Catholic Bishops Want Catholic Charities to Stop Gay Adoptions

The disingenuity in this article is disappointing.

CC (Catholic Charities) knows it doesn't have the right to place children for adoptions. But the state does not have the right to "legislate morality" (where have I heard this words before? - oh, yeah, every teenage pseudo-radical who's ever taken a bong hit) and can't force us to operate against our principals, so CC is going to be forced to get out of the adoptions business if we can't get this exception, since we aren't supposed to give up our principals (it was a mistake to do the first 13, a mistake made by people who have abused their trust, and we don't want that mistake repeated). Thus, the charitable thing for CC to do is what it is doing: try to get the law changed, instead of backing out altogether. CC has placed approximately 30% of all adoptions from DSS over the past few years, so we want to continue to do the good part of this work. However, Catholics have been forced to let their principals and understanding of what it means to be a loving family slide in an attempt to 'do good works' within the structures of sin the government has created. We are not supposed to do a lesser evil (in this instance, sending a child into a home that does not have the love, care and support of two married, stable members of the opposite sex, each bringing their unique parental abilities and who will raise the child in the Faith) in order that one can do greater good (the chance of placing many others in such a home). I think we're beginning to see the effects of those actions as having implied our understanding is negotiable, and we are questioning the wisdom of compromise.

Next, religious values and _actions_ in the Commonwealth are under attack in a more general way, and this is the second volley in what will be a long and protracted counterstruggle. The recent attempt to interfere with internal church governance and financial operations was the first. Next, I think, the mandate to force pharmicies and hospitals to offer abortion pills is going to hit the stage (which has caused certain pharmicists to not be able to practice or will cause them to face prosecution if someone bothers persecuting them).

Other fronts in the struggle are presently and are going to continue to be gay marriage, abortion on demand, the early sexualization of children and the concommitant commodization of sex in the name of 'education', the coursening of our culture in general, and the indoctrination of the many into a materialist relativism under guise of 'education', that produces abominable results.

Next: to say that Catholics believe Jews, Muslims and "other infidels" are going to hell is a calumny of the broadest proportion: it is categorically not true that we believe this. I think you owe Catholics an apology for this untrue statement, born of a spirit of 'odium fidei', or 'hatred of the faith'.

Next, we're beginning to get used to the blunt stick of the Scandal being weilded against those of us who had no part in it by those who don't like us for other reasons. It's beginning to hurt less. For those of you who haven't read your history, after something bad happens like the Scandal, the Catholic Church, having taken it knocks, has a period where it becomes smaller, more pure, more focused - ultimately, more blessed - breaks out and comes back even better, bigger, and more effective than before. It takes around two generations.

"Integral to the Catholic Faith" - sorry, no. This is a particular instance of the intersection of natural law and public life, which is why you are talking about it. As part of my faith, it would not be worthy of a footnote, except that you people (that is, liberals) seem to always be primarily focused on the freedom to do what you want with your genitalia as the most important thing that identifies you as 'you'.

Because two men and two women (or, indeed, a man with a shoe fetish, or a woman with a washing machine she particularly likes) are capable of disordered use of their sexual organs, does not suddenly make them fit parents of a child. The same objection obtains for single parents, in fact. The disorder remains the same.

"The state has determined from long experience that gay parents are just as capable of raising children as straight parents."

I'd assert, just as incapable. Most of our children are unparented or badly parented.

"The Church, in contrast, begins with the premise that homosexuality is just plain evil, and works from there."

Yes and no. Here's what we actually say Catechism of the Catholic Church:

2357:...tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered." They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved."

2358: The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.

All of the items above make a gay couple who calls themselves 'married' not acceptable as parents.

Further down, about married couples, is what makes for parents:

2363 The spouses' union achieves the twofold end of marriage: the good of the spouses themselves and the transmission of life. These two meanings or values of marriage cannot be separated without altering the couple's spiritual life and compromising the goods of marriage and the future of the family.

Now - the Catholic Church does not have 'political pretexts'. We don't need them. We recognize a natural law that is immutable - the same one the Founding Fathers recognized when they created this Country - that's the same natural law that gives us the 'inalienable rights' we hold so dear - none of which were the right to put your winky wherever you want, nor the right to mess with the living conditions of a child in whatever neomarxist atheistic fashion you think makes them better members of 'the state'.

