Archdiocese Agency Cannot Discriminate Against Homosexual Adoptions
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mvinca
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I think that the point was if you claim up to 20% of your income to charitable contributions on your tax return, that is money that counts toward your taxes, so less of your taxes go to other stuff.Paying 20% of total income in taxes to the Church or pay the nearly 35% our family pays now to Uncle Sam…given this situation I would rather pay to the Church.
But if we dont pay Uncle Sam guess where we will be …???
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Karin
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Oh…yeah we already do that…kinda like the idea thought of paying the Church instead of Uncle Sam (instead of having to pay both
)
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estesbob
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Karin said:
I would hope that their integrity is not for sale
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Karin
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it would seem to be…as they take money from Untied Way…:bigyikes:
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volzcpa
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Karin said:
A good end does not justify evil means.
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CatQuilt
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Only in one state (MA) and we’re working on fixing that!!!
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AJC
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"Boston, MA (AHN) - The social sevices agency of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston has allowed 13 foster children to be adopted by gay couples in the past two decades, despite Vatican teachings against homosexuality.
Leaders of Catholic Charities of Boston say state regulations prohibit the agency from discriminating based on sexual orientation.
Reverand J. Bryan Hehir, the agency’s president says, “If we could design the system ourselves, we would not particiapte in adoptions to gay couples but we can’t. We have to balance various goods.”
When one reads the above news story one wonders if this “priest,” and I use the term lightly, understands Church teaching. This also begs the question does the Boston Archdiocese not have a Bishop? Many American Catholics worry about heresy and such coming in through the back door. I am convinced that many religious throw the front doors wide open. This story would seem to prove my point. So why doesn’t this priest fight it in court or shut the agency down? Does the word navel gazer come to mind?
Leaders of Catholic Charities of Boston say state regulations prohibit the agency from discriminating based on sexual orientation.
Reverand J. Bryan Hehir, the agency’s president says, “If we could design the system ourselves, we would not particiapte in adoptions to gay couples but we can’t. We have to balance various goods.”
When one reads the above news story one wonders if this “priest,” and I use the term lightly, understands Church teaching. This also begs the question does the Boston Archdiocese not have a Bishop? Many American Catholics worry about heresy and such coming in through the back door. I am convinced that many religious throw the front doors wide open. This story would seem to prove my point. So why doesn’t this priest fight it in court or shut the agency down? Does the word navel gazer come to mind?
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gomer_tree
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A good Priest friend of mine put it best.
If preaching against homosexuality from the pulpit is illegal, then every Priest should go to jail. If preaching against abortion loses a Church’s tax-exempt status, then every Church should lose its tax-exempt status. And I wouold figure he would say the same thing about Catholic Charities sticking to their guns in this matter.
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volzcpa
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gomer tree:
Amen. We cannot serve both God and mammon
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johnnykins
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Someone asked if sexual orientation was a protected class - not federally, but some states and local laws make it so.
Frankly on the Boston Catholic Charities issue, I’m somewhat torn. I don’t know how many adoptions they’ve arranged in total - and how many were prevented abortions. I don’t believe (though admittedly I could be way off base) that 13 is a lot - though for each of those 13 there are grave issues. Theoretically I agree it should not happen or be allowed. But, there are external issues - state law - that impact the theory. The children - and I mean all of them - are not theories. They are real people. If Catholic Charties in Boston just stopped (and I assume that’s the alternative) what would happen to those children? How many would be helped? How many would be aborted. I would not want to be in the shoes of the director of the Boston operation and face that very real dilemma. I believe the Commonwealth is at fault here - not Catholic Charities. Real life pastoral issues - and this is certainly one - can be excruciatingly difficult. The answer is not always easy - nor susceptible to pat answers when real people are involved. Overall, we’d be better off praying for all involved - and working to get Massachusetts to change its laws, methinks.
