Catholic Charities Not Bending the Knee to Baal

[Rick Duncan]

I believe the Church properly sees race as irrelevant to sexuality and family formation. But homosexuality is much different from race. Here is the current Pope's position on adoption by homosexual couples:
   
  But a conflict between the Catholic bishops of Massachusetts and Beacon Hill has been evolving for several decades, as state policy makers have adopted an increasingly expansive view of gay rights, starting with a nondiscrimination measure in 1989 and culminating in 2004, when Massachusetts became the only state in the nation to legalize same-sex marriage
  .
  At the same time, the Vatican, often guided by the theologian who is now Pope Benedict XVI, became increasingly alarmed at the growing tolerance of homosexuality in the West, and in 2003 Benedict issued a doctrinal statement opposing same-sex unions and declaring that ''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." Link.
   
  Obviously, millions of reasonable people of good will believe that  Benedict XVI is acting rationally and in good faith. 
   
  My point--which focused only on the religious liberty issue-- was that when faced with a choice between obeying God or Caesar, the Church must obey God. That is what the Church did in this case. It chose to get out of the adoption ministry rather than stay in and disobey God. That is clearly the right decision--indeed the only decision--for a religious body to make.
   
  Cheers, Rick Duncan
   
  

RJLipkin at aol.com wrote:
          In a message dated 3/10/2006 11:16:20 PM Eastern Standard Time, nebraskalawprof at yahoo.com writes:
    This was the right move for the Archdiocese to make. Really, it was the only move they could make. It's sad that many children will suffer, but the Archdiocese has to obey its conscience.

  
     Isn't this precisely symmetrical to religions opposed to interracial adoption? Or is the point that opposition to interracial adoption is irrational while opposition to adoption by gays is not?  
   
  Bobby
   
  Robert Justin Lipkin
Professor of Law
Widener University School of Law
Delaware
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  Rick Duncan 
Welpton Professor of Law 
University of Nebraska College of Law 
Lincoln, NE 68583-0902
   
  
"When the Round Table is broken every man must follow either Galahad or Mordred: middle things are gone." C.S.Lewis, Grand Miracle

"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered." --The Prisoner


		
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