A Miami Catholic high school employs as its Director of Learning Service a radical left-wing advocate of LGBT ideology and Marxist socialism, both at odds with Catholic moral and social doctrine. Concerned parents contacted us at the Lepanto Institute to investigate the matter.
Maria de la Guardia, Director of Learning Services at Immaculata-La Salle Catholic High School in Miami, Florida, has taught US Government and formerly served as head of the school’s social studies department for over a decade.
Her social media posts, however, together with testimony from former colleagues, reveals a consistent and strong support for radical liberal positions on political, social, and moral issues that often stand at odds with Catholic doctrine.
La Guardia has celebrated “pride month” and same-sex “marriage,” promoted the Marxist Black Lives Matter movement, defended transgender ideology in the name of “acceptance,” promoted political violence against those opposed to transgenderism, advocated for illegal immigration, equated abortion with poverty as a moral issue, promoted the reception of Holy Communion by pro-abortion politicians, and openly supported Kamala Harris and Tim Walz despite their unapologetic support for the killing of the unborn and the sexual sterilization and chemical castration of children.
In a July 11, 2025, Facebook post, as a follow-up to pride month, La Guardia praised the same-sex “marriage” of two homosexual men, Jose Valdes-Fauli and Shed Boren, stating,
I know pride month is over, but the battle for human rights under Trump isn’t. Read this beautiful post and rejoice that through these two men there is a little more love in a nation where unbearable cruelty is not only tolerated, but celebrated, by half the population.
La Guardia then shared a post by Shed Boren defending same-sex “marriage,” ending with the pro-LGBT hashtags, #LoveIsLove, #ThisIsGayMarriage, and #FamilyIsFamily.
Previously, La Guardia had already showed her support of the Church “blessing” same-sex couples in a post in which she quoted Pope Francis defending the practice as proposed in Fiducia Supplicans. Pope Francis had called criticisms of the heterodox practice “hypocrisy.”
Similarly, in July 2022, in response to Senator’s Ted Cruze’s criticism of the Supreme Court Obergefell ruling, which imposed “gay marriage” on all 50 states, La Guardia defended same-sex “marriage” as a “civil right” protected by the 14th Amendment. Equating state laws against same-sex “marriage” to slavery and segregation laws, she wrote in a July 18, 2022, FB post:
aaaugh this is why everyone needs to study government. The 14th Amendment guarantees that civil liberties and civil rights are not dependent on the desires of any state. Shall we overturn Brown vs Board of Education and leave it up to the states to decide whether or not schools should be desegregated? Should we leave it up to Texas and Tennessee to decide whether or not they’d like to outlaw slavery?
Nor is La Guardia’s support of same-sex “marriage” limited to social media. Lepanto was told by an eyewitness who asked to remain anonymous, that the Catholic school teacher once announced approvingly to her class the lesbian “wedding” of one of her relatives.
More recently, in a Sept. 13, 2025, FB post, La Guardia joined those on the left who rallied to defend transgender ideology in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, ignoring the now public evidence of the transgender affiliations of Kirk’s assassin. La Guardia shared a post from John Pavlovitz, which stated,
The entire MAGA/Fox News/GOP ecosystem owes the Transgender community an apology for their reckless, irresponsible, and hateful words following the shooting of Charlie Kirk.
Nor was this the first time that La Guardia promoted the violence perpetrated and threatened by the LGBT community. In a Nov. 22, 2022 FB post, she shared a threat issued by homosexual Pete Buttigieg, in which he stated,
If you’re a politician or media figure who sets up the LGBTQ community to be hated and feared – not because any of us ever harmed you but because you find it useful – then don’t you dare act surprised when this kind of violence follows.
Don’t you dare act surprised.
Nor has La Guardia’s promotion of LGBT ideology remained at the level of national politics. In 2023, she joined those who opposed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for his restrictions on AP Psychology courses for their inclusion of LGBT content. In an Aug. 3, 2023, FB post, La Guardia shared comments that argued such content was necessary for students “to compete in the marketplace of ideas.”
Not to be remiss in her promotion of sexual fluidity, in March 2025, La Guardia shared a post of pro-LGBT Fr. James Martin, in which the heterodox Jesuit attacked President Trump for stating that there are only two sexes, male and female. Martin advocated for the recognition of “intersex” persons, the latest addition to the ever-growing rainbow alphabet promoted by Martin.
Unsurprisingly, La Guardia’s dissent from Catholic doctrine is not limited to issues of sexual morality. She has also shown herself to be a strong advocate for pro-abortion politicians.
