Catholic Charities Forced to Shut Down Services around the Country

By Michael Terheyden
6/7/2011
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

Homosexual Equivalency activists attempting to force the Church to change?

Civil union laws springing up around the country are not about equality or freedom or love. We know this because the secular state is using these laws to force the Catholic Church to violate its beliefs or shut down its services. Thus, it seems that these laws are hostile, that they are an early sign of state aggression against the Church and anyone who stands in the state's way. I hope and pray that Catholics have the courage to stand up to those in our state legislatures who would turn our government against its people and the Church.

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn holds up the signed civil unions bill

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KNOXVILLE, TN (Catholic Online) - As of June 1, 2011, unmarried heterosexual couples and homosexuals will be able to legally adopt children and become foster parents in the state of Illinois under its new civil unions law. In response to this new law, Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Rockford has announced that it will discontinue adoption and foster care services immediately.

Some believe that the new civil unions law will not effect religious organizations such as the Catholic Church. And some homosexual advocates are claiming that the Church's decision to shut down its adoption and foster care services is a sign of intolerance. But when a bill, SB 1123, was proposed to amend certain language in the law in order to protect religious liberty, the amendment was attacked by homosexual activists and defeated by one vote.

This is not the first time something like this has happened. Catholic services in other states have also been forced to shut down. Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Washington D.C. was forced to shut down their foster care and public adoption program due to a law recognizing same-sex marriage that went into effect in 2010. The law requires that religious organizations serving the general public must provide services to homosexuals regardless of their religious beliefs. District lawmakers could have granted an exemption to the archdiocese, but they chose to force it to compromise Church teaching on marriage or shut down its programs. In a Catholic News Agency article, Bill Donohue, the president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Liberties, said, "Archbishop Wuerl [of the Archdiocese of Washington D.C.] isn't about to allow the state to run roughshod over Catholic doctrine, and that is why he is being forced to drop the foster-care program."

Something similar also happened in the state of Massachusetts. Catholic Charities of Boston was forced to shut down unless it agreed to place children with homosexuals. New state licensing laws in 2006 required that Catholic agencies facilitate adoptions for same-sex couples. According to an article by Father Robert J. Carr, in a joint statement, bishops from four Catholic dioceses in Massachusetts said, ". . . if Catholic agencies were required to help same-sex couples adopt children in violation of church teaching prohibiting the practice it would present 'a serious pastoral problem' and threaten religious freedom."

Apparently, this has also happened in England and Wales. Marianne Medlin writes, "Last August, a local commission ruled that the last remaining agency, Catholic Care, was not justified in its refusal to place children with same-sex couples because of its religious beliefs."

All of these forced closing reflect a trend, and it is not benign. I believe that homosexual activists have given us a clue to the nature of this trend. They tell us that they just want to be treated equally, that they want to be free to love each other and have families like married heterosexual couples. But I do not believe this is true, and it is not realistic. In addition, homosexual activists in Illinois are calling the new civil unions law the "Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Unions Act." But the law does not protect freedom, certainly not mine or yours, anyhow. So if this trend is not about equality, freedom or love, then what is it about? Perhaps it will help us answer this question if we look at another example.

Since the 1980's, various groups (homosexuals, feminists, secularists and atheists) have been attacking the Boy Scouts of America. This first came to my attention when the Supreme Court ruled on a case between the Boy Scouts and an assistant scoutmaster, James Dale. The Boy Scouts discharged Dale from his position when it became clear that he was a homosexual. Dale sued the Boy Scouts for discharging him. However, in 2000 the Court upheld the Boy Scouts' First Amendment right of "freedom of association" and ruled in favor of the Scouts' right to set their own membership standards.

This did not end the Scouts' legal battles, however. The decision apparently energized homosexual activists to destroy the Boy Scouts. Only now, the focus shifted to turning public opinion and support against the Scouts and attacking the Scouts' relationship with government through litigation initiated by such groups as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). As a result, some corporations and charities have turned against the Scouts, and the Scouts have lost the use of government land and facilities which had ...

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1 - 10 of 51 Comments

Gaddikin
10 months ago
Everyone should be free to have their own opinions. Homosexuals are NOT trying to destroy Catholicism. Heck, some people are both. Yes, even me. I'm a gay Christian. You think I don't love God? I LIVE for him! You are all so blinded by your hatred you never stop to consider the true implications of your actions.

Also, has anyone noticed the message under "Leave a Comment"
I quote, "Though we invite robust discussion, we reserve the right to not publish any comment which denigrates the human person, undermines marriage and the family..."

Which says this comment WILL be deleted. This is sad. Why would this website be trying to censor comments? Is it afraid of what people like me might say? If the people of this site can't handle "outside" comments, then how strong are you, really?