Anyway, you _do_ hate the faith, the knee-jerk kind of hatred, because you've been taught to: otherwise you wouldn't be so quick to ascribe falsehoods to it, you'd be just as 'tolerant' as you are of, say, radical Islam or Scientology. It's okay, lots of people do it to, and it's not really your fault, most people are equally duped.

Regarding Hell, frrom the Catechism - 1037: God predestines no one to go to hell; for this, a willful turning away from God (a mortal sin) is necessary, and persistence in it until the end. In the Eucharistic liturgy and in the daily prayers of her faithful, the Church implores the mercy of God, who does not want "any to perish, but all to come to repentance".

It's not a turning away from the Church, it's a turning away from God. The truth is, Catholics hope that nobody has to go to hell - although we recognize, heartbreakingly, many will, because of the necessity of freedom and justice. Indeed, there are many (too many) who even now walk in hell on earth - don't you agree?

As for being a Jew - I'm afraid most modern Catholics recognize themselves as Jews by adoption: our Blessed Mother (Mary) was a Jew, our adopted Brother and Lord (Jesus) was a Jew - so, that makes us adopted Jews. We respect and love all of our Orthodox "older brothers", all those who keep 'the whole of the law'. Um...that said, I bet we feel about the same way about the 'reformed' Jews and nonpracticing Jews as our Orthodox brethren do - where the opinions are all over the map. I, for one, hope for mercy, but if you're going to be a Jew, I'd strongly recommend you be Orthodox - at least, keep the whole law - and if not, maybe you should consider being a Catholic (His yolk is easy and our burden is light). I can't recommend anything else, honestly, and I've been around the block.

Abortion is the killing of an innocent, and it is a grave moral evil in all cases - there is never an excuse that justifies killing a baby, even to save the life of the mother. There are fuzzy areas, but it involves cases like both mother and baby dying so you can deliver the baby prematurely, etc, etc. Capital Punishment, however, is a function of the secular state, and as a matter of justice is licit: BUT, the prudential judgment is that we don't need it. But it's exactly that, a prudential judgement, left up to the government. There is no prudential judgement that makes the willful killing of a baby okay.

It's worth noting that, while the Roman Catholic church, as a religious organization, is exempt from non-discrimination laws, Catholic Charities USA is a secular not-for-profit organization that must obey the same laws as every other non-profit. If they're given a waiver to discriminate against gay people, why couldn't the American Red Cross get a waiver to avoid having to give blood transfusions to, say, Roman Catholics?

Constitutionalist, when did you come into existence? Specifically, when *exactly* did your unique genetic information exist? At that point in time, something chnaged in the world because now Constitutionalist would be in the world.

No one in their right mind would advocate killing an infant because it relies on others to feed and take care of it. A difference between a life out of the womb and inside of the womb is that the life inside the womb has to rely solely on one person for his food and care -- his mother.

The state's "differences" of embryo, fetus, and viable baby are a subterfuge because they run contrary to natural law and right reason. No woman ever gets "a little pregnant". It is an "is" or "is-not" proposition. Everybody walking the face of the globe started out at one particular time in history and continued to grow with thier same unique DNA to the present day. The artifical taxonomy defined by the state to define rather than describe human development is designed to propound the euphemism for murder that is known as abortion.

As for you Josh, please at least go talk to a Catholic priest before trying to write about Catholic theology. You are attempting to twist the dogma of Hell and Magesterial teaching of the Catholic Church to support your errorneous ideas on the subject -- and you are making yourself look very foolish in the process to those who know the faith. In short, please do your homework before your story gets picked up by Google news to spare yourself public embarrassment.

The Catholic Church teaches that if someone knows that the Catholic Church is the true Church and, in light of that knowledge, turns against the Church, they necessarily orient their will against Christ. (Christ said in Acts 9:4 - "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" -- Saul was killing Christians at the time, so turning against Christ's Church is turning against Christ Himself) If such a person dies in such a state, that person is lost. But remember, they have to have knowledge that the Catholic Church is the true Church. If they don't know, they are not necessarily lost. Christ didn't come to earth, suffer and die so that all non-Catholics can go to hell. Get real, man!

And one other factoid: the Catholic Church teaches of no specific person in hell. Not even Judas, although it is the opinion of most people that he is there.

