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Russian Orthodox Church backs Vladimir Putin's ban on Americans adopting Russian children
The Guardian ^ | 12/30/2012 | Miriam Elder

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 ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; Russia
KEYWORDS: adoption; putin; russia; russianorthodox
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To: MetaThought

er. my #18, not #14


21 posted on 12/30/2012 1:50:57 PM PST by MetaThought
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To: livius

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?


22 posted on 12/30/2012 1:57:16 PM PST by john drake
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To: MetaThought

this subject is bringing trolls out from under rocks

they know all about adoption because of what they read on the internet


23 posted on 12/30/2012 2:02:24 PM PST by silverleaf (Age Takes a Toll: Please Have Exact Change)
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To: livius

Maybe Kirill, Putin’s court Patriarch, can sell his $30,000 watch and give the proceeds to improve the conditions in the Russian orphanages.


24 posted on 12/30/2012 2:08:48 PM PST by Cu Roi
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To: RitaOK

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.


25 posted on 12/30/2012 2:16:45 PM PST by Truth2012
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To: MetaThought
The lack of information here is mind-boggling. These children aren’t going to survive to adulthood with the lack of care in Russia...

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.

26 posted on 12/30/2012 2:17:56 PM PST by Navy Patriot (Join the Democrats, it's not Fascism when WE do it, and the Constitution and law mean what WE say.)
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To: Navy Patriot

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.


27 posted on 12/30/2012 2:29:13 PM PST by RitaOK ( VIVA CHRISTO REY / Public education is the farm team for more Marxists coming.)
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To: BobL

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.


28 posted on 12/30/2012 3:21:32 PM PST by The_Reader_David (And when they behead your own people in the wars which are to come, then you will know...)
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To: wonkowasright

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.


29 posted on 12/30/2012 3:27:35 PM PST by bert ((K.E. N.P. N.C. +12 .....The fairest Deduction to be reduced is the Standard Deduction)
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To: The_Reader_David

“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.


30 posted on 12/30/2012 3:31:43 PM PST by BobL (Agenda 21...Agenda 21...Agenda 21...Agenda 21...Agenda 21... (whatever the hell that is))
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To: RitaOK
Overwhelmingly, Americans who adopt Russian babies are good and decent people. Do you realize that Americans are taking in children who have suffered enormous physical and psychological problems due to alcoholic mothers?? Do you think avaricious, oligarchical, mafioso wealthy Russians are rushing to adopt these babies?? Think again.
31 posted on 12/30/2012 3:42:39 PM PST by miss marmelstein ( Richard Lives Yet!)
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To: MetaThought
I am shocked and horrified by the responses on this thread. These Russian babies are completely unwanted by Russians. They are suffering from fetal alcohol problems (sorry, I don't have the correct name for the illness) and will languish in evil, awful orphanages if not adopted. Europeans want no part of these poor kids.

With rare exceptions, these children are adopted by decent law-abiding American citizens and I'm disgusted that people would think otherwise.

32 posted on 12/30/2012 3:49:36 PM PST by miss marmelstein ( Richard Lives Yet!)
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To: jmacusa

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.”


33 posted on 12/31/2012 9:10:04 AM PST by papertyger
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To: miss marmelstein
With rare exceptions, these children are adopted by decent law-abiding American citizens and I'm disgusted that people would think otherwise.

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.

34 posted on 12/31/2012 9:31:18 AM PST by papertyger
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To: papertyger

There is a dark side to human adoption. Calling me names doesn’t change it. Grow up. And don’t bother me any further.


35 posted on 12/31/2012 1:11:12 PM PST by jmacusa (Political correctness is cultural Marxism. I'm not a Marxist.)
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To: papertyger

You’re welcome! I’m amazed that people would think Russian children are adopted by Americans who do not have their interest at heart.


36 posted on 12/31/2012 1:17:51 PM PST by miss marmelstein ( Richard Lives Yet!)
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To: jmacusa
There is a dark side to human adoption. Calling me names doesn’t change it. Grow up. And don’t bother me any further.

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.

37 posted on 12/31/2012 2:53:23 PM PST by papertyger
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To: papertyger

You need to grow up. Tell me there isn’t a tragic side to this instead of hurling insults.


38 posted on 01/01/2013 12:35:07 PM PST by jmacusa (Political correctness is cultural Marxism. I'm not a Marxist.)
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To: wonkowasright

Absolutely agreed!!! Elitist secularists should
take care of their own children before bringing Russian kids
here to this moral squalor.


39 posted on 01/04/2013 7:16:58 AM PST by eleni121 ("All Along the Watchtower" Book of Isaiah, Chapter 21, verses 5-9)
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To: SeekAndFind; wonkowasright

>>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?


40 posted on 01/15/2013 4:18:58 AM PST by TArcher
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