Using Conscience Boston Catholic Charities To Close Adoption Branch Of Office

[elts1956]

Hello. I read on the Boston Globe website that Catholic Charities of Boston will no longer proved adoption services due to a law in force stating no adoption agency may prohibit gay adoptions.

ANOTHER SIGN OF THE TIMES

boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/03/11/catholic_charities_stuns_state_ends_adoptions/

Catholic Charities stuns state, ends adoptions
Gay issue stirred move by agency
By Patricia Wen, Globe Staff | March 11, 2006
In a stunning turn of events, Archbishop Sean P. O’Malley and leaders of Catholic Charities of Boston announced yesterday that the agency will end its adoption work, deciding to abandon its founding mission, rather than comply with state law requiring that gays be allowed to adopt children.

The Rev. J. Bryan Hehir, president of Catholic Charities of Boston, and Jeffrey Kaneb, chairman of the board, said that after much reflection and analysis, they could not reconcile church teaching that placement of children in gay homes is ''immoral" with Massachusetts law prohibiting discrimination against gays
A SAD DAY INDEED. What country does this remind you of?

 

[manualman]

This is both encouraging and a sad commentary on the recent past of our church.

Encouraging: The archdiocese has the guts to stand up for catholic beliefs without compromise.

Sad: The recent behavior of our church leadership lead the state politicians and judiciary to believe we were bluffing and wouldn’t have the guts to stick by our principles.

What a shame for the entire adoption program to have to be eliminated just to satisfy the political agitations of a tiny fraction of the populace (homosexual couples wishing to adopt).

 

[Scottgun]

This is how the de-Christianizing of America will happen. By forcing all charity work to either accept morally unacceptable acts or get out of the business. It’s time for civil disobedience.

 

[CMCGeneva]

Forgive me if this sounds like an ignorant question, I am aware of the Church’s teaching about homosexuality, but would it not be better for a child to be placed in a loving home regardless of the sex of the parents than to be left in an orphanage?

 

[fix]

Forgive me if this sounds like an ignorant question, I am aware of the Church’s teaching about homosexuality, but would it not be better for a child to be placed in a loving home regardless of the sex of the parents than to be left in an orphanage?

How do you define love? The child has rights.

 

[CMCGeneva]

Do you mean that love is only as Pope John Paul described it in the Theology of the Body between a man and a woman and therefore love can’t exist between homosexuals? Therefore not a better situation for a child.

 

[Ray_Scheel]

Forgive me if this sounds like an ignorant question, I am aware of the Church’s teaching about homosexuality, but would it not be better for a child to be placed in a loving home regardless of the sex of the parents than to be left in an orphanage?

Turning around the question on you, how are the children served by forcing organizations with a long and established history of this work (often predating the involvement of the state they were in) to stop placing children if it did not want to be forced to place some children in homes it felt were not in their best interest?

 

[CMCGeneva]

That’s what I am trying to determine. While we condemn the sin, not the sinner. Can they not also love a child?

 

[fix]

Do you mean that love is only as Pope John Paul described it in the Theology of the Body between a man and a woman and therefore love can’t exist between homosexuals? Therefore not a better situation for a child.

Not the love as husband and wife. Can that type of love exist between sisters? Or a father and son?

Is it fair to the children to expose them to that?

 

[warpspeedpetey]

Do you mean that love is only as Pope John Paul described it in the Theology of the Body between a man and a woman and therefore love can’t exist between homosexuals? Therefore not a better situation for a child.

the Most Holy destroyed sodom and gomorrah for these disordered sins. lots wife was turned to salt for sympathy of them

one may have compassion,for those who suffer from homosexuality, but the church is clear the practice is a mortal sin

placing a child in such a situation would be unthinkable, in light of Holy Scripture

further the Good Bishop speaks as the Vicar of Christ for his jurisdiction,

He has spoken,

Rome has spoken

Christ has Spoken

stop complaining and form ranks, the fault is with the secular state, that is where blame lies,

act in your community to mend the errant ways of the state
support your Bishop

 

[Ray_Scheel]

That’s what I am trying to determine. While we condemn the sin, not the sinner. Can they not also love a child?

