Politics
Thursday March 2, 2006
See today's LifeSiteNews stories
Boston Catholic Charities Board Members Resign over Church Defence of Children
by Hilary White
BOSTON, February 27, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Seven members of the board of Catholic Charities of Boston have resigned in “outrage” over the Catholic Church’s opposition to homosexual adoption. The Massachusetts bishops are in the midst of a legal battle to have the Catholic Church exempted on grounds of religious freedom from the state law that says homosexuals must be allowed to adopt children.
In a unanimous vote in December, the 42-member board of the Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Boston refused to accede to the request by Archbishop Sean O’Malley and the Catholic Conference of Massachusetts to cease including homosexual partners as adoptive parents.
President of Catholic Charities in Boston, Rev. Brian H. Hehir, a prominent academic and social liberal, said at the time that the board’s decision to continue placing children with homosexual partners was taken in order to allow Catholic Charities to continue, within the state law, to find loving, normal families for needy children.
“If we could design the system ourselves, we would not participate in adoptions to gay couples, but we can't,” said Hehir. “We have to balance various goods.” The Catholic Church, however, has repeatedly made it clear that there is no “good” to be found in either allowing children to be placed with homosexual partners, or in lending legitimacy to the homosexual “lifestyle.” A document from the Vatican said plainly that homosexual adoption is a form of child abuse.
Now, however, the board is being more straightforward about its dedication to the homosexual agenda. Seven members of the board are resigning because, they say, the Massachusetts bishops’ opposition to homosexual adoptions, “threatens the very essence of our Christian mission.”
“(We) cannot participate in an effort to pursue legal permission to discriminate against Massachusetts citizens who want to play their part in building strong families,” the resigning board members’ statement said.
Boston’s Archbishop Sean O’Malley and Rev. Hehir met with Governor Romney who has said that he wants Catholic Charities to be able to continue doing adoptions in a way that does not conflict with Catholic principles. Romney has also said, however, that he cannot waive the state law with an executive order and doubts that legal means can be found for an exemption.
The homosexual activist organization, the Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders in Boston, the same group that successfully used the courts to have the state recognize homosexual partnerings as legal marriage, said they are poised to attack the Bishops if the state grants them an exemption.
In November, 2005, O’Malley wrote a pastoral letter in which he eloquently defended the teaching of the Church on homosexuality. He wrote, “Sometimes we are told: 'If you do not accept my behavior, you do not love me.' In reality we must communicate the exact opposite: 'Because we love you, we cannot accept your behavior.”
Boston Archdiocese Includes Gay “Couples” in Catholic Charities Adoptions
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/oct/05102405.html
Boston Archbishop Says Pro-Abortion Politicians "Shouldn't Dare Come to Communion"
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/jan/04012301.html
Back to TopSHARE THIS STORY: E-mail Print Newsvine Digg Reddit Del.icio.us Facebook
Latest Headlines
- Texas Bishop Repents Publicly for Catholic Hospital Which Was Doing Sterilizations
- Poll Shows a Solid Majority of Canadians Want Legal Protection for Unborn Children
- Interview: Bishop Explains Why a Bishop "Would Consider It a Privilege to Die to End to Abortion"
- Christian-Founded Dating Website eHarmony Forced to Cater to Homosexuals
- Italian Government Must Act Fast to Define Food and Hydration as a Human Right to Save Eluana: Prominent Italian Lawyer
- Brazilian Christian Censored and Fined for Making "Homophobic" Remarks in Book
- Grandmother's Account of Traumatizing Experience with Abortion Moves Jamaican Parliamentarians to Tears
- Bush Pushes Ahead with Regulations to Protect Doctors’ Conscience Rights
- Levant Acquitted after Republishing Letter by Pastor Previously Found to Be “Hate Speech”
- The Death of Catholic Culture and the Election of Barack Obama
- Brazilian Psychologists Prohibited from Helping Catholic Church Screen Out Homosexual Priesthood Candidates
- Letters to the Editor for Friday, November 21, 2008
- US Election Message to Catholic Bishops Part III: The Broken Window Strategy
Most Read this Week
- Italian Nuns Refuse to Kill Eluana
- Lawsuits Proliferate Demanding Proof of Obama's Natural-Born Citizenship before Electoral Vote Count
- Charleston Priest Tells Obama-Supporting Catholics to Confess before Receiving Communion Again
- Christian Prayer Group Sexually and Physically Assaulted by Homosexual Mob
- Mormons, Knights of Columbus Face Chilling Threats and More Vandalism for Prop. 8 Support
- The Coming "War" Between the Obama Administration and the Catholic Church
- Vatican Cardinal: "A New World Order is Gaining Ground"
- Arnold Schwarzenegger's Wife: I'm "a Catholic in Good Standing" But Also Pro-abortion and Pro-Homosexual
- Update: Nationwide Homosexual Anarchist Organization Behind Attack on MI Church Planning Further Disruptions
- Martin Luther King's Niece: Obama Election Heals "White Guilt" at the Cost of Life and Family
MORE NEWS: 
LifeSiteNews.com Home Page Last 10 Days Archives Special Reports
Copyright © LifeSiteNews.com. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License. You may republish this article or portions of it without request provided the content is not altered and it is clearly attributed to "LifeSiteNews.com". Any website publishing of complete or large portions of original LifeSiteNews articles MUST additionally include a live link to www.LifeSiteNews.com. The link is not required for excerpts. Republishing of articles on LifeSiteNews.com from other sources as noted is subject to the conditions of those sources.