A seminary teacher was fired after volunteering to transport women seeking abortions, according to a report in the Guardian Monday.
“If any women need to make an unexpected trip from the south to, say, Illinois or New Mexico or Virginia for reasons that are none of my business, I can provide safe, private air transport that would get you where you need to go and back the same day at a price that will work for you,” 40-year-old Greg Williams wrote in a Facebook post June 28, 2022.
Williams had been a Greek and Latin teacher at Saint Joseph Seminary College in Covington, Louisiana, since 2015 until he was allegedly fired over the post.
Williams’ post came on the heels of the landmarkDobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision June 24, 2022, which overturned Roe v. Wade, effectively sending abortion-related lawmaking decisions back to the states.
According to Williams, he was fired from his job at the seminary a week after making the offer. He told the outlet he was speaking up now, nearly a year later, “to shine a light on the harsh reality of at-will employment.”
Williams told the Guardian his post did not explicitly use the word abortion “because Williams’ day job … [at] Benedictine-run Saint Joseph Seminary College has a policy against publicly expressing beliefs contrary to the established teachings of the Catholic church, which stridently opposes abortion.”
“Your Facebook post publicly and deliberately advocated a position contrary to the official teaching of the Catholic Church,” Williams’ July 5 termination letter, effectively immediately, reportedly said. Williams told the Guardian the letter was sent by St. Joseph’s rector, Gregory Boquet.
Williams also told the outlet the official letter either outright said or implied he was doing “heinous evil.”
In addition to his work teaching at the seminary, Williams, a licensed pilot since 2009, volunteered for a nonprofit called Pilots for Patients. He described his role there as mostly involving flying people who need cancer treatments unavailable locally.
An archived version of Saint Joseph Seminary College’s faculty members page from April 2021 lists Gregory Williams, including his degrees from Emory University and Tulane University. An archived version from October 2022 does not include his name. Williams is not included on the school’s faculty page today.
The Guardian reports that Williams found new work at an Episcopal church and still flew for Pilots for Patients following his dismissal.
TheBlaze reached out to Saint Joseph Seminary College and Pilots for Patients for confirmation and comment. Neither responded in time for publication.
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