sort of top down imposed agreement, but rather one where you draw it out.
00:25:24.780
I mean, the faith is real. It's, you know, it's fruits are real. And and so she believes it,
00:25:31.100
you know, we believe these things. We believe that these notions around around feminism are
00:25:35.920
toxic and not good. They're not of the Lord. That these these efforts to undermine, you know,
00:25:43.120
families, virtues of obedience. I mean, these are real, like there are many saints that say that
00:25:47.980
the quickest path to sainthood is is obedience. Well, what is that? That looks different in
00:25:53.960
different people, right? And so we're we're in the camp where we go get no, we believe that that's
00:25:59.140
that's the good stuff. That's the teaching where where the whole thing cracks open, where you feel
00:26:05.100
your life be transformed. So I mean, I'm, I'm blessed my my wife, she's the most beautiful person in the
00:26:10.480
world to me. And and she's got courage. And she's got that from that capacity for suffering. She's got
00:26:16.980
the propensity toward it. And, you know, she always says, man, you're real AJ, you're really
00:26:20.660
testing this way more than I would want. You know, I don't like it. But that's in the Lord's
00:26:25.640
hands, not our hands. We don't get to decide when or where we have to try and hold to the faith. And
00:26:29.920
then we trust, we trust that good things can come out of this. And I, I believe that even as this as
00:26:35.520
the the doors closed, and these things happen, it's like, hey, we do that discernment. All right,
00:26:42.400
do it. Has God really put this on my heart? Do I really love education? I do.
00:26:46.980
Do I think I have a gift for it? And for administration? I do. Okay, God, God doesn't
00:26:52.160
want to waste these these talents he gives us. He's the one who gives us those talents. And so
00:26:58.060
now where that comes next, I have no idea. And that is scary. And that sort of unknown is very
00:27:03.640
scary. We wrestle with it day in and day out now, you know, but it's one of those things where it's
00:27:08.840
like, we have that way through where it's like, okay, we can hold, we can hold to the faith here.
00:27:13.880
Right. And we don't know. The other thing is, we don't know if this isn't a precursor for a tougher
00:27:18.560
persecution. We don't know that. We don't know that. And, and we don't get to determine to what
00:27:24.340
degree are we, you know, innocent in this or guilty. We just put it over to the Lord.
00:27:30.580
St. Augustine says that let me not be he says about Monica, let me not fall into the trap. He actually
00:27:36.520
says about Monica, she never fell into the trap of saying that I have no debts to pay, but rather
00:27:41.740
refer to the one who has paid all the debts, who no one can ask any repayment of. That's,
00:27:46.660
that's our job now is, okay, we keep turning to Christ. We keep turning to Christ. And it's like,
00:27:51.040
you know, our, our family's trying to do that. We're, we're trying to live that out.
00:27:54.800
So what's amazing to me is that this, this happened to you in a Catholic school in the
00:28:03.120
Archdiocese of St. Paul, Minneapolis, which is not a terrible diocese. So how does that even fly?
00:28:10.680
Where was like, was an appeal made? Where are you in this process?
00:28:14.940
It is one of the, the beautiful things, but vulnerable things in the Catholic faith.
00:28:20.600
There's three people who could fire me, the priest, the Archbishop, and the Pope. And the
00:28:26.640
Archbishop and the Pope don't know who I am, you know? But that's the way we, we believe in real,
00:28:31.920
real authority, real jurisdiction. And so ultimately when it comes down to it, I, I do. I mean, I'm,
00:28:37.940
I'm indebted. The Archdiocese is the one who set me up with this school. Their office of education
00:28:42.620
is one who said, we think this guy is the right leader. He's a young, promising leader.
00:28:47.300
He's been, you know, I went through their master's programs and their, their school certifications
00:28:52.460
for being an administrator where they've set up ones where you don't have to go through the
00:28:55.820
state certifications for very intentional reasons, right? The, the, the pedagogy, the nature of the
00:29:01.760
human person is different in the secular state than it is in the Catholic church. You know, this
00:29:06.240
diocese is one of the, the ones who, who really initiated, who really took the lead on these
00:29:10.640
initiatives that more and more diocese are, are copying where they really want the training of
00:29:15.040
their school leaders, their school administrators to come through the Catholic faith. And so, I mean,
00:29:20.080
this is a diocese that they've been, they've been good to me. They still are. They're still being
00:29:23.320
amazing to me, but these, these things can happen. And again, it's not even about, it's not at all
00:29:28.940
about singling out the priests. It's that this momentum can build, this momentum can build and it can
00:29:34.400
build quick. And it's why, you know, when, when the priest first came to me, he said, to be clear,
00:29:39.080
this is not a fireball offense. And I appreciated him saying that. And, um, you know, but, but I also
00:29:45.240
knew, well, hold on, if things mount, it's hard. That, that, that pressure cooker is hard. And so
00:29:51.440
even it's like, I'm not holding now. I know also the other thing at that moment I knew is if you get
00:29:57.300
to the point where you fire me, you're not going to go, Oh man, well, the pressure cooker was too much
00:30:01.640
because that's not how human psychology works. You're going to get to a place where you're going to say,
00:30:05.480
no, you actually are the problem and I have to get rid of you. Right. And, and that's what you
00:30:10.820
witness in reality is you witness that shift. You witness the people that are against you become,
00:30:17.340
they get more and more convicted that you are the problem. Right. And that's, and that's a real,
00:30:24.060
that's the heaviest burden to take on. That's the one that, you know, for my wife, it's like, man,
00:30:29.840
only with really a lot of prayer, a lot of, you know, friends who are living the faith priests
00:30:36.100
that we know that have our, nuns, um, you know, these, these people that, that have dined at our
00:30:41.460
house who are part of our community. It's being able to turn to them and, and get that again,
00:30:46.640
that sort of reaffirmation of like, Hey, you're living the faith out. Okay. Okay. Like, are we just,
00:30:52.200
are we going crazy? Am I the problem? That's the part that's the hardest is when it actually comes time,
00:30:57.160
they don't say, ah, Hey, I get it. The pressure's hard and it's getting me. And here you go. No,
00:31:02.140
they, their actions integrate with the pressure. And that's where, um, you get to this place where
00:31:08.320
you're like, Oh man, you know, it's truly possible for a head to roll right now. And, um, it's,
00:31:14.700
it's hard. It's hard to stare down. Indeed. AJ, what are, what are your plans now? What,
00:31:19.320
where, where are you headed? What are you doing? I'm trying to put together application materials. And
00:31:23.500
my wife and I were like, let's broaden the tent. If we have to move anywhere,
00:31:27.040
anywhere in the country, anywhere in the world, let's just be open to what the Lord wants.
