Disemployment
Based on his experience in the data-processing and office-system industry, John was hired by the Provincial Department of Health. After three weeks, he was let go due to the influence of our pastor who wanted John out of town.
So what do you do when you’ve been fired without cause from your church job and had your state job dissolved?…. For some time, Fr. Mooney continued to deny he had anything to do with it, but eventually he admitted to the priests that he had been involved, and still later his attorney would tell a lawyer helping me that a parishioner in the Provincial Cabinet had blackballed me.
Maclean’s Reports
“It sounds admirably progressive when church leaders talk encouragingly about ‘participatory democracy’ at the parish level, as the Vatican II Encyclical did, for instance. Who, then, could have foreseen that a Roman Catholic lay worker who tried to put this concept into practice in Saskatchewan would not only lose one job with the parish and a second job with the government but would also become the target of an attempt to run him out of the province?…..” (“Why do they want to drive John Kippley out of Saskatchewan?” by Linda Mitchell, page 1, full article, December 1968, Maclean’s, a national Canadian magazine)
In short, I think that God gave me the covenant insight when I was teaching the Faith in Santa Clara. I think He gave me the time to author a book around that basic concept to support the teaching of Humanae Vitae at a time when the encyclical needed support, even from theological nobodies. I know that God was watching over us in a special way during our stay in Regina. With the benefit of years of hindsight, I now like to think that my unemployment was providential. While I certainly did not feel that way at the time, I have thanked the Lord for it many times in later years.
(Excerpt from Battle-Scarred, page 41, 43-44, 57) Battle-Scarred: Justice Can Be Elusive by John F. Kippley is available at a 50% discount at lulu.com during NFP Week.