Frankly on the Boston Catholic Charities issue, I’m somewhat torn. I don’t know how many adoptions they’ve arranged in total - and how many were prevented abortions. I don’t believe (though admittedly I could be way off base) that 13 is a lot - though for each of those 13 there are grave issues. Theoretically I agree it should not happen or be allowed. But, there are external issues - state law - that impact the theory. The children - and I mean all of them - are not theories. They are real people. If Catholic Charties in Boston just stopped (and I assume that’s the alternative) what would happen to those children? How many would be helped? How many would be aborted. I would not want to be in the shoes of the director of the Boston operation and face that very real dilemma. I believe the Commonwealth is at fault here - not Catholic Charities. Real life pastoral issues - and this is certainly one - can be excruciatingly difficult. The answer is not always easy - nor susceptible to pat answers when real people are involved. Overall, we’d be better off praying for all involved - and working to get Massachusetts to change its laws, methinks.
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volzcpa
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I agree with you that this is a very difficult situation.
However, the Catholic Church teaches that we are not morally bound to follow a law of man that is contrary to the teachings of the Church. Additionally, it is never morally acceptable to do an evil to bring about a greater good.
The bottom line is the Boston Catholic Charities have sold out.
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mlchance
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Quite right.
And organizations like Catholic Charities wouldn’t need state or federal monies if Catholics got up off their wallets long enough to contribute the Church like we’re supposed to.
Want of money is the root of all evil, anyone?
– Mark L. Chance.
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Siena
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:yup:
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mjdonnelly
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It isn’t discrimination, it’s selection.
Stop permitting adoption by a homosexual couple, or stop all adoptions.
Stop permitting adoption by a homosexual couple, or stop all adoptions.
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johnnykins
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The difficulty with this matter stems from several issues, among which are:
- While true as Catholics we are not morally bound to follow an immoral law, in this case the response is to cease adoptions and work to repeal the law - which in the US is a possibility. Unlike saying Mass, etc., providing adoptions, while a good act of charity, is not a required Church activity - the non-provision of which actively impedes the salvific mission of the Church as would the banning of Mass, for example. Further, it does not, per se, require an immoral act - only that if you engage in certain activities that you do the immoral act. The unjust law in this case does not require anyone to provide immoral adoptions; it provides that if you chose to provide adoptions then these types of immoral adoptions must be allowed. The moral solution is to not provide adoptions. Accordingly active breaking of the immoral law (providing adoptions in an unlawful manner) when a licit reasonably possible solution exists (not offering adoption and working for repeal) would itself be immoral - as an evil to bring about a good - which is prohibited.
- Providing children to homosexual adoptive parents is not wholly an evil - the good is that the children would have needed adult parental care (at least one person of the couple could be a parent - unless you want to deny single person adoption). Note, this good is independent of the evil of the homosexual adoption. Therefore we enter into an analysis of the proportionality of the relative acts - (a) the good that a child has adult parental care, and (b) the evil of the placement of the child in a homosexual environment. The moral answer becomes more clouded as issues of proportionality enter into the analysis.
I’m not trying to give the answer to these issues. As I stated above, I’m torn by it. I do not believe the moral analysis is quite as straight-forward as many of the post on this thread seem to think. I could well be wrong, but I’m unwilling to set in stone a moral judgment on this entire matter. I will say I believe Massachusetts is certainly wrong. At worst Catholic Charities may be wrong. IMHO.
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fix
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From this one quote I can only reason that allowing adoption in these cases is doing violence to children.
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Elzee
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MommaKat
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Only the state of Massachuetts. It was forced on the state by the courts. More of our states have passed laws against so called same-sex marriage.
We are in a battle with the devil on many fronts.
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volzcpa
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I believe that you need to rethink your second point as the Church does condemn providing children to homosexual adoptive parents.
CONSIDERATIONS REGARDING PROPOSALS TO GIVE LEGAL RECOGNITION TO UNIONS BETWEEN HOMOSEXUAL PERSONS States:
“As experience has shown, the absence of sexual complementarity in these unions creates obstacles in the normal development of children who would be placed in the care of such persons. They would be deprived of the experience of either fatherhood or motherhood. Allowing children to be adopted by persons living in such unions would actually mean doing violence to these children, in the sense that their condition of dependency would be used to place them in an environment that is not conducive to their full human development. This is gravely immoral and in open contradiction to the principle, recognized also in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, that the best interests of the child, as the weaker and more vulnerable party, are to be the paramount consideration in every case.”
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