US Catholic school fires teacher after husband’s obituary reveals his marriage to a man

<p>Mark Richards says a parent complained to New Orleans’ St Francis Xavier school after reading his late husband’s obituary</p><p>A longtime music teacher at a Catholic school in the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/new-orleans">New Orleans</a> area recently lost his job when it was revealed to an evidently “disgruntled” parent that he was another man’s widower, igniting a scandal within an archdiocese that has otherwise largely been occupied with trying to reorganize its finances in federal bankruptcy court after its clergymen spent decades sexually <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/new-orleans-clergy-abuse">molesting</a> children.</p><p>In an email to community members at the archdiocese-run school from which he was dismissed, Mark Richards explained that he had been fired because a parent notified officials about an obituary for his husband, who died of a heart attack in September 2023.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/29/new-orleans-teacher-widower-mark-jacobs-catholic-school">Continue reading...</a>