Catholic Diocese Threatened To Expel Kids Whose Parents Opposed Mask Mandate, Families Say

As Catholic parents in Dallas put their kids to bed on August 9, they received a surprise email from the Dallas diocese informing them that face masks would be required for all students at diocesan schools the next day on the first day of school.

The letter cited the “clear and present danger for unvaccinated children” from the delta COVID variant as well as rising virus cases in Texas. The Diocese of Dallas Catholic Schools has about 15,000 students at 31 schools.

Several blindsided parents immediately complained. One father of four told The Daily Wire he was so “beside myself” he drove to his children’s diocesan school that same night hoping to find someone to speak to about the mandate even though it was the end of the day. Eventually he found the school pastor, who, he said, appeared “at least as frustrated” as he was.

Parents called and emailed the offices of Dallas Bishop Edward Burns and Superintendent Matthew Vereecke repeatedly before one dad finally got a response.

“It’s clear that we are not going to come to agreement on this,” Vereecke wrote in an August 12 email to Greg Morris, who has three children in diocese schools. “We understand that you disagree with the situation and the logic, and it doesn’t appear that further communication will be productive.”

At that point, Morris and two other fathers, Nicholas Kerr, who has two children in diocese schools, and another dad who requested anonymity organized a group of hundreds of like-minded parents to try to at least extract an explanation from the diocese regarding the mask mandate. Morris started a petition against the mandate that garnered nearly 1,500 signatures. The three dads even researched COVID numbers and crafted their own mask policy proposal and submitted it to the diocese. The proposal suggested that individual diocese schools be allowed to choose whether to make masks optional when the Dallas area has had seven consecutive days in which the number of COVID- 19 hospitalized patients falls below 15 percent of total hospital capacity.

“I said, I don’t even care what your policy is, to be honest. I just want to know what the policy is,” Morris told The Daily Wire. “Of course it fell on deaf ears.”

Meanwhile, a group of parents held several protests against the mask mandate. It was at one of these protests that a demonstrator held a sign calling on the bishop to stop the “child