Bishops to oppose adoption by gays

The four Roman Catholic bishops of Massachusetts plan to seek permission from the state to exclude gay couples as adoptive parents, according to two board members of the church's largest social service agency who were briefed on the plan.

The decision follows a three-month study of the theological and practical impact of having Catholic Charities of Boston, the Boston Archdiocese's social service arm, place children with gay couples, given the Vatican's teaching that describes such adoptions are ''gravely immoral."

This decision to seek an exemption from state anti-discrimination rules pits the bishops against the 42-member board of Catholic Charities of Boston, which is made up of some of Boston's most prominent lay Catholics. The board voted unanimously in December in support of continuing to allow gay couples to adopt children.

In the past two decades, agency officials placed 13 children with same-sex couples, a tiny fraction of 720 adoptions completed by them during that time.

The outgoing chairman of the board, whose term expired earlier this month, expressed strong opposition to the bishops' plan, saying it would undercut the agency's longstanding mission to provide stable homes for as many needy children as possible.

''This is an unnecessary, unmitigated disaster for children, Catholic Charities, and the Archdiocese of Boston," said Peter Meade, who remains a board member.

If the bishops obtain an exemption, they could continue to handle adoptions while excluding gay or lesbian applicants from consideration. However, if they do not win an exemption, they either have to allow gay adoptions to continue or risk having their adoption license pulled and being barred from adoption work in the state altogether.

The bishops have hired a Boston law firm, Ropes & Gray, to explore possible legal and political strategies of opting out of gay adoptions, said the two Catholic Charities board members, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were told the plan was confidential. It is unclear if these lawyers will be the ones to initiate any legal or political efforts.

The bishops have not decided how to seek the exemption, the board members said. But the options include asking Governor Mitt Romney for an executive order, seeking court approval on grounds of First Amendment protections for religious groups, or seeking passage of a measure in the Legislature exempting them from the discrimination provision.

The two board members said the Rev. J. Bryan Hehir, president of Catholic Charities of Boston, briefed the board about the bishops' plans at a meeting last week.

John Tuerck, spokesman for Ropes & Gray, said the firm had no comment and does not identify its clients.

Edward Saunders Jr. -- executive director of the Massachusetts Catholic Conference, the public policy office for the bishops in the state -- said he cannot comment on the bishops' views on gay adoptions, other than to say the topic remains part of ''ongoing serious consideration."

In a prepared statement yesterday, he said that while the bishops want to maintain the ''good work" that Catholic Charities does in the area of adoption, they must also deal with ''substantial first amendment issues that arise from any government regulations which force Catholic social service agencies to provide services that conflict with church doctrine."

The church's role in gay adoptions became public after a Globe article in late October quoted Catholic Charities officials in Boston acknowledging they had been allowing a small number of gay adoptions to occur since 1987, in compliance with the state's anti-discrimination policies.

In early November, the four bishops of dioceses in Worcester, Springfield, Fall River, and Boston began meeting and said they would come to a decision by the end of January about whether to continue gay adoptions.

The issue of gay adoptions strikes a sensitive chord among Catholic leaders. Catholic Charities was founded more than 100 years ago, and one of its core missions has been to find adoptive homes for needy and abandoned children.

Its officials are also aware that many gay and lesbian parents have filled a much-needed role in taking in foster children, but that such placements directly conflict with Vatican pronouncements against homosexuals raising children.

State authorities say adoption agencies cannot discriminate, however. Any agency in Massachusetts that handles adoptions must obtain a state license, which prohibits them from turning down prospective parents based on sexual orientation, religion, and race, among other factors, said Constantia Papanikolaou, general counsel for the Department of Early Education and Care, which licenses all adoption agencies. If an agency knowingly discriminates, it could be stripped of its license to broker all adoptions.

''You can't have a discrimination policy," Papanikolaou said. ''It's a condition of their license."

She said her agency -- which issues licenses for adoption agencies and day-care facilities, among other duties -- does allow some exemptions to the nondiscrimination regulations. She said some day-care centers, for example, have been exempted from the regulation that every child at the center must have been vaccinated, if a child's family objects on religious grounds, as some Christian Scientist families do. She said she does not believe her department would allow an adoption agency to have a policy of discriminating against gay couples seeking to adopt.

Of the 720 adoptions handled by Catholic Charities of Boston since 1987, roughly 60 percent involve foster children with the DSS, and 40 percent are babies and children who come into the agency from individual families.

Of the approximately 430 foster children adopted through Catholic Charities during that time period, 13 were placed with same-sex couples, said Virginia Reynolds, a spokeswoman for the agency.

They were all children who had been abused or neglected and were considered hard to place because they are older or have special needs, Reynolds said.

DSS relies heavily on Catholic Charities to help it place foster children. In the last fiscal year, Catholic Charities agencies placed 28 foster children in adoptive homes, roughly one-third of all foster children who found homes through private adoption agencies, DSS statistics show.

Among the four dioceses in Massachusetts, only Catholic Charities of Boston appears to be involved in gay adoptions. An official with Catholic Charities in Worcester said last fall that the agency refers any gay or lesbian applicants to other adoption agencies, a practice that state officials said violates state laws and would be investigated. A spokesman with the Diocese of Fall River said its adoption program has not handled any such adoptions because it never had a gay applicant. The Diocese of Springfield does not offer adoption services.

A move to stop gay adoptions by Catholic Charities may also prove troubling for the philanthropic agencies that donate only to organizations meeting certain antidiscrimination rules. Catholic Charities in Boston collected nearly $7 million, roughly 20 percent of its total income in the last fiscal year, from corporations, foundations, and individual donors, said Reynolds.

Patricia Wen can be reached at wen@globe.com.