OK, OK, OK. There's a hell, maybe I won't go there, provided I can remain willfully ignorant of the fact that the Catholic Church is the true church, and I am not anywhere near well-informed on matters of Catholic theology. Please, though, let's not debate the pros and cons of abortion here. Catholics think it's immoral, the law says it's legal. The same is true of gay marriage and gay adoption. I doubt converts are being won in this comment section (to Catholicism or constitutionalism), so let's all take it easy.

So please, only weigh in if you have a point about Catholic Charities' legal ability to get an exemption, because that's what will ultimately decide this matter (at least, in the non-eternal time frame).

Oops...the 'Jeff's wrong' should have read 'where Josh's wrong'. Mea culpa.

Jeff: I said we should limit ourselves to the question of Catholic Charities' legal ability to get around the non-discrim. rules, but I just can't refuse the bait... you say gay people already have the right to marry and now they want special rights by asking to marry folks of the same sex. That's the same argument mustered thirty-odd years ago in defense of prohibiting interracial marriage: Black people already had the same rights as everyone - they were allowed to marry people of their own race. Aside from the bigotry that underlies the position, it's especially weird in the case of marriage, where the particular person you choose matters. The right to get married would be for shit if you couldn't marry the person you chose.

As for the dichotomy you see between sticking to the letter of the law in the realm of discrimination while ignoring it in the case of marriage, I think you miss an important point: We should always stick to the letter of the law, up to the point where it runs counter to the letter of the Constitution. In the case of the Goodridge decision, regular statutes had to give way to the mandate of the state constitution, but in the case of the non-discrimination rules for adoption agencies, the law and the constitution are in harmony.

There really is no problem here except for one. The problem is that, as an institution run by humans, the Catholic Church has not once changed its beliefs in the 2000 or so years of its existence. When asked to compromise the principles of the Deposit of Faith, the answer, for two millennia, has been a resounding, "No."

The reason for the reply in the negative is that the Church has been founded upon Divine truth and truth never can change nor contradict itself. People change, organizations change. Truth is eternal; you might want to look up the theological definition of eternal for what that means.

When people behave with surprise at the actions of the Church they either are being completely disingenuous or they just have no idea what they are talking about. In the case of disingenuity, they should begin with self-assessment and a resolution to behave in public in the future. In the case of ignornace of the facts, they should try to educate themselves.

There is no story here.

Jeff:
I'm not saying the Catholic Church ever opposed interracial marriage. I'm saying that your argument - that gay people have the same right to marry as anyone else because they can marry someone of the opposite sex - is logically similar to the argument advanced by opponents of interracial marriage. They argued (in Loving v. Virginia, back in 1967) that a ban on interracial marriage didn't constitute discrimination because it applied equally to everyone - white people couldn't marry black people and black people couldn't marry white people. You're saying a ban on gay marriage wouldn't be discriminatory because gay people would still have the right to marry folks of the opposite sex. The problem with both arguments is that they assume that marriage is something between groups (blacks, whites, Jews, gays, etc.). In fact, marriage happens between two people, and the identity of those people is essential. If I want to get married to Anna, and the law says, "You cannot marry Anna because she is black and you are white," it's not useful to me that I'm still allowed to marry Beth. (Because who is Beth, anyway? I love Anna!) In the same way, if I want to marry Steve and am told that I can't, having the right to marry Eve doesn't mean much.

Nor is the fact that gay people make up a small minority of any importance. Presbyterians, for example, comprise under three percent of the population of the US, and Jews under two percent. The whole point of fundamental rights (if we can agree, for the moment, that marriage in some form is a fundamental right)is that everyone gets them, even the smallest and most disliked minorities.

The point here isn't that the law is moral in a religious sense - it surely isn't and couldn't be, since various religions have conflicting senses of morality on a number of issues (to say nothing of the fact that the law is prohibited by the Constitution from favoring one religion over another or over non-religion). The point is that the law is neutral and prevents people from harming one another. Catholics have all the right in the world not to countenance gay marriage - priests should never be forced to perform gay marriages, and lay people should be allowed to shun gay acquaintances and not invite them to barbecues. But the government must treat all its citizens equally, even if the majority wishes a small minority to be treated unequally.

