c. 2006 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) After trying to get pregnant for a number of years, Kelly Romenesko finally got lucky. Last year, she gave birth to twin daughters, Alexandria and Allison.

But the twins _ conceived using in vitro fertilization _ cost Romenesko her job.

Romenesko was a part-time French teacher at St. Joseph Middle School and Xavier High School in Appleton, Wis., 30 miles southwest of Green Bay. When she was hired, she signed contracts promising to “uphold the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church” and “act in accordance with Catholic doctrine and Catholic moral and social teachings.”

When the schools learned she became pregnant using an in vitro procedure _ which is deemed immoral by the Catholic Church, along with contraception _ she was fired. She is now appealing the dismissal in court.

In vitro fertilization has been used by thousands of couples struggling to conceive. The process combines the woman’s eggs with the man’s sperm in a laboratory dish, and then implants the fertilized egg in the woman’s uterus.

Romenesko, who was a lifelong Catholic, could not be reached for comment, but she has posted extensive documents and comments on her Web site, http://www.aces-xavier-fires-teacher.com.

“I feel it is necessary to make my story public … for the sake of my children,” she wrote. “I want them to know that just because their parents had them through in vitro fertilization, that we are not evil sinners.”

Romenesko claims that she told her employers at the beginning of the 2004-2005 school year that she would need time off to undergo in vitro fertilization. The principal at St. Joseph’s, Tony Abts, said the procedure might be in violation of Catholic doctrine, and told her to get advice from her priest, she said.

Romenesko claims that her priest, the Very Rev. James W. Lucas of St. Paul Parish in nearby Combined Locks, acknowledged that the process was against Catholic doctrine, but said she should be able to continue teaching.

Romenesko’s employers claim Lucas told them that there was no discussion “about whether or not Romenesko’s conduct violated the moral clause in her employment contract.” Lucas declined to comment.

On Oct. 13, 2004, Romenesko told her employers that she was pregnant. Five days later, she was fired.

In July 2005, she filed a discrimination complaint with Wisconsin’s Department of Workforce Development against her school’s parent organization, ACES/Xavier Educational Systems Inc. Romenesko alleged that she was discriminated against because she was female and because she was pregnant, and that she knew male school employees who underwent the procedure with their wives but were not punished.

Six months later, the department dismissed the complaint. The report reads, “There seems to be a don’t ask, don’t tell practice” and says there was no evidence that the employers knew of any other instances of in vitro fertilization among teachers.

The report adds that because ACES/Xavier knew that Romenesko used the procedure, it had the right to let her go “because her actions were contrary to Catholic doctrine and her contract.”

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Romenesko filed an appeal, and a hearing is scheduled for September. She is seeking back wages, attorney fees and expenses, said her lawyer, James C. Jones.

Neither Abts, who is now president of ACES/Xavier, nor the schools’ attorney would comment. But the schools’ attorney, Gregory Gill, told the Appleton Post-Crescent newspaper that Romenesko’s choice was “in direct violation of the teachings of the church.”

“ACES is not interested in nosing around its employees’ bedrooms, or policing their private moral decision,” he told the newspaper.

The Diocese of Green Bay declined comment, but Bishop David A. Zubik has posted a letter on the diocese’s Web site about the general issue that cites church teachings and said in vitro fertilization “takes God out of the driver’s seat and slots in a technical procedure instead.”

“With the process of in vitro fertilization,” the letter reads, “science takes control of fertilizing a woman’s eggs, hand-selecting the ones that are most likely to bring a child to full term, and discarding the ones that appear less likely to make it, in effect destroying human life.”

Romenesko’s firing has caused controversy in Wisconsin. Jim Stingl, a self-described “cafeteria Catholic” and columnist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, chided the church for the firing.

“What good is a church if it says you can do anything you please?” Stingl wrote in a May 11 column. “But when you consider Kelly and Eric Romenesko and their long-awaited children, it’s hard to imagine how that could be wrong.”

Since her termination, Romenesko has found a new job and left the Catholic Church. Her daughters were baptized as Lutherans.

KRE/PH END LEVY