From yesterday’s Washington Post:
The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington said Wednesday that it will be unable to continue the social service programs it runs for the District if the city doesn't change a proposed same-sex marriage law, a threat that could affect tens of thousands of people the church helps with adoption, homelessness and health care.
Similar to the Archdiocese of Boston, who ended its adoption division within Catholic Charities after Massachusetts became the first state to allow for same-sex marriage, the Washington Archdiocese is threatening to cut some social services programs because they are fearful they may have to provide benefits to same-sex couples.
The Catholic Church is a major provider of social services in the Washington, D.C., area:
Catholic Charities, the church's social services arm, is one of dozens of nonprofit organizations that partner with the District. It serves 68,000 people in the city, including the one-third of Washington's homeless people who go to city-owned shelters managed by the church.
The church seems to be gambling with the lives of those it serves in Washington, threatening to suspend the truly noble care it offers to the least among us in order to resist a change in civil law. Christ’s call to serve the poor and marginalized is taken quite seriously by church leaders, and often the many acts of mercy and charity performed by church employees and volunteers serve as powerful witness to the Christ’s commandment to love our neighbors. How disheartening it would be for the church to disrupt this work because of a change in civil law.
Michael O'Loughlin
It's not clear if the ADW/Catholic Charities will have to shutter all services. It will probably have to stop providing adoption services. It can probably still provide shelters and assistance, but on its own dime (as I understand it, the ADW/Catholic Charities already pay for more than half of the care they provide). The diminishing or disruption of these services _is_ disheartening, but oughtn't we be laying blame at the feet of the city council in question?
And poor Archbishop Wuerl. He can't win with the trads because he won't kick pro-abortion politicians out of the communion line, and now he can't win with the progressives because he won't act in contradiction to the Code of Canon Law.
This situation with the DC City Council is less about civil rights or care for the poor than it is about the distinct roles of church and state in society. Church and state can enter into contractual relationships to provide services when their respective missions overlap, but if one party to the agreement asks too much of the other, then its time to sever the agreement. So in this case, if the DC City Council is asking the Church's agencies to conduct its business in a manner not in keeping with Church teaching, then it is appropriate for the Church agency to withdraw from the contract and allow the City Council to find another contractor to provide the service.
Let's not get all emotional about this. Nobody is requiring the Church to enter into a contract with the District, and the District doesn't have to grant contracts to the Church's social service agencies. It's a business decision that took place when the terms of the contract were amenable to both parties. Now that the terms are changing, it might be time for the contract to end.
It is precisely situations such as this that get me worried about overly-close ties between church and state. Caesar and the Church are not one in the same.
Frank S.
Michael B. - the issue here is that, after publicly and privately trying to broker a compromise, not a single jot of language has been changed. Indeed, the original bill put before the council _had_ language which created an exemption for religious institutions. The council voted to take it out. The problem here is that the Council or a significant number of the council seem to have some chip on its shoulder about the Archbishop. I am even told, and this is absolutely a rumor, that the Archbishop did, in fact, suggest Levada-like language. The council rejected it. It certainly seems like they are making an ideological statement here.
And again, if you look at what the Archdiocese has said, including Aux. Bp. Knestout's recent letter, the Church isn't shutter all it's shelters, only pointing out to the council that it simply cannot follow that law and so it can no longer take gov't money for charitable work.
They will lose, and justifiably so.
In case you haven't noticed/heard, fundies and pentecostals of any size, shape, color or stripe tend to get carried away with shouting"Jaysusssss." In fact, you COULD have accused me of being anti-Irish .... Jaysus is a close approximation of colloquial Irish for Jesus. However, we all know that Irish clergy are not fundies, right?
I wouldn't dare accuse a Prince of Holy Mother The Church of being a bible thumper. Most of them don't know enough about holy scriptures to thump it one way or the other. They are catechism thumpers, not bible thumpers.
“Catechisms sometimes take "doctrine" in a narrow and rigid sense. They aim at a propositional exactness, with a superficial likeness to logic or the empirical sciences; "starving down each term", as Newman said, "till it becomes a ghost of itself". This stripped-down and bloodless way of speaking faith - along with the fact that these propositions easily lend themselves to parrot learning - has earned catechisms a bad image ... (A catechism) is necessary because when those who have the task of teaching the faith in schools and parishes begin (mistakenly but inevitably) to perceive its content as no longer the "firm smack of doctrine" but rather as a hermeneutic circle shimmering with subtleties, they begin to abandon it.”
Kevin Nichols (former national advisor to the bishops of England and Wales on religious education), A Necessary Task (article), The Tablet, 6-23-90.
Let’s talk ecclesiastical realities: many of these Good Old Boys ARE theological fundies who are more than happy to parrot whatever line will get them their next Great Job, preferably at the Vatican, of course.