They probably can, but that does not even begin to address whether a placement with them would be in the best interest of a child. When there are other venues for gay potential adoptive parents to seek placements, how are the children served by reducing their venues for placement by forcing an organization with a long and established history of this work (often predating the involvement of the state they were in) to stop placing children if it did not want to be forced to place some children in homes it felt were not in their best interest?

 

[CMCGeneva]

the Most Holy destroyed sodom and gomorrah for these disordered sins. lots wife was turned to salt for sympathy of them

one may have compassion,for those who suffer from homosexuality, but the church is clear the practice is a mortal sin

placing a child in such a situation would be unthinkable, in light of Holy Scripture

further the Good Bishop speaks as the Vicar of Christ for his jurisdiction,

He has spoken,

Rome has spoken

Christ has Spoken

stop complaining and form ranks, the fault is with the secular state, that is where blame lies,

act in your community to mend the errant ways of the state
support your Bishop

I don’t have a problem with that. I am just trying to understand. Do you understand?

 

[fix]

I don’t have a problem with that. I am just trying to understand. Do you understand?

Sure, you may want to start with this:

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.

 

[Neil_Anthony]

Could a charity like this decide that their purpose is to provide adoption services for their own community, i.e. catholics? And then to avoid adopting to gay couples, excommunicate them?

Or would limiting the service to the catholic community be discriminatory? Is a church allowed to provide a service for its own members?

 

[warpspeedpetey]

I don’t have a problem with that. I am just trying to understand. Do you understand?

im sorry i thought you were implying that an incorrect decision had been made by the aforementioned authorities.

homosexual ‘love’ has in no way parity with traditional family.

one could be construed as satisfaction of sexual urges, and disordered emotional attachment

the other is the natural, sanctioned manner in which children are born and raised in the faith

after all, would one place an adopted child with a family in sodom?

 

[sidonius]

Could a charity like this decide that their purpose is to provide adoption services for their own community, i.e. catholics? And then to avoid adopting to gay couples, excommunicate them?

Or would limiting the service to the catholic community be discriminatory? Is a church allowed to provide a service for its own members?

Under Massachusetts law, any agency doing adoptions requires a state license. The license would have been revoked if Catholic Charities did not allow gay couples to adopt. I do not know if Catholic Charities allowed unmarried heterosexual couples to adopt. This, however, is a distinct, though related, issue.

 

[Holly3278]

This is so sad that they had to close the adoption office. But then again, it is good that they stood up for what is right and closed it anyway. Hopefully things will change and they will no longer require gay adoptions in that state.

 

[elts1956]

Forgive me if this sounds like an ignorant question, I am aware of the Church’s teaching about homosexuality, but would it not be better for a child to be placed in a loving home regardless of the sex of the parents than to be left in an orphanage?

This is so sad that they had to close the adoption office. But then again, it is good that they stood up for what is right and closed it anyway. Hopefully things will change and they will no longer require gay adoptions in that state.

Yes, all we have to do is sit back and wait for the law to change.

 

[elts1956]

Forgive me if this sounds like an ignorant question, I am aware of the Church’s teaching about homosexuality, but would it not be better for a child to be placed in a loving home regardless of the sex of the parents than to be left in an orphanage?

You’re forgiven. Check out morality and dictates of the church.

 

[quiet52]

One thing that’s sadly being overlooked is that adoption services MUST be provided on a broad scale in order to discourage women from aborting their unborn children. Catholic agencies throughout our nation have been helping in this area for a long time. Both same-gender marriage and abortion are evils which devalue life – and Catholics cannot remain uninvolved.

I’m wondering if the Boston diocese ever asked the Thomas More Society Law Center for legal representation to defend its adoption policies.