"Catholic" school bans female referees from boys' games.

From Sports Illustrated:

"KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Kansas activities officials are investigating a religious school's refusal to let a female referee call a boys' high school basketball game.

The Kansas State High School Activities Association said referees reported that Michelle Campbell was preparing to officiate at St. Mary's Academy near Topeka on Feb. 2 when a school official insisted that Campbell could not call the game.

The reason given, according to the referees: Campbell, as a woman, could not be put in a position of authority over boys because of the academy's beliefs."

The private academy is owned by the society of St Pius X, whose world leader (Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre) was actually excommunicated by Pope John Paul II in the late 80's.

Think what you may of this issue with regards to people and religion, but what I'd really like to know is why a school such as this is being permitted to operate at all. If their world leader had been excommed by the Pope, shouldn't the society be required to relinquish it's status as a Catholic organisation and not be allowed to carry out any activities in the religion's name? I always thought the Pope was the final authority on all matters Catholic.

You know what the problem with religion is? They're scattered. They can't agree amongst themselves. Imagine a big chain of stores, say, Target. Now, if every single Target store had a different policy on refunds and said different things about what Target is all about, with the only common point being that they all sell stuff, you'd be thinking how can they all claim to be Target? Everyone knows Target is for the cheap. No one goes to Target because they want to splurge on some top end, upper-market designer goods. Try to figure out why, it's not that hard.

It's not enough to claim to be one and the same just because you are all running under one common banner, be it a company, a religion, an organisation, or whatever. In fact, it's even worse to be running under one banner but saying different things than it is to be just running under different banners. Religions need to get their act together somehow, maybe with a central command (something like the Pope and his entourage of holy men) which controls exactly what, who, and how, and actively enforces this control over anyone who chooses to call themselves a part of the religion the same way a large corporation has to enforce it's corporate identity and public image.

Anyway, just my 2 cents. I'm sure many people will disagree, because when it comes to religion, everyone has something to say about everything that gets said. They'd probably have something to say about that statement too. Heh.