Hundreds of Indianapolis Catholics on Thursday gathered in front of the Catholic seat of power for the region, the archdiocese, and tried to take back some of that power through an hour of prayer, protest and song.

Many of those gathered were students and alumni from Cathedral High School, there to urge the Archdiocese of Indianapolis to reconsider its position on Catholic school teachers in same-sex marriages. Cathedral was recently forced to fire a gay teacher because of his same-sex marriage. Last week, the archdiocese stripped another Catholic high school, Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School, of its status as a Catholic institution over its refusal to fire a gay teacher in a same-sex marriage.

Just hours earlier, in his first public appearance to talk about the issue since it erupted a week ago, Archbishop Charles C. Thompson reaffirmed the church’s position that gay teachers in same-sex marriages would not be allowed to teach in Catholic schools.

“It is my responsibility as archbishop to oversee Catholic identity throughout the archdiocese of any entity in the institution,” he said.

Shelly Fitzgerald eventually lost her job, as did another guidance counselor at the school, Lynn Starkey, who is also in a same-sex marriage.

“We have to stop this so it doesn’t happen to anyone else,” said Fitzgerald, speaking through a bullhorn to a crowd circled in front of the archdiocese headquarters in downtown Indianapolis. “We don’t want people to leave Roncalli or Cathedral. We want to make it better.” Read more via Indy Star