Our Lady of Sorrows Academy, a conservative Catholic school, has forfeited its team rather than compete in the state championships because the second baseman for Mesa Preparatory Academy is no man at all. Second baseman Paige Sultzbach is a girl and, according to this report, Our Lady of Sorrows has religious objections to its boys playing with a girl.
The forfeiture in Arizona Charter Athletic Association state championship at Phoenix College was explained as a religious objection to the girl based on the fundamentalist beliefs of the Catholic school. Of course, this is not a contact sport but the mere presence of a girl on the field appears to be a religious obscenity for the school. Many were shocked by this Talibanesque moment but the school is staying mum on the issue.
Our Lady of Sorrows is run by the U.S. branch of the Society of Saint Pius X which opposes the reforms of the Vatican II Council in the 1960s and broke with the Catholic Church in the 1980s.
As someone raised Catholic, I have no idea where such a religious objection comes from. Notably, in the prior two games against Our Lady of Sorrows, Paige didn’t play out of respect for the opposing teams religious beliefs. I am not sure I would have recommended such an accommodation. I do not see why Mesa must adopt a sexist rule out our deference to another school when there appears no segregation of genders on these teams under league rules.
Mesa Prep athletic director Amy Arnold “I respect their views, but it’s a bit out of the 18th century.” I would say that that is a bit harsh for 18th Century people.
Our Lady of Sorrows may find play a bit more to its liking in the Tehran league.
Source: AZ Central
Just to clarify. The team itself was left with the option to play, and the players themselves come to a consensus not to play. No one forced them to forfeit.
Ono, I agree with you and I am no follower of SSPX. I don’t even attend a church but I do belong to the Catholic Church. I believe the SSPX are a cult that is fanatical and have a sense of Puritanism however, the idea of girls playing sports with boys should be out of the question and it was accepted and shoved down our throats through femenism. Femenism has destroyed the nature of women and the behavior of men towards women PERIOD. It is the nature of the beast and I gladly uphold this type of thinking when it comes to sports or jobs such as Firefighters, Soldiers,, Pilots, Construction and other types of hard core male oriented work. I take pride in being a woman and dispise what has happend to the nature of women. It is a “everything goes” behavior and mentality anymore with women and then they pretend to be shocked when men treat them the way they do. If your a woman, play a femenine sport or play sports with other womwn. If your a man, play with men……..
I played against girls in High School sports. It was Brutal. I wish my coach would’ve done the same as the coach for this school. We treated the girls the exact same way we treated the boys…which is not the way women should be treated.
Unfortunately, most people are so processed this concept is alien. All these commenters blasting the school probably scratch their head at why men use women light toilet paper in our more “enlightened time”. Who’s Grandmother didn’t get treated with way more dignity by men than their daughters/nieces get treated today?
My partner’s niece played scrum-half on her school’s rugby team. If you think that girls can’t compete and WIN, Matt Johnson, I would suggest you think about it a little more. When she played on the team, there was no special treatment, either.
LT, In the natural order of things, some females are better at just about everything than some males, and vice versa. Real respect comes when men respect women for who they are and what they can do. It is extremely disrespectful for young men/boys to refuse to play baseball just because a young woman/girl is playing. Just who do they think they are to refuse her the opportunity to play a game she wants to play? We’ve come a long way, baby, and we ain’t goin’ back!
PS: the objection is not one of religious beliefs, but of merely common sense in the natural order (philosophy) of things.
It’s precisely because of promoting the dignity of womanhood (true feminism) that the SSPX’s schools teach their young men to act in this respectful manner.
For those who think SSPX is still in conflict with the Vatican, you’re wrong.
Pope Benedict recently reversed the excommunications of the SSPX bishops and is seeking to restore the SSPX to full communion with the Roman Catholic Church.
Vatian 11 = Vatican 11 sorry bout that
It makes perfect sense to me…here you have an organization that wants to go back to RC religious thought pre Vatian 11 actually they want to go pre death of Pius XII. I was around in those days and neither priests or nuns would have ever let any sport be of mixed sexes..
My oldest daughter was an athlete in high school. She rode hunter-jumper horses in competition and was a competitive swimmer. Her swim team did not have a boy to swim with the 18-19 year old males, so when she was 16 they let her compete against the older teenage boys. It always pissed the boys off when she would beat the best of them by a wide margin. She was good enough that we were considering sending her to an Olympic training camp, but then she got interested in other things and quit swimming competitively. She is now disabled with a failed hip joint and cannot walk even though she is still relatively young. Life is not fair sometimes.
I assume that if she had shown up at one of Our Lady of Sorrows events, the good Sisters would have had a cow on the spot. Oh the horror!
Ask Ehud Barak. He wore a burka once. Can you do what he did?
Would they play if she wore a burka?
Mike,
Perhaps you should mention Sarah Palin as well. She does know how to read People magazine.