In a June 30, 2022, FB post, just days after the Supreme Court overturned the infamous abortion case Roe v. Wade in the Dobbs decision, La Guardia promoted the giving of Holy Communion to pro-abortion Democrat Nancy Pelosi, who has been prohibited in her own home diocese by Archbishop Cordileone from receiving the Eucharist due to her staunch public advocacy for the killing of the unborn.
Sharing an article by NPR, La Guardia joined in celebrating Pelosi’s scandalous defiance of Catholic doctrine and Cordileone’s prohibition when she received Communion at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome at a Mass presided over by Pope Francis.
Claiming to be pro-life the day after the Dobbs decision, La Guardia callously equated being pro-life with promoting economic prosperity and healthcare. In a June 25, 2022, FB post, she wrote:
Immaculata-La Salle Catholic High School states that its vision is that its “academic programs enrich the lives of students toward their holistic formation as good, faithful Christians.”
Affirming its Catholic identity, the school states that,
Central to all we do at Immaculata-La Salle High School is our faith in Jesus Christ. In the Salesian Spirit, we recognize that our faith is expressed through prayer, worship, service, and moral living.
Contrary to this end, the Miami Catholic high school employs a teacher who openly and strongly dissents from Catholic moral doctrine on matters of sexuality, marriage, and the sanctity of life, who promotes illegal immigration, political violence, Marxist ideology, and the corruption of young minds through LGBT indoctrination.
Perhaps it is time that, for the sake of the “holistic formation” of students “as good, faithful Christians,” teachers of Catholic schools be required to uphold authentic Catholic doctrine.
The Lepanto Institute contacted the Principal of Immaculata-La Salle, Sr. Kim Keraitis, by email, to ask whether the school’s faculty are required to uphold the Church’s teachings. Lepanto further asked if the administration was aware of Maria de la Guardia’s social media posts and public positions on same-sex marriage, LGBT ideology, abortion, illegal immigration, and political violence, and whether the school will remove her from the faculty of a Catholic school committed to upholding and handing on the Church’s moral doctrine?
Lepanto received no response from the Principal or administration as of the time of publication.
What is really sad about this is that the conservative population of the many countries are worn out with Trans anything and finally seeing it for what it is. A mental health issue.
Our clergy seem to be falling behind the secular world.
I actually think this article is a poor vision of the faith teachings of the Catholic church. It seems that you are villanizing a teacher who has constantly spoken up against injustice. Seems like poor reporting to me and the only radical person I see here is the reporter who seems to be very right-wing.
The Church teaches that homosexuality and transgenderism are inherently disordered, and that acts according to these ideologies are intrinsically evil – meaning, they are always and in all situations grave sins. Someone who advocates for these ideologies or presents them as morally good or neutral are peddling evil upon others, and when presented as such to children, it is called grooming.
The only radical I see here is the journalist who seems to be very righ-wing and is targetting a teacher lauching what seems to be a slander campaign. Not really sure why you’re villanizing someone who posted they are pro-life because they believe in living wages, affordable housing, universal healthcare, sick and family leave, and affordable child care. Pretty sure Jesus believed in all those things as well.
How wonderful to have a teacher who supports the Christian and Catholic values of supporting all God’s people. Catholic social teaching emphasizes the dignity of each human being, no matter the color of their skin, their immigration status, their sexual and gender identity. As Pope Leo just stated prolife is not just about abortion but it’s about protecting the life of immigrants, of those facing the death penalty and ensuring that each person has his or her basic needs ensured.
Educators have the responsibility of creating students who are critical thinkers not just followers of the status quo.
Educators have a responsibility to teach the material assigned to them. CATHOLIC educators have a moral and ethical duty to maintain such teachings within the confines of Catholic moral and theological boundaries. LGBT ideologies are 100% inimical to Catholic moral and theological teaching, and doom souls in the process.
It’s strange and disheartening to see an institute devote so much energy to condemning a teacher for simply embodying empathy, intellect, and love, values that Jesus himself so clearly lived by. If anything, Ms. de la Guardia’s posts reflect a heart aligned with the Gospel’s call to compassion and justice: standing with the marginalized, advocating for dignity, and believing that love, in all its forms, has worth. To call that “radical” is to forget that Christ was radical too, in whom he ate with, how he forgave, and what he challenged. The obsession with policing modern “heresy” feels so far from faith and so much closer to fear.
Grooming kids in sexual depravity is not charity.
How sad that you misrepresent Christ’s teaching.
Remember what Christ said to the the woman caught in adultery? He said “Go and sin no more”.