Harassment

Church personnel must not engage in physical, written, or verbal harassment of staff, volunteers, or parishioners and must not tolerate such harassment by others.

5.1 Church personnel shall provide a professional work or school environment that is free from physical, written, or verbal intimidation or harassment.
5.2 Harassment means verbal or physical conduct that denigrates or shows hostility or aversion toward an individual because of his or her race, color, gender, national origin, religion, age, disability or handicap, including without limitation the following:

  • Physical or mental abuse
  • Racial or ethnic insults or slurs or jokes
  • Unwelcome sexual advances or touching
  • Sexual comments or sexual jokes
  • Derogatory comments about a person’s sexual orientation
  • Sexually demeaning comments
  • Requests for sexual favors used as a condition of employment or to affect other decisions, such as promotion or compensation or academic advancement
  • Display of offensive materials
5.3 Harassment can be a single incident or a persistent pattern of behavior in which the purpose or the effect is to create a hostile, offensive, or intimidating environment.
5.4 The Archdiocese of Baltimore has comprehensive harassment policies (workplace _ Appendix A, Catholic Schools _ Appendix B). Archdiocesan policies and procedures will be followed to protect the rights of all involved.
5.5 Allegations of harassment should be taken seriously and reported immediately to the supervisor, the Department of Human Resources (in the case of employees and volunteers), or the Division of Catholic Schools (in the case of students).