An appalling lack of decency

Today's Boston Globe headline said it best:

Catholic Charities stuns state, ends adoptions

The bishops of the Archdiocese of Boston, in a snit about the state requirement that all adoption service allow for gay adoptions, has cut the Gordian knot by pulling out of the adoption business altogether!

The only things the Globe got wrong is that it's not only the state government that got the shock of its life, but many citizens as well. While the pinheads on Lake Street may think they have pulled a fast one on gays and on the state government, they have, yet again shown that they are incapable of action that doesn't damage their own interests in the bargain. And yet again, they have shown themselves incapable of moral leadership that avoids scandal to the public and damage to children.

Don't let anyone fool you. This action is all about kicking homosexuals, even if they have to step over children to do it. This action is malicious, twisted and bizarre, and shows how far from gospel love, basic decency and common sense our leaders have gone.

Catholic Charities handles 31% of the adoptions referred by the state to private agencies. That's 91 children in 2005. There were so many other solutions: 1) continue negotiating with the State legislature for an exemption, or 2) recognize publicly that there is no perfection in this world of ours or 3) re-examine Church law that creates such a mess. The gospel of the wheat and the tares (Matthew 13:24-30) comes to mind: pulling up the tares (weeds) in a field of wheat would destroy the wheat as well. So let them both grow together until the final judgment sorts them out.

But dealing thus with reality doesn't get you noticed in Rome. And we have already seen the effect that screwing children has in the eyes of the Church: a free pass or a promotion to a plum assignment in Rome. Yesterday, the Church was raping them physically; today, it rapes them institutionally.

Think what you will about gays. But to imperil children in the interest of maintaining the mirage of doctrinal purity is perverse. And contrary to the gospel.