A longtime music teacher at a Catholic school in the New Orleans area recently lost his job after it was revealed to an apparently “disgruntled” parent that he was another man’s widower, sparking a scandal within an archdiocese that has otherwise been preoccupied with trying to reorganize its finances in federal bankruptcy court after its clergymen sexually abused children for decades.

In an email to community members at the archdiocese-run school where he was dismissed, Mark Richards claimed that he was sacked after a parent informed officials about his husband’s obituary, who died of a heart attack in September 2023.

Richards’ email alluded to how his employment contract at St Francis Xavier School in Metairie, Louisiana, contained a morality clause prohibiting educators from “contracting a marriage in violation of the rules of the Catholic church” and “actively engaging in homosexual activity,” among other conduct that the document maintains is inconsistent with the religion’s teachings, which do not permit same-sex marriage within it.

He stated that he signed the annually renewal contract and morals clause – which is required of all archdiocese teachers but has historically been far from universally implemented – with “a wink and a nudge since it was no big secret that I am gay”. The St Francis Xavier community was so comfortable with his marriage to his husband, John Messinger, that “everyone at the school was very sympathetic and supportive” following his death.

However, that changed when the parent who informed local church officials about Messinger’s obituary, which named Richards as his husband, complained. He stated that he was fired as music teacher and band director at St Francis on June 25 after 21 years of service, “and the reason for this termination is that I am a gay man”.

“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,” claimed Richards, who met Messinger two years before starting at St Francis and married him in 2014. Nonetheless, Richards claimed that all his bosses would tell him was “you’re fired” after a parent – whose identity was concealed and whom the instructor assumed to be “disgruntled” – reported finding his name referenced in Messinger’s obituary, which had been published over two years prior.

According to New Orleans NBC station WDSU, Richards’ email drew compassion from many parents at the school that expelled him. A parent-organized petition supporting Richards, calling his firing “unjust” and hailing him as “a beacon of kindness and understanding in [students’] lives,” had gathered approximately 1,500 signatures, according to the station and the Louisiana news outlet nola.com, respectively.

Katheryn Lee, a mother, said WDSU, “I would like to see the morality clause change.”