Local Catholic Charities agencies around the country have long provided adoption and foster care services to the neediest children.Catholic Charities agencies often take on the most difficult placements, including older, abused children and children with disabilities and special needs.When placing children with couples, Catholic Charities makes sure those children enjoy the advantage of having a mom and a dad who are married.
In 2006, Catholic Charities of Boston, which had been one of the nation's oldest adoption agencies, faced a very difficult choice: violate its conscience, or close its doors.In order to be licensed by the state, Catholic Charities of Boston would have to obey state laws barring "sexual orientation discrimination." And because marriage had been redefined in Massachusetts, Catholic Charities could not simply limit its placements to married couples.Catholic leaders asked the state legislature for a religious exemption but were refused. As a result, Catholic Charities of Boston was forced to shut down its adoption services.
Later that year, Catholic Charities San Francisco faced a similar untenable choice and was forced to end its adoption services as well.
In Washington, DC, Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Washington—which has provided support to children and families for over eighty years—had a partnership with the District of Columbia for its foster care and public adoption program.However, in 2010, a law redefining legal marriage to include two people of the same sex took effect in the District. The District then informed Catholic Charities that it would no longer be an eligible foster care and adoption partner.Why? Because, as a Catholic organization, Catholic Charities was committed to placing children with married couples so that each child would have the experience of a mother and a father.
In 2011, Catholic Charities affiliates in Illinois closed down instead of complying with a new requirement that they can no longer receive state money if they refuse to place children with persons in same-sex relationships as foster or adoptive parents."In the name of tolerance, we're not being tolerated," said Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki of the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois, a civil and canon lawyer who fought for Catholic Charities to retain its religious freedom.