I genuinely hope that someone gets a chance to read this before the censors delete it.
Theresa
1 year ago
I think the main "issue" here (the Article posted for Comment) is that the Government is forcing the Catholic Church to act contrary to it's faith in "marriage between one man and one woman" and that that "family" is where children need to be nurtured--by both a mother and a father. (Yes there are circumstances where a child is raised by only one parent, but that is another issue I won't get into here....) The big problem is that our courts/judges are interfering with the Constitutional Right of the Church (freedom of religion in public as well as in private) and siding with the homosexual agenda that is against the Catholic Church. As others have observed, homosexuals can open their own adoption services. But that is not what they want; they want to destroy a work of the Catholic Church where ever they can because the Catholic Church won't cater to their view of the family and marriage. The Catholic Church needs lawyers involved in defending the rights of the Church....I think there are some Law Firms working on this, but it is an expensive proposition.... These Law Firms need our financial support to engage in this moral battle against those who are trying to marginalize the natural law in our civil code of ethics/law, not to mention the Biblical perspective....
Jenny Ho
1 year ago
Marc -- your assessment that the Church has plenty of money to support these services is baseless. Most donations to charities are given through politically correct walk-a-thons and huge corporate donations. Donations to the Catholic Church, where the average parishioner drops a 5 or 10 dollar bill in the collection basket each week to support their parish and other charities, have fallen off the charts. That's why churches are forcing to close and consolidate in areas because individual people just aren't charitable as compared to corporations. Can you imagine a Fortune 500 corporation giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to Catholic Charities? No. Do you know how expensive it is to provide these services to pregnant women who bring their children to full term and then keep the children until they are adopted? So Catholic Charities does need the money from the state to help them stay afloat. What's a sin is that there are walk-a-thons for the disease of the week where blood money from Planned Parenthood is given, and PP continues to reap the benefits of support from government and we don't/can't force them to adopt a policy of providing alternatives, but here, we are being forced to swallow an immoral lifestyle, or fade away.
Rob -- I agree with what you say. But this isn't about love either. This is a socialist agenda that has nothing to do with preservation of the family or the love of a child. If there's a shortage of children to adopt that homosexuals feel that Catholic Charities is hoarding the market, then maybe they should join the pro-life movement and fight abortion. Pushing this agenda doesn't make sense. If we continue down this path, the future will be a world of athiest homosexual couples and no children on the planet because they will have all been aborted.
Terry Brennan
1 year ago
Whatever you do to the least of my brethren: you do also unto me.

Jesus
vance
1 year ago
Leslie, thanks for your volunteer service. We need more people like you. I got a chuckle over your statement, "I wish these Homosexual people would end their over zealous selfish sexual ways". That's like asking Satan to knock it off and be a nice guy. We the Faithful need to fight back for our church and our society.
Michael Terheyden
1 year ago
Rob, I believe that your heart is in the right place, but I do not agree with your assessment of the Catholic Church. Take a look at a couple figures for 2009. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, adoptions of Children through Public Child Welfare totaled 57,466. According to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), Catholic Charities provided 43,989 adoptions throughout the U.S. If you want a better idea what Catholic Charities does, check out the following link provided by the USCCB: http://www.usccb.org/comm/catholic-church-statistics.shtml. The Catholic Church has been at the forefront of Charitable service for 2000 years, and she remains so today. We can be very proud of that fact.
Leslie
1 year ago
I live and volunteer in Portland, Oregon. The amount of influence the Catholic Church has had for the homeless, homebound, hungry,(amongst everything else), is huge. To provoke the Catholic Charities to close effects more than adoption. I which these homosexual people would end their over zealous, selfish, sexual ways. They are hurting themselves as Catholic Charities helps so many others.

I believe that this is a challenge, a confrontation in the shadows of justice for all. That is utter nonsense. Homosexuals have no business being married much less have a child. What sort of influence would that child on his own children when he becomes an adult? In this instance they are destroying the chance of allowing an orphaned child the right to a new home, a proper lifestyle, and a chance to grow in the eye's of God's love.

If they really cared about children then why would they make it so that heterosexual couples won't be able to properly love and raise that child because adoption has been ended because of them. As far as I can tell they would rather practice their sexual habits above raising a child in the fashion that God has chosen, husband and wife.
eithena
1 year ago
Take heart if it is not from GOD it will not last Pray hope and don,t worry,P PIO GOD IS IN THE DRIVING SEAT if its not from GOD IT WILL NOT LAST
Denis Ssenyondwa
1 year ago
The Catholic church is not secular but rather missioned to enternal destiny of those that believe Christ, Thus, Catholics be still braced to kick all forms of wickedness manifested by the homosexuals by the fullness of truth in the church. Michael, this is wondeful. lets continue till the end to be intolerant to wickedness.
Rob
1 year ago
Michael, I still believe that this problem has it's roots in the fact that Catholics didn't have enough presence as foster parents. As states struggled to find homes to place children (a sad commentary on the state of things), homesexual couples started stepping up. In my opinion that is what really opened up the door to homosexual adoption. While I read tons of articles about fighting these laws, I don't see any about Catholics being encouraged to adopt and foster. I think we are merely focused on symptoms and not the cure. And so long as we continue to do this, we are not going to "win" these culture wars. Preach the gospel wherever you go and use words if you have to......

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