Fort Worth, Texas, Feb 22, 2018 / 01:40 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Catholic bishops of Texas voiced strong support Tuesday for a Catholic organization being sued by a lesbian couple in Texas.
The couple, Fatma Marouf and Bryn Esplin, filed a complaint this week in district court in Washington against Catholic Charities of Fort Worth after being denied a request to adopt refugee children.
The couple believes they are being discriminated against on the grounds of their sexual orientation, and told the Washington Post that they hope their lawsuit results either in a policy change at Catholic Charities or in a loss of the organization’s taxpayer funding.
In a joint statement Tuesday, the Catholic bishops of Texas voiced their support for Catholic Charities of Fort Worth, which they said is in compliance both with Catholic teaching and “with all federal regulations associated with funding from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) through its Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) is carrying out the federal government’s Unaccompanied Refugee Minors (URM) and the Unaccompanied Alien Child (UC) programs.”
“Catholic Charities of Fort Worth’s International Foster Care program is an outreach that is faithful to the Church’s mission to care for the poor and vulnerable,” Bishop Michael Olson of the diocese of Fort Worth said in a statement. “This mission is entrusted to the Church by Christ.”
“Finding foster parents – and other resources – for refugee children is difficult work,” Bishop Olson added. “Catholic Charities are often the lead agent in this work. It would be tragic if Catholic Charities were not able to provide this help, in accordance with the Gospel values and family, assistance that is so essential to these children who are vulnerable to being mistreated as meaningless in society.”
According to Church teaching, the ideal and normative family situation is a married mother and father and their children.
In 2014, Pope Francis emphasized that “(c)hildren have a right to grow up in a family with a father and a mother capable of creating a suitable environment for the child’s development and emotional maturity.”
In compliance with Church teaching, Catholic Charities places children in families in which the child can experience the presence of a married mother and father.
Marouf and Esplin learned about Catholic Charities after Marouf, who directs Texas A&M’s Immigrant Rights Clinic, was invited to visit Catholic Charities of Fort Worth and learn more about their refugee programs.
Marouf said she felt “shock, disappointment, anger” after being denied the adoption, and the couple told the Washington Post they did not know of other agencies through which they could adopt refugee children.
In the bishops’ statement, Jennifer Allmon, executive director of the Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops, noted that “all couples seeking to foster in Texas can easily find a regional agency to serve them. By contacting Wendy Bagwell at 512-438-2133, or visiting https://www.dfps.state.tx.us/adoption_and_foster_care/adoption_partners/private.asp, all couples in Texas have the opportunity to serve and through the protections of HB 3859, faith based providers are welcome to serve as well.”
This case is not the first time that Catholic Charities has come under fire for reserving adoptions to a mother and a father. In 2006, Catholic Charities of Boston was forced to shut down its adoption services because of a state law barring “sexual orientation discrimination.” That same year, Catholic Charities of San Francisco was forced to close for similar reasons.
In 2010, after a law redefining marriage, the Washington, D.C. branch of Catholic Charities was forced to close its foster care and adoption services for holding the belief that children should be placed with a married mother and father.
In 2011, Catholic Charities affiliates in Illinois were forced to close after a new requirement stipulated that state money could only go to adoption services that offered those services to same-sex couples.
“In the name of tolerance, we’re not being tolerated,” Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki of the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois, said at the time.
On their website, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops says that Catholic adoption agencies should be allowed to operate according to Church teaching as a matter of religious freedom.
“Religious liberty is more than freedom of worship; it includes our ability to make our contribution to the common good of all Americans without having to compromise our faith,” the bishops noted.
“Without religious liberty properly understood, all Americans suffer, including the neediest children seeking adoptive and foster families, as well as birth parents who wish to turn to faith-based providers in order to place their children with adoptive parents.”
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This is the biggest and most important event in Catholic history if the Holy Father and all the Bishops of the entire world fulfill Mother Mary’s request to Consecrate Russia to her Immaculate Heart. If accomplished Papa Francesco would be the only Holy Father since Fatima in 1917 took place to fulfill Our Lady’s special and important request. It would a great defining moment to his entire papacy. Our Lady of Fatima pray for this intention that Pope Francis and all the Catholic Bishops of the world succeed in making Our Lady’s special request. PRAY! PRAY! PRAY!
This is the biggest and most important event in Catholic and world history if the Holy Father and all the Bishops of the entire world fulfill Mother Mary’s special request to Consecrate Russia to her Immaculate Heart. If accomplished Papa Francesco would be the only Holy Father since Fatima took place in 1917 to fulfill this Consecration. It would be a great defining moment to his entire papacy. As an Argentinian born in Buenos Aires I would be very proud of this amazing success making him an instant candidate for a Nobel Peace Prize. Our Lady of Fatima pray for this intention that Pope Francis and all the Catholic Bishops of the entire world succeed in making this special request a reality. PRAY! PRAY PRAY!
Pope Francis should do the consecration at the Cathedral in Kiev, personally; not by zoom. No helmet or bullet proof vest — just go with the armor of faith.
You should join him…in solidarity of course
Putin seems to be rejecting the Holy Spirit’s influence.
This will be a consecration of the kind…
If it works it was correct and if not then it wasn’t done properly
THIS IS MONUMENTAL!!!!!
Glen this is beyond monumental. It is seismic! Go Papa Francesco Go.
Perhaps those hyperventilating with wildly exaggerated superlatives can explain why this consecration is necessary when we have been explicitly assured by the Vatican and virtually the entire Catholic press nomenklatura for almost 40 years that the 1981, 1982, and 1984 consecrations by Saint John Paul II completely fulfilled Our Lady’s request at Fatima.
Perhaps because a desecration has intervened here since 1984.
Regardless, many promoters of Fatima magic and gnosticism will complain. Hopefully they’re also praying without ceasing for peace too.