IT IS not a newspaper’s role to advise a church on doctrine. [“But we will anyway.”] When religious organizations carry out public policies, however, there will often be some friction at the intersection of the sacred and the secular, and that intersection deserves full public debate.
What they’re really saying is that when orthodox religious groups start practicing their religion outside the doors of their churches, it’s up to good liberals like the Globe’s editors to tell them what for.
In seeking to reverse the longstanding practice of Catholic Charities of Massachusetts, [The use of the word “longstanding” is not by accident. Just because something’s been going on for a long time—and 18 years is not a long time in the Church’s long life—doesn’t make it right.] by which 13 children have been adopted by same-sex couples in the last 18 years, the four Roman Catholic bishops in the state must have known they would generate an uproar. In any event they have, both within the church and without.
Here is the dilemma. Catholic doctrine declares that homosexual relationships are immoral. But state law governing the adoption process bars discrimination, including that based on sexual orientation. The bishops are planning to seek an exemption, but Governor Romney says he doesn’t have the power to grant one, and legislative leaders say they don’t have the inclination to vote one. If the church fails to get an exemption, it may face the choice of living with the current situation or directing Catholic Charities to bar gay or lesbian couples as prospective parents, which might well stop the agency from helping children in the custody of the Department of Social Services.The latter would be a tragedy. Catholic Charities has been helping children, many of them unwanted or abused, find loving homes for a century. It has handled 720 adoptions since 1987. And it is known for successfully placing children with difficult physical and emotional problems.
This is a false premise. Catholic Charities of Boston is a minor player in adoptions in Massachusetts. According to the Center for Adoption Research, there were 2,553 adoptions in Massachusetts in 2003 (the latest year for which data is available) of which 1,794 were private adoptions. Boston Catholic Charities has handled 720 adoptions since 1987. That’s about 40 per year. Additionally, 759 hard-to-place and emotionally scarred kids were adopted out of the DSS foster care system, only a minor percentage of whom would be from Catholic Charities even if every single one of their adoptions was a DSS kid. If Boston Catholic Charities stopped placing kids for adoption right now, there are plenty to pick up the slack. But this is just a red herring, designed to pull at the heart strings. It’s supposed to make you say to yourself: “Those heartless Catholic bishops would rather stand up for an arbitrary and mean-spirited principle than find homes for unwanted and unloved kids; Too bad they didn’t show this much concern when kids were being abused by priests!”
While respecting the church’s right to its opinion, it has become increasingly hard to demonstrate what harm might come from gay adoptions. [Several studies cited here.] One study indicated a very slightly greater willingness by girls brought up by lesbian parents to ignore gender stereotypes and seek training as doctors, lawyers, and engineers. [What about boys brought up by gays? Did they display a greater willingness to seek training as hairdressers and interior designers. Oh is that an awful stereotype? Tell it to “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” and the rest of the TV shows featuring gay hairdressers, interior decorators, and oh yeah, fashion designers.]
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 letter was signed, incidentally, by the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the time, one Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.
The Vatican may be moved in part by Massachusetts’ legalization of single-sex marriages, but again, with the law in effect for more than 21 months, the institution of heterosexual marriage has survived quite well.
A whole 21 months?! My gosh, that’s, like, forever. Certainly it’s nearly the same track record of 8,000 years of recorded history for marriage between one man and one woman, 5,000 years of Jewish history of one-man/one-woman marriage in that religious context, and 2,000 years of man/woman matrimony for Christianity. But if you say we’ve had 21 months of gay marriage without the complete breakdown of civil order or the earth splitting open to swallow Massachusetts whole, then I say we’re in the clear. Massachusetts’ gay marriage: 1; Infallible teaching of the Bride of Christ: 0.
For another thing, I seriously doubt the Vatican is much impressed with anything that happens in Massachusetts. Sorry to quash the inflated egos on Morrissey Boulevard, but Boston is not really the Hub of the Universe and the Globe is not required reading in Vatican City.
Also, while respecting the church’s immediate predicament, it is hard to sympathize with an absolutist approach. The church abhors poverty, and works valiantly worldwide to relieve it, but doesn’t sell every painting in the effort or scorn the support of the wealthy.
Ooh, never heard that one before from anti-Catholic fundamentalists. “The Vatican should rip out the Sistine Chapel and sell it piecemeal on eBay—like turf squares from Fenway Park—to the highest bidder. Sure an irreplaceable piece of art and a monument of Western civilization would forever be put out of view—probably in private collectors’ hands, but think of how satisfied they’ll feel while those dollars feed all the hungry people of the world—for a day.” The reason they’re called priceless works of art is because ... they’re priceless. The Church doesn’t own this art—most of it produced for the greater glory of God; it holds it in trust for all humanity in perpetuity.
But that knife cuts both ways. The next time the Globe’s editors call for tax increases to fund social programs for the poor, will the Boring Broadsheet’s editor agree to sell off the furniture in their offices, the art hanging in their lobbies? Is Ted Kennedy a hypocrite when he decries tax cuts for the rich while he owns mansions in Hyannisport, rural Virginia, Washington, DC, and Florida? When John Kerry wants to tax the middle class to fund big government, shouldn’t we first ask him to ask to Ter-AY-za to sell off a few of the eight homes she owns first?
