Archdiocesan agency aids in adoptions by gays
Says it's bound by antibias laws
Despite Vatican teachings that allowing homosexuals to adopt children is ''gravely immoral," the social services agency of the Archdiocese of Boston has allowed 13 foster children to be adopted by same-sex couples in the past two decades, saying state regulations prohibit the agency from discriminating based on sexual orientation.
''If we could design the system ourselves, we would not participate in adoptions to gay couples, but we can't," said the Rev. J. Bryan Hehir, president of Catholic Charities in Boston. ''We have to balance various goods."
The 13 adoptions -- a tiny fraction of the 720 placed by Catholic Charities in that period -- took place as part of a contract with the state Department of Social Services. The children placed with the gay couples are among those most difficult to place, either because they have physical or emotional problems or they are older.
Hehir described Catholic Charities's decision to permit these adoptions as a legal accommodation in the name of a greater social good. He said if they did not comply with the state's nondiscrimination clause, they would not be able to do the state work that enables them to place hundreds of foster children in stable homes.
However, Hehir's view is not shared by everyone at Catholic Charities in Boston. Peter Meade, who is chairman of the board, said he believes that the agency should welcome same-sex couples to adopt, and not just because of a contractual requirement with DSS.
''What we do is facilitate adoptions to loving couples," he said. ''I see no evidence that any child is being harmed."
Catholic Charities's placement of children with gays and lesbians began in 1987, when the agency signed its state adoption contract, said Debbie Rambo, vice president of programs for Catholic Charities. She said the 13 adoptions were ''scattered" throughout the last 18 years, with the last one occurring this year. She said the 13 children placed with same-sex couples fared as well as those adopted by heterosexual couples.
Gays and lesbians who wish to adopt foster children can either approach DSS directly or work through one of the private agencies, such as Catholic Charities, that help the state with such placements. These agencies attempt to match prospective parents, who have gone through state-required training to prepare for adoption, with one of the hundreds of foster children ready for adoption through DSS.
Not all dioceses in Massachusetts work with gay couples. At Catholic Charities of Worcester, same-sex couples are referred to other adoption agencies, said executive director Catherine Loeffler.
DSS spokeswoman Denise Monteiro said yesterday she has never heard of any adoption agency, including Catholic Charities of Worcester Diocese, being permitted to circumvent the state's nondiscrimination policy. Monteiro said DSS would investigate the matter.
Catholic Charities organizations throughout the country run independently and are free to set their adoption rules based on the state laws that govern them, as well as the priorities of the archdiocese officials in their community.
Catholic Charities in Dallas, for instance, refers same-sex individuals seeking to adopt to other agencies, and there is no state policy that prohibits them from doing that, said its executive director, Sister Mary Ann Owens. But in San Francisco, Catholic Charities has placed a few children with same-sex couples because that proved to be the best match, said Brian Cahill, its executive director. Although California has an anti-discrimination law similar to Massachusetts, Cahill said that wasn't what influenced his agency to make the placements in gay households.
''It was in the best interests of the child, and that's the Christian Catholic operating principle to live by," he said.
He said that of the 104 children who were placed by his agency between 1999 and 2003, three were to gays or lesbians. He said he did not have more current statistics available.
Officials at several Catholic Charities offices across the country said the primary reason they have so few same-sex adoptions is because many gays and lesbians do not approach them, given the church's condemnation of homosexuality.
In recent years, adoption agencies with Jewish or Luthern affiliations have accepted applications from gays and lesbians at a far higher rate than Catholic or Methodist groups, said Adam Pertman, executive director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, a research and advocacy group, which conducted a national study of same-sex adoptions in 2003.
Pertman said it makes sense that some Catholic agencies would be willing to compromise when it comes to placing foster children with special needs: both groups face a competitive disadvantage in the world of adoption -- same-sex couples may be passed over in favor of heterosexual ones, and older children who come with physical or emotional problems are often passed over in favor of healthy babies by prospective adoptive families.
Nonetheless, these matches are still in violation of the Catholic doctrines, said C. J. Doyle, executive director of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, a conservative Catholic organization that lobbies on political and social issues. The Vatican, on its website, says that allowing homosexual couples to adopt children does ''violence" to them.
Doyle said Catholic Charities in Boston ought to have the benefit of a ''conscience clause," exempting them from having to place foster children with any gay families.
''No religious organization ought to be forced to compromise its principle as a condition of its social services," he said.
Hehir said that to his knowledge, his agency has never sought an exemption from the nondiscrimination language.
Rambo said Catholic Charities also has a separate DSS contract to conduct followup studies of all adoptions involving foster children in Eastern Massachusetts to observe the adjustments of children who are placed in same-sex families by other agencies as well.
Hehir emphasized that his agency's policy is to focus on the best interests of the children, who are often desperate for a stable home after much disruption in their lives. He said Catholic Charities had to choose between its mission of helping the maximum number of foster children possible and conforming to the Vatican's position on homosexuality.
''We were faced with an either-or situation," he said.
Patricia Wen can be reached at wen@globe.com. 