Catholic Charities and Gay Parenting

Back in October, I wrote about a mini-controversy that erupted when the fact that Catholic Charities in Boston is, in order to comply with the Commonwealth's anti-discrimination laws, facilitating the adoption of hard to place children by gay couples. The four Massachusetts Bishops are none too happy, and are looking for ways to get around the Bay State's laws. Yesterday's Boston Globe reported:

The four Roman Catholic bishops of Massachusetts plan to seek permission from the state to exclude gay couples as adoptive parents, according to two board members of the church's largest social service agency who were briefed on the plan.

The decision follows a three-month study of the theological and practical impact of having Catholic Charities of Boston, the Boston Archdiocese's social service arm, place children with gay couples, given the Vatican's teaching that describes such adoptions are ''gravely immoral."

This decision to seek an exemption from state anti-discrimination rules pits the bishops against the 42-member board of Catholic Charities of Boston, which is made up of some of Boston's most prominent lay Catholics. The board voted unanimously in December in support of continuing to allow gay couples to adopt children.

In the past two decades, agency officials placed 13 children with same-sex couples, a tiny fraction of 720 adoptions completed by them during that time.

The outgoing chairman of the board, whose term expired earlier this month, expressed strong opposition to the bishops' plan, saying it would undercut the agency's longstanding mission to provide stable homes for as many needy children as possible.

''This is an unnecessary, unmitigated disaster for children, Catholic Charities, and the Archdiocese of Boston," said Peter Meade, who remains a board member.

Thirteen out of 720. Thirteen children who had been in the foster care system longer, who were older, and who were harder to place were given loving families where both parents are of the same gender. Better they stay in the system, I guess.

It looks as though two of Bishops' potential avenues for keeping children in the foster care system have been shut down:

Gov. Mitt Romney and a top legislative leader say a request by the state's four Roman Catholic bishops to exempt Catholic social service agencies from having to place adoptive children with gay households is unlikely to be granted.

Romney told The Boston Globe he was not authorized to give such an exemption, while State Rep. Eugene O'Flaherty, House chairman of the joint committee on the judiciary, said there would be little support among lawmakers to offer an exemption from the state's antidiscrimination laws.

Get ready for a lawsuit claiming that the Commonwealth's requirement that Catholic Charities abide by the state's anti-discrimination laws if it wants to do business with the state is a violation of it's religious freedom. All because thirteen kids' lives were more stable, because they 13 kids were placed in loving homes.

I came across an interesting article this morning that helps place this event in a bit more perspective. Back in November, Will Saleten wrote about the Vatican's policy on gay priests, and its place within the evolution of Church teaching on homosexuality:

But in 1986, the CDF changed its tune. In its Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons, the CDF said liberals had twisted the meaning of the Declaration, applying "an overly benign interpretation … to the homosexual condition itself," as opposed to homosexual acts. The condition was the problem, said the Letter: When people "engage in homosexual activity, they confirm within themselves a disordered sexual inclination which is essentially self-indulgent."

Masquerading as a clarification, the Letter turned the Declaration upside down. On the old view, the inclination was disordered insofar as it tended toward the acts. On the new view, the acts were disordered insofar as they "confirmed" the inclination, and the inclination was "essentially" self-indulgent, regardless of its manifestation in acts.

What had happened to the CDF between 1975 and 1986? Ratzinger had taken charge of it. His name, absent from the Declaration, was on the Letter.

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The Instruction says the church "may not admit to the seminary and Holy Orders those who practice homosexuality, show profoundly deep-rooted homosexual tendencies, or support the so-called gay culture. The above persons find themselves, in fact, in a situation that gravely obstructs a right way of relating with men and women." It says a would-be priest must be turned away if he "practices homosexuality or presents profoundly deep-rooted homosexual tendencies."

Notice two things. First, deep-rooted "tendencies" are now independent and automatic grounds for dismissal, regardless of whether you "practice" homosexuality or "support" gay culture (whatever that is). Second, even if these tendencies are merely a "situation" in which you "find yourself," they "gravely obstruct" you from relating properly to men and women. Through no fault of your own, you're doomed. The Catechism's paths to perfection—self-mastery, chastity, prayer, and grace—no longer suffice. The church won't settle for your self-restraint, even with God's help.

One part of the Instruction permits ordination of priests whose gay tendencies have been "overcome at least three years before ordination." But this rule applies only to immature candidates passing through a "transitory" phase, not those with "deep-rooted" homosexuality. The policy also says it's "gravely dishonest," and therefore disqualifying, to "hide" your homosexuality to get into the priesthood. You're damned if you show it and damned if you don't.

The facile defense of Ratzinger's campaign against gay inclinations in the clergy is that the Catholic sex-abuse scandal proved these inclinations were too dangerous to tolerate. But even if you buy the argument that the abuse stemmed from homosexuality rather than pedophilia and sexual segregation—I don't—it doesn't explain why he targeted gay inclinations in 1986, long before the scandal exploded. Nor is it comforting that his Instruction applies only to priests. As he made clear 13 years ago, if homosexual tendencies are a contagious disease, the infection—and the purge—will go on.

I think Saleten gets it pretty right. Ratzinger maintains a pathological view of homosexuality: we queers are infectious pathogens in the social body. In order to heal, cure, or keep society healthy, pathogens have to be purged, gays have to be purged. It's not homosexuality that's the target, but homosexuals. It's pure punish the sinner because the sinner is the sin. Then again, those of us who've been on the receiving end of the Church's attacks have always known that the "hate the sin/love the sinner" line has been a sack of shit. Saleten demonstrates how Ratzi and the Bishops have managed to drop any pretenses and declare open war on gay folks.

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