The reality is that this is beside the point. It is an example of the “dictatorship of relativism” that Pope Benedict spoke of. A principle is something you stand behind if you believe it to be true. It’s funny that the Globe’s editors admonish the Church for holding to an absolutist approach, while it’s demand that the Church adhere to their own liberal principles all the time is itself an absolutist approach. A big steaming mug of hypocrisy anyone?
Scores of children in Massachusetts will be better off if Catholic Charities continues to guide their care.
As long as the guidance bears no resemblance to actual Catholic belief, faith, or teaching. In that case what would make Catholic Charities’ guidance different from that of any secular or even atheistic adoption agency? What makes Catholic Charities’ adoptions unique? If it’s not the Catholic faith then why bother?
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Fisking the Globe on Catholic Charities adoptions
The Boston Globe‘s editorial on Saturday lecturing the Catholic Church on adoption policies and the law was so over the top that it deserves a line-by-line fisking. I don’t do it often, but there’s something egregious in almost every sentence.
What they’re really saying is that when orthodox religious groups start practicing their religion outside the doors of their churches, it’s up to good liberals like the Globe’s editors to tell them what for.
Technorati Tags: adoption, Catholic, Catholic Charities, liberalism, Massachusetts, media bias
This is a false premise. Catholic Charities of Boston is a minor player in adoptions in Massachusetts. According to the Center for Adoption Research, there were 2,553 adoptions in Massachusetts in 2003 (the latest year for which data is available) of which 1,794 were private adoptions. Boston Catholic Charities has handled 720 adoptions since 1987. That’s about 40 per year. Additionally, 759 hard-to-place and emotionally scarred kids were adopted out of the DSS foster care system, only a minor percentage of whom would be from Catholic Charities even if every single one of their adoptions was a DSS kid. If Boston Catholic Charities stopped placing kids for adoption right now, there are plenty to pick up the slack. But this is just a red herring, designed to pull at the heart strings. It’s supposed to make you say to yourself: “Those heartless Catholic bishops would rather stand up for an arbitrary and mean-spirited principle than find homes for unwanted and unloved kids; Too bad they didn’t show this much concern when kids were being abused by priests!”
From “Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons”:
This letter was signed, incidentally, by the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the time, one Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.
A whole 21 months?! My gosh, that’s, like, forever. Certainly it’s nearly the same track record of 8,000 years of recorded history for marriage between one man and one woman, 5,000 years of Jewish history of one-man/one-woman marriage in that religious context, and 2,000 years of man/woman matrimony for Christianity. But if you say we’ve had 21 months of gay marriage without the complete breakdown of civil order or the earth splitting open to swallow Massachusetts whole, then I say we’re in the clear. Massachusetts’ gay marriage: 1; Infallible teaching of the Bride of Christ: 0.
For another thing, I seriously doubt the Vatican is much impressed with anything that happens in Massachusetts. Sorry to quash the inflated egos on Morrissey Boulevard, but Boston is not really the Hub of the Universe and the Globe is not required reading in Vatican City.
Ooh, never heard that one before from anti-Catholic fundamentalists. “The Vatican should rip out the Sistine Chapel and sell it piecemeal on eBay—like turf squares from Fenway Park—to the highest bidder. Sure an irreplaceable piece of art and a monument of Western civilization would forever be put out of view—probably in private collectors’ hands, but think of how satisfied they’ll feel while those dollars feed all the hungry people of the world—for a day.” The reason they’re called priceless works of art is because ... they’re priceless. The Church doesn’t own this art—most of it produced for the greater glory of God; it holds it in trust for all humanity in perpetuity.
But that knife cuts both ways. The next time the Globe’s editors call for tax increases to fund social programs for the poor, will the Boring Broadsheet’s editor agree to sell off the furniture in their offices, the art hanging in their lobbies? Is Ted Kennedy a hypocrite when he decries tax cuts for the rich while he owns mansions in Hyannisport, rural Virginia, Washington, DC, and Florida? When John Kerry wants to tax the middle class to fund big government, shouldn’t we first ask him to ask to Ter-AY-za to sell off a few of the eight homes she owns first?
The reality is that this is beside the point. It is an example of the “dictatorship of relativism” that Pope Benedict spoke of. A principle is something you stand behind if you believe it to be true. It’s funny that the Globe’s editors admonish the Church for holding to an absolutist approach, while it’s demand that the Church adhere to their own liberal principles all the time is itself an absolutist approach. A big steaming mug of hypocrisy anyone?
As long as the guidance bears no resemblance to actual Catholic belief, faith, or teaching. In that case what would make Catholic Charities’ guidance different from that of any secular or even atheistic adoption agency? What makes Catholic Charities’ adoptions unique? If it’s not the Catholic faith then why bother?
COMMENTS
You should write a letter to the editor. Or did you say that and I miss it?
Posted by infanted on 02/20/06 at 09:19 AM
Comments are being moderated. After you submit your comment it could take up to a couple hours, but usually only a few minutes, before it will appear. Thank you for your patience. If you have any questions, you may contact Domenico Bettinelli.