Obeying God Rather Than Men

by Fr. Roger J. Landry - March 10, 2006

There's a dramatic scene in the Acts of the Apostles when the twelve, after having been miraculously freed from the public prison, are brought back before the Sanhedrin. There they are castigated for having disobeyed strict orders forbidding them to teach about Jesus. In response to their threats, Peter and the apostles stood up and gave a principle with no expiration date: "We must obey God above any human authority" (Acts 5:29).

The four successors of the apostles in Massachusetts, in union with the successor of St. Peter, have stepped forward to proclaim the same principle with respect to a 1993 state law that forces all adoption agencies to provide children to same sex couples. Catholic adoption agencies, like Catholic Social Services in the Diocese of Fall River and Catholic Charities in the Archdiocese of Boston, cannot do so without violating the explicit teaching of the Church.

That teaching was summarized in 2003 in a document of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, led by then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. The document, entitled "Considerations regarding proposals to give legislative recognition to unions between homosexual persons," begins by stating two principles. The first is that "moral conscience requires that, in every occasion, Christians give witness to the whole moral truth." The second refers to how this witness to the whole moral truth needs to be given in the context of same-sex unions: "In those situations where homosexual unions have been legally recognized or have been given the legal status and rights belonging to marriage, clear and emphatic opposition is a duty."

The future Pope Benedict XVI then followed those principles in presenting the clear and emphatic opposition of the Church to same-sex adoptions:

"As experience has shown, the absence of sexual complementarity in these unions creates obstacles in the normal development of children who would be placed in the care of such persons. They would be deprived of the experience of either fatherhood or motherhood. Allowing children to be adopted by persons living in such unions would actually mean doing violence to these children, in the sense that their condition of dependency would be used to place them in an environment that is not conducive to their full human development. This is gravely immoral and in open contradiction to the principle, recognized also in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, that the best interests of the child, as the weaker and more vulnerable party, are to be the paramount consideration in every case."

While the language is certainly strong, the essential principle is what Pope Benedict articulated in his recent encyclical "God is Love." Love of neighbor involves concern not just for another's material well-being, but also his or her moral and spiritual well-being. While a same-sex couple may generously and compassionately care for an adopted child's physical and emotional needs, the formational impact of the home relationship will negatively influence the child's moral and spiritual growth. Recent research bears witness to some of this influence. A 2005 study by University of Southern California professors Judith Stacey and Timothy Biblarz showed, among other things, that children raised by same sex couples were more likely to experiment with same sex relationships and be more sexually promiscuous than those brought up by heterosexual couples. Catholic adoption professionals cannot in good conscience ignore such realities.

The Massachusetts bishops are seeking an exemption to the 1993 law so that Catholic social service agencies in our Commonwealth can continue adoption work without having to place children in same-sex homes. Catholic agencies have long been praised for their professionalism and competence by adoption experts, and they already carry a sizeable percentage of the Commonwealth's adoption case load — especially in terms of the children considered most difficult to place. If an exemption is not granted and Church agencies need to pull out of adoptions altogether, it would be a tremendous injury to the common good, and especially to children waiting to be adopted.

An exemption would not mean that same sex couples would no longer be able to adopt children; they would just have to go to non-Catholic agencies. Because of the Church's opposition to same sex unions, very few same sex couples elect to approach Catholic agencies for adoption help as it is. So while denying an exemption would have little practical relevance for same sex couples, it would have dramatic consequences for the vast majority of other couples who come to the Catholic Church for adoption assistance. The biggest impact of all would be on the multitude of children placed each year by Catholic agencies, who would have to wait considerably longer to find a stable home.

In their interest, above all, the exemption should be granted.

Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.