Posted on 12/30/2012 12:46:43 PM PST by SeekAndFind
The Russian Orthodox church has been attacked for supporting a new law banning Americans from adopting Russian children, at the end of a year that saw it plagued by scandal and accusations of collusion with an increasingly authoritarian Kremlin.
Father Vsevolod Chaplin, a high-ranking priest and a spokesman for the church, said the law was "a search for a social answer to an elementary question: why should we give, and even sell, our children abroad?"
Speaking to Interfax, a state news agency, last week, Chaplin said the path to heaven would be closed to children adopted by foreigners. "They won't get a truly Christian upbringing and that means falling away from the church and from the path to eternal life, in God's kingdom," he said.
Vladimir Putin, Russia's president, signed the controversial ban into law on Friday, in retaliation for a new US law that bans Russian officials accused of human rights abuses from travelling to or having bank accounts in the United States.
The ban, which effectively targets the hundreds of thousands of children condemned to Russia's decrepit orphanage system, has been widely criticised by many Russians, including some of Putin's most loyal ministers. Chaplin later said the law should include exceptions for ill children who required medical treatment abroad.
Critics say the church's support for the law is the latest example of its submission to the Kremlin, in which it acts more like a government ministry than an independent spiritual body.
"Everything is repeating – it's like the 19th century, when the church lay completely under the state," said Valery Otstavnykh, a theologist and Kremlin critic. "Everything was calm and fine until churches started getting blown up in 1917 and they all asked, 'Why?' "
The arrest of Pussy Riot thrust the church into the spotlight this year.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
er. my #18, not #14
I think you’re right. Also, Russia had (still has?) one of the highest abortion rates in the caucasian world, so what’s the point? Russia is imploding population wise like Europe and the remainder of the West, maybe banning abortion, limiting or getting rid of contraception, promoting marriage and families might do the trick, like it did for centuries before. Nah, who cares, right?
this subject is bringing trolls out from under rocks
they know all about adoption because of what they read on the internet
Maybe Kirill, Putin’s court Patriarch, can sell his $30,000 watch and give the proceeds to improve the conditions in the Russian orphanages.
Beside that, the church there has a point. WHY would they want to sell their children to us?
These “orphanages” are often used as temporary places for children, while parents “get on their feet” and rich Americans come in and feed a human trafficking business.
It happens that parents are encouraged to give up rights for money.
People are adopting children they believe are healthy, to find out that the children have expensive, and violent mental illness.
It is really a messy business.
What lack of information from where?
When the Commies were running the USSR, our western press played down all the misery including Russian orphanages. Now that the Commies are losing ground it's time to play up the problem that the Commies created but cover for the Commies and blame the current Russian government, perfect if ya can whack Christians and Russians trying to build a better Russia, and leave the socialists out of it.
So you say all the kids will die as children, and what pro socialist progressive western MSM source do ya have for that information? The American leftist press and academia that have made the American black family so strong? How about the lifespan of those privileged Negro city youth in Chicago, Detroit, Philly? I wonder if Russia can fix the orphanages before we fix Chicago. Not.
Brilliant, we can teach these Russian kids to speak Ebonics, cook meth, and hold their pistols sideways.
I couldn’t agree more. Public schools have long been a ruse for more Marxists coming. Putin is hardly in the dark on this point, since these methods are their own catastrophic history. Why conservatives send their children to these camps, and why Republicans & and ALL their candidates ignore the indoctrination, I’m sure I don’t know.
We shall pay for our sloth and neglect and the results are all around us. Still......crickets.
Well, they could have really pissed off the American left and restricted adoptions to American families consisting of a married couple both of whom are active and professing Orthodox Christians with letters of recommendation from their parish priest and diocesan bishop.
I agree. Putin is faced with a population decrease. He needs to preserve the heritage by keeping his kids.
The fact he has a marginal increase for the first time in many years might be anomaly. He needs to be keeping his kids at home and screw the American’s who are do gooders at heart.
“Well, they could have really pissed off the American left and restricted adoptions to American families consisting of a married couple both of whom are active and professing Orthodox Christians with letters of recommendation from their parish priest and diocesan bishop.”
That would have been HYSTERICAL. As it is, I simply admire Putin for trying to keep his country from sinking into the cesspool that we and most of the West are in. If I could learn Russian, I’d consider moving there.
With rare exceptions, these children are adopted by decent law-abiding American citizens and I'm disgusted that people would think otherwise.
I don’t need to.
My wife is currently writing a series of books regarding adoptions. Her writing partner is a retired adoption social worker with thirty years experience who just left as functional head of one of the largest international adoption agencies in the country.
And I for one am nothing but disgusted by you nattering gossip traders that think your morbid fascination with pseudo-scandal qualifies as “research.”
Thank you for your words of support.
Yes, there are occasional problems. No system is perfect, especially when dealing with rational actors actively trying to game the process, but we who adopt internationally are vetted...HARD. We are literally adopting in BOTH countries, and so are meeting a markedly higher standard than ANY domestic adoption qualification.
The proof is easy to see at any gathering of the kids for our occasional cultural celebrations. A meeting of 150 of our kids winds up leaving the place looking like the Tea Party just left.
Try that with the kids of 50 random American families and see what the place looks like.
There is a dark side to human adoption. Calling me names doesn’t change it. Grow up. And don’t bother me any further.
You’re welcome! I’m amazed that people would think Russian children are adopted by Americans who do not have their interest at heart.
I never cease to be amazed by the naked conceit of those who, when soundly confuted, reach for some utterly nebulous, non-disprovable platitude in a pathetic attempt to save face, then ask never to be bothered again.
If you don't want to be bothered again, either find another place to post your asininities, or stop spouting said asininities.
You need to grow up. Tell me there isn’t a tragic side to this instead of hurling insults.
Absolutely agreed!!! Elitist secularists should
take care of their own children before bringing Russian kids
here to this moral squalor.
>>Exactly what is it that’s wrong with our adoption agencies?
Maybe the notion that those who abominate nature should be given children to pervert as well?
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