00:31:30.700
Right. So I'm trying to put together application materials. I mean, I have them mostly all
00:31:34.900
together, but get ready to kind of reach out to places, see network up, see, Hey, um, you know,
00:31:40.780
we know of a school here that they're really trying to live the faith out and they need someone.
00:31:45.020
You might be the, the, the guy for it, or maybe someone hears of the story and goes, you know what,
00:31:49.900
this is what, what we think leadership looks like. There's gonna be plenty of people that say,
00:31:53.280
no, sorry, we don't think so. Right. But the real hope is, okay, can we get into a position where we
00:32:00.520
can find the next place where we can continue on again, what the mission is, which is it's always
00:32:06.420
the same mission. It's the gospel. It's just sharing the gospel. And whether it's a immediate
00:32:11.300
outlet, a postulate like your own, or it's a school, it's ordered toward the sharing of the
00:32:16.200
gospel. And it's, and really the reason why I say media apostle in school is because they're both
00:32:20.240
about really transmitting it directly and trying to, um, you know, again, educate and, and catechize
00:32:26.940
and teach people and give them the school, the skills needed, um, to, to thrive as, as humans in
00:32:33.140
this world, as children of God, for me, it's, it's nowhere, no man's land and it's, it's dark and it's
00:32:38.880
tough, but we got to hold on and, and, and try and keep working and keep going and see what happens.
00:32:43.740
And if it's not one of those doors that opens, okay, Lord need you to open up whatever the next door is.
00:32:48.220
And, um, and we just try and cooperate in that, participate in that process.
00:32:52.760
The appeals to the archdiocese of St. Paul, Minneapolis, have they been
00:32:57.400
responded to at all? Have you, um, heard anything back from them?
00:33:01.860
It's beautiful that the church has a setup that our archdiocese has it set up. They have
00:33:06.040
conciliation processes, um, in place, office of conciliation, and you can, and I've petitioned to
00:33:11.580
that. And so we'll, we'll see what comes of that. Now it's, it's something that once it's underway,
00:33:15.500
you don't, you don't speak about it. And I, I respect that, you know? Um, and so it's one that
00:33:20.440
I've, I've started that process at least, and, and we'll see what, what can come of it. Um, but
00:33:25.340
it's one where really what's beautiful about it is you're, you're entering in a, in a spirit of
00:33:29.260
charity, desiring for whatever's sort of arrived at to be something that's, that's somewhat mutually
00:33:36.040
agreed upon, desiring for the faith to be the thing that wins out and reigns, reigns in all of it.
00:33:42.080
So, um, yeah, no, you know, I think, uh, when you set up something like that, people set it up in
00:33:46.920
earnest and, and you hope that those things can be brought through it. We all know it doesn't always
00:33:51.500
work. And, um, you know, that that's next barrier to try and jump over if, if, if that, if that time
00:33:58.240
comes. AJ, we will be praying for you and your family. I'm sure many, many of our viewers will be
00:34:02.820
where can they read, uh, about you? You've got a book out. Tell us about that. You know,
00:34:07.760
I was a theology teacher prior to, prior to being a principal and I wrote a book called Advanced
00:34:11.440
Christianity. Um, it's sort of, it's fundamentals in the Christian faith, but men for someone who's
00:34:16.660
a few years, at least into their faith, into their walk, trying to learn it where you're giving
00:34:20.560
more direct answers, less analogies, but not quite as advanced as if you were, you know, reading a,
00:34:26.060
a scholarly, scholarly dissertation. And so it's, it's kind of a middle ground, but it's called
00:34:29.860
Advanced Christianity. That's on Amazon. And then I, I write on Substack at ajbarker.substack.com.
00:34:35.260
And that's probably the, that's, that's the best place. That's where I try and once a month or so
00:34:39.320
put something out. And now, um, you know, with the, the changing scenario, I'll probably try and
00:34:44.860
contribute more to it and, and, and gear more toward education, things like that. You know,
00:34:49.000
one thing that I know is real is we have a lot of families that are homeschooling, um, because
00:34:54.220
they're, they're struggling to find, uh, the faith taught well, um, in, in their local areas. You know,
00:35:00.140
I want to try and, and, and provide some materials, some instructional materials for people that are
00:35:06.000
looking to do that. And so I hope to, uh, you know, kind of branch out more into that with this
00:35:10.100
time and, and just do what we can to keep, keep the good fight going. Amen to that. AJ Barker,
00:35:15.960
thank you so much for being with us. God bless you. Thank you very much for having me. I really
00:35:19.480
appreciate it. God bless. And God bless all of you. And we'll see you next time.
00:35:23.260
Hi, everyone. This is Father James Altman for LifeSite News. We hope you enjoyed this video.
00:35:33.580
For more content like this, uh, check the links in the description. You can also connect with us
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00:35:46.780
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