The nub of our disagreement is that you think there is no inequality in saying that men can only marry women and women can only marry men, and I think there is inequality in it. From what I can tell from your comments, your position is based on your opinion that homosexuality is just fundamentally bad and wrong and everybody knows it. The problem with that, I think, is that it allows rules to be made based on what people like and dislike, without taking into account whether those people are even harmed by the activity to be regulated.

For example, I personally find homosexual sex aesthetically unpleasant and unappealing. Luckily, I don't have to engage in it, so there's really no reason to let my opinion form the basis for a rule. Likewise, no one will ever force you (or any Catholic or other person opposed to gay marriage) to marry someone of the same sex, so there's no reason for your heartfelt objection to carry the day.

Easy there, kids. I'm disinclined to delete anybody's comments because I'm a big fan of free, open debate. But seriously, can we stay on topic here? Think of Bostonist's other three regular readers, who might see that this post has lots of comments and hope to read people's opinions about adoption by gay families. Keith and Jeff, if you two want to carry on your debate about Jesus and arrogance directly, e-mail me (josh at bostonist.com) and, if you both agree, I'll pass on your e-mail addresses to each other.

Apologies. I understand how it flows off topic. In my opinion the philosophical debate stems deeper than whether or not the Church should follow state law.

Of course, we could talk about the long historical shift away from objective truth and toward utilitarianism (Jeff, we need not go as far as relativism) and see how it has become the dominating force in American jurisprudence and angloamerican ethics. Utilitarianism as a secular-modern ideology allows for the assertion of ideas that are unpopular against the vain that the contrary position is less useful to society.

But I do not think that such things will lead to any resolution with the Church or with many people that refuse these modern institution of ethics - by its irony developed by the same men (Locke, Hume, Smith, Hutcheson, Bentham, Mill) who created the philosophical underpinning for the modern republic and the capitalist market economy. The anglo and french followers of this ideology would go on to support the state submersion of the Church (see Nationalization in France in 1792, the end of the Papal States by the mid 1800s, Laws across more conservative countries such as Mexico that ended the special privelage of the Chruch: putting it before the law.

The trend not only in America but across the modern world has been to subdue the Church's particularity and force it into the daily engagements of secular society. See the Church Scandal becoming an issue of public concern and inquiry.

The growing trend away from exclusivity of the Church and bringing it into the public sphere suggests that its participation in public acts requires that the Church conform to the values of society. At this point in time our pluralistic society does not consider homosexuals disordered (exclusion in the Diagnostics and Statistics Manual by the American Psychiatric Association for over the past three decades) and as Josh has indicated there have been rulings that declare gay couples are more than capable to be parents for children.

To return then to the subject at hand: it seems that the driving trend in American philosophy and case-law will lead private institutions to be restricted in its efforts to exclude people when they are acting as public functionaries (note the Boy Scouts case as a private function) and that anything less would bring cause to declare that the religious institution is acting illegally: giving government the ability to deny funds, take away licensing, evict tenants from landholdings, fines and other penalties. As adoption is controlled and regulated by the State: refusal to participate in non-discrimination adoptions would lead to such penalities. The State is enforcing a rule of law upon the Church that perhaps is immoral by its objective considerations, but it is wholly ethical by American society.

I do not concede to giving out my email. I would not wish to bore Jeff any further. Although I appreciate his advice, I do not think it wise to continue the discussion. I have many friends with whom I speak regularly about this issue and thus I am quite familiar with most arguments for and against.

Regards,
Keith

"There really is no problem here except for one. The problem is that, as an institution run by humans, the Catholic Church has not once changed its beliefs in the 2000 or so years of its existence. When asked to compromise the principles of the Deposit of Faith, the answer, for two millennia, has been a resounding, "No."

The reason for the reply in the negative is that the Church has been founded upon Divine truth and truth never can change nor contradict itself. People change, organizations change. Truth is eternal; you might want to look up the theological definition of eternal for what that means." Posted by: Marc Koechig | February 21, 2006 02:24 PM
IN ANSWER TO: "the Catholic Church has not once changed its beliefs in the 2000 or so years of its existence." Have you forgotten your church history? Just one example of the Cathoic Church changing truth: The Catholic Church at one time taught as truth that the Sun rotated around the Earth. They excommunicated several important scientist for believing differently. Read a history book. Read your Catholic Church's history, before you parrot an untruth.