Posted on 06/01/2006 9:18:10 AM PDT by NYer
Know anyone with the Italian surname of Esposito or Innocenti? Most of them are descended from an orphan taken care of by the Catholic Church. For centuries, Italian cities had hospitals where abandoned babies (espositi, innocenti) were taken in and cared for, and a number of them married and passed on to their own children a family name reflecting the foundling hospital in which they grew up. Nor was it always a grim existence; a good part of Vivaldi's music was composed to be performed by girls at the Catholic orphanage in Venice where, in the early 1700s, he was a music teacher. The circumstances of orphans raised under the auspices of the Church's charity varied considerably, no doubt, but her impulse to care for parentless children and her liberty to do so was such an obvious good as to be taken for granted.
Until now.
Maggie Gallagher writes that Massachusetts's decision to impose anti-Chrstian ideological restrictions on adoption services represents a first step toward putting the Church out of the Corporal Works of Mercy business:
The question in Boston is not whether gays are going to be allowed legally to adopt. It is whether religious people who morally object to gay adoption will be allowed to help children find homes. This is not about gay adoption—it is about our fundamental commitment to religious liberty in this country.
It is a crime to run an adoption agency in Massachusetts without a license from the state. To get a license you have to agree to place children with same-sex couples. For the first time in America, Christians are being told by their government that they are not good citizens, not worthy enough to be permitted to help abandoned babies find good homes.
The Catholic Church has been tending to orphans centuries before there was such a thing as a secular state. Yet now the secular state has determined, in its wisdom, that it is the Church that risks harming the orphan by refusing to submit to gay adoption. So when this latest social experiment crashes ten or twenty years from now, who's going to be there post-disaster to pick up the pieces -- the human beings collaterally damaged in the cause of political gain? The Harvard Committee on Gender Studies? The Rainbow Sash Movement? The Lambda Legal Defence crowd?
Think again.
The Church was ancient when the Peoples' Glorious Democratic Republic of mAssachussetts was still a howling wilderness.
And unless the Day is revealed before then, the Church will be vibrant and young when the State of Massachusetts has become just a distant memory.
The Gates of Hell will not prevail against it.
Massachussetts hasn't a chance. Or a clue.
Sometimes, one reaps what one sows, and a lot of innocents suffer for these social experiments.
It is truly sad.
Mother Cabrini, pray for us!
St. Vincent de Paul, pray for us!
Mother Teresa, Pray for us!
May all the saints who worked so hard for the care of orphans look not on the evil of the government that would do such a thing, but on the needs of the poor children who will be affected and intercede mightily for their welfare.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of our death, Amen.
KAC
Pray for the immigration crisis:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1640434/posts
I don't think the Church should simply give up and get out of the adoption business. Rather, they should fight in court on Constitutional free exercise grounds.
bttt
Sounds like a law regarding the establishment of a religion, or a law prohibiting the practice thereof, hence illegal under the constitution.
If the liberals can get by with this, they can do all sorts of mischief. They can demand that Catholic hospitals do abortions. They can control the curriculae of the schools. This is in fact French style liberalism, abetted, I guess by anti-clerical liberal Catholics.
Esposito or Innocenti >>
yes to both names.
I doubt that they'd attack the bishop, but since adoptions are not handled directly by the Church but through an agency, they'd go after the agency and probably do an Elian-style raid if the agency placed the child with a non-homosexual couple.
However, I think if the agency in question can forego tax-free status and refuse to accept any government monies, they'd be pretty much free to operate as they wished. This would mean that committed Catholics would have to get out there and contribute more - heck, it might even mean that the religious orders that cared for orphans would have to revive and replace the current system of paid (and not necessarily Catholic) staff.
It's abetted heavily by people (liberal Catholics) who see the State as the source of all charity and, in fact, of everything, including morality.
This could be a good thing if it makes Catholics realize that the State is not necessarily their friend. But it's going to be really ugly and I bet we are going to see a lot of changes as a result. I believe this is just the opening shot in the battle, and that the government will probably at some point attempt to force Catholic institutions to do things that are simply unacceptable for a Catholic (euthanasia, abortion, etc.). The leftists have made feeble attempts at doing so in the past, but the acceptance of gay "marriage" and the Church's relatively ineffectual opposition to it have made them realize that they have much more power than they thought.
Missed that. The state is carefully sealing off the exits, isn't it?
No, they wouldn't. They have to have a LICENSE from the State, regardless of from whom they get funding. If they don't do what the State wants, they can't get the license.
The Church doesn't make the ultimate decision. That, in MA was made by the Judges on the Supreme Judicial Court, unless the weenie legislators finally get the cojones to allow the citizens to actually VOTE on it. They're hoping that by delaying the vote, that people will have changed their minds and not oppose it anymore because it doesn't affect them directly. However, with situations like the father in Lexington being arrested for simply questioning the curriculum of his kindergarten aged son being highly publicized, folks are beginning tu understand that it CAN affect their families even though none in their families are homosexual.
Theyre beginning to realiz that the homosexual activists are doing everything in their power to indoctrinate their children into believing that their lifestyle is wonderful and they should try it. Don't believe me? Ask about the Gay and Lesbian clubs in your local public high school. In the public high school in our town, the ONLY signs I've ever seen on the walls are the rainbow posters of the Gay and Lesbian club exhorting the kids to be 'tolerant' of their lifestyle. I wonder how the Gay and Lesbian students would react to a Christian club's posters asking for tolerance.
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