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Catholic Charities SF does sleight-of-hand trick with gay adoptions
At first you might think that Catholic Charities of San Francisco is standing on principle and ending its practice of providing adoptions for gays.
Five months after Catholic Charities in Boston decided to pull out of the adoption business to avoid placing children with gay couples, its affiliated agency in San Francisco announced yesterday it was also ending its work as a full adoption agency because of the controversy.
``We are not continuing to do direct placements,” said Brian Cahill, executive director of Catholic Charities of San Francisco, in a telephone interview.
But wait a minute. Something’s not right. On March 17, Archbishop George Niederauer of San Francisco announced that Catholic Charities in his archdiocese would stop the practice. How could the archbishop order the end of gay adoptions five months ago and the head of Catholic Charities say that they decided only yesterday? Because Catholic Charities, specifically Brian Cahill, is not under the archbishop’s control.
Back then Cahill said that Niederauer didn’t say what he clearly said and even started a public fight with the archbishop’s spokesman over it: “This is an outright statement that is false,” Cahill said of Healy’s assertion. “Mr. Healy is, A, mistaken, B, doesn’t speak for Catholic Charities and, frankly, it’s clear to me that he’s not speaking for the archbishop these days.” Of course, as I pointed out, Cahill himself has an adult gay son who adopted a child four years ago with his boyfriend and Cahill has praised gay families in print. He has appointed an openly gay man to a senior post at Catholic Charities and many members of the board of Catholic Charities are openly gay and lesbian.
But Cahill’s statement yesterday must be an indicator of a change of heart, right? Not necessarily.
Technorati Tags:adoption, Catholic, Catholic Charities, dissent, homosexuality
According to one of Mark Shea’s readers Catholic Charities SF is pulling a sleight of hand trick. The Boston Globe article says the following:
Cahill emphasized that his agency would still help prospective adoptive parents, including gays and lesbians, with information and referral help through an alliance with another organization. ... In contrast, San Francisco’s Catholic Charities will assign three staff members to work with California Kids Connection, a nonprofit statewide organization that compiles an Internet database of children available for adoption and assists with adoption referrals. The staff will help all prospective parents, including gays and lesbians, Cahill said. If that work ultimately leads to a match between a gay parent and a foster child, that is fine, he said.
But Mark’s correspondent says there’s something rotten in Denmark:
Catholic Charities in San Francisco is facilitating gay adoptions. Boston Globe has a good synopsis.
What is missing is that the agency Catholic Charities will be supplying staff for does primarily gay adoptions and is the leading advocate for it in the state. The city of San Francisco even recently contracted with them to increase gay and specifically transgender adoptions. What Catholic Charities apparently wants to do is increase the number of gay adoptions they facilitate by partnering with this group - at the same time publicly saying Catholic Charities isn’t “directly” doing adoptions.
The Globe article doesn’t mention the name of the group, just the name of the adoption clearance website they run. Other articles do mention the name. As here.
It is Family Builders by Adoption of Oakland. Go to their website and you will be shocked.
Over half of their adoptions are to gay and transgender couples.
Niederauer says the arrangement as set up is fine because it is only “remote” material cooperation. He says Cardinal William Levada, former archbishop of San Francisco and current head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has okayed it. I’m not sure how remote the cooperation is when you know that the odds are very strong that it will be an immoral adoption. No wonder Cahill, his board of directors, and San Francisco gay activists are fine with the change.
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COMMENTS
And the Divine punishment for scandalizing a child is what? Can one assume that such a punishment does not exclude the heads of Catholic Charities and any odd archbishops as the case may be? And any gay activists who place their own puny egos against the needs of the children of this world?
How many crimes against charity have been committed in the name of fashionable tolerance, of Sunday “All Are Welcome” political correctness?
Posted by on 08/4/06 at 05:48 AM When or when will Rome act against this rot which is being condoned by bishops, which exists in the bowels of the Church. This is the real crisis. It’s not even more of the same anymore. It’s worse.
Posted by on 08/4/06 at 08:45 AM Lemmeesseee, heah, Gomer:
CathCharities PAYS these “lent” employees, right? Seems to me that’s not TOO “remote.”
Better: fire the employees and let them join the other outfit.
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