The headline screams “Catholic Church gives D.C. ultimatum” and the D.C. city council accuses the Church of threats, and blackmail and harming the poor.
If you read the Washington Post story today you’d never know that the D.C. City Council is essentially forcing the Catholic Church to close down their adoption services and the homeless shelters they run. You’d also never know that this story was about government passing laws limiting religious freedom.
But the story of the moment in the minds of journalists is how the Church pushed around the Democrats into limiting taxpayer funding of abortion so that’s the prism through which they’ll view any interaction between Catholics and elected officials for a few months.
Here’s the info on the story:
The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington said Wednesday that it will be unable to continue the social service programs it runs for the District if the city doesn’t change a proposed same-sex marriage law, a threat that could affect tens of thousands of people the church helps with adoption, homelessness and health care.
Under the bill, headed for a D.C. Council vote next month, religious organizations would not be required to perform or make space available for same-sex weddings. But they would have to obey city laws prohibiting discrimination against gay men and lesbians.
Fearful that they could be forced, among other things, to extend employee benefits to same-sex married couples, church officials said they would have no choice but to abandon their contracts with the city.
“If the city requires this, we can’t do it,” Susan Gibbs, spokeswoman for the archdiocese, said Wednesday. “The city is saying in order to provide social services, you need to be secular. For us, that’s really a problem.”
Several D.C. Council members said the Catholic Church is trying to erode the city’s long-standing laws protecting gay men and lesbians from discrimination.
The clash escalates the dispute over the same-sex marriage proposal between the council and the archdiocese, which has generally stayed out of city politics.
Generally stayed out of city politics? The city council is the attempting to manipulate the Church. City council is the one changing the rules. City council is the one telling the Church what they can or can’t do. The archdiocese is simply pointing out that if these are the rules they can no longer play. And somehow this is a threat and some kind of violation of church-state separation?
And who’s going to get hurt here? The poor and needy. Y’know the ones the Democrat City Council members are always saying they want to help. You want the truth about the Democratic Party of today, this is a microcosm. It’s not about the poor. It’s about special interest groups like homosexuals advancing their agenda. Hey, let’s face it, if the poor had money to give to politicians they’d be listened to. They obviously also wouldn’t be poor but hey that’s just math.
Catholic Charities serves 68,000 people in the city, including the one-third of Washington’s homeless people who go to city-owned shelters managed by the church. The church supplements funding for city programs with $10 million from its own coffers, says the Post.
All of that might be gone just because the city council wants to be able to tell the Church what to do. But somehow the Church is “threatening” and “involving” itself in city politics.
Council member Mary M. Cheh referred to the church as “childish” and asked “Are they really going to harm people because they have a philosophical disagreement with us on one issue?” (Philosophical?!)
Another council member, David A. Catania said he would rather end the city’s relationship with the church than give in to its demands. Peter Rosenstein of the Campaign for All D.C. Families accused the church of trying to “blackmail the city.”
Accusing the Church of childishness, issuing threats, blackmailing the city, and showing a callous willingness to harm people all while they’re passing a law that says the Church would be forced to give same-sex couples medical benefits, open adoptions to same-sex couples and rent a church hall to a support group for lesbian couples is a bit much to take.
Yes, that Church can be a real tyrant.
November 12, 2009 at 4:36 pm
Seriously, we need to stop caving to government pressure. If this goes through we need to end any contracts with the city. Then find some other way of helping the poor with no government strings attached, like maybe develop a religious order in D.C. specializing in serving the district's poor – the friars and/or sisters could run the core of the operations and recruit a third order of lay people to contribute their time and money to the projects.
Then Catholic schools in the district need to do the same (didn't they recently agree to drop any religious curriculum in order to receive government funding?).
Catholics are going to serve society regardless of whether or not we receive government money to aid our efforts. Why should we accept string-laden grants and benefits when the government has no interest in protecting the autonomy and free religious practice of Catholics (or any religious group who disagrees with it's ideology)?
Catholics in America need to revive the attitude of a healthy skepticism toward the government that this nation was founded upon.
November 12, 2009 at 11:03 pm
Crazy-the church only cares about its coffers
Harming 68,000 of God's neediest to make some futile political point
In this secular country, equal rights always prevail.
No imaginary guy in the sky will have any say in our laws
If the RCC chooses to harm people for this losign (bigoted) argument, they will only look bad (but with all the molestation charges hard to see how they can look any worse!!)
Praise God
November 12, 2009 at 11:22 pm
Anonymous.
http://www.redreef.com/growingbrain.html
November 13, 2009 at 3:20 am
I have never been so proud to say I am a recovering Catholic and having found recovery, I denounce your Church and your actions.
What in the world is wrong with helping another HUMAN BEING!!!??? And if that "being" happens to be gay, black, asian, white, male, female, child, adult, married, single, etc are we not obliged by our humanity to aid them? Apparently you think they don't deserve your help in the case of being gay but your "priests" who molested children get amnesty or moved to another parish!!
As a person of faith and spirituality, I pray for your souls and ask God to have mercy on you and to shed light on your misguided actions, hypocrisies and policies.
12 yrs of Catholic education and 10 yrs of therapy..I'm feeling much better now!
November 13, 2009 at 3:27 am
If only the Church there will do something to stop abortion at a national level then that will be more noteworthy than this charade. With limited energies and resources, one needs to pick one's battles. And the slaughter of the unborn trumps all others.
November 13, 2009 at 4:17 am
What in the world is wrong with helping another HUMAN BEING!!!???
Nothing. But you don't help an alcoholic by letting him have whiskey; you don't help a compulsive gambler by turning him loose in a casino; and you don't help someone with a distorted sexuality by telling him it's normal.
And as far as the priest-pederasty thing goes, a child is more likely to be molested by a public school employee than by a priest (or any clergyman, as other denominations have had to deal with sexually deviant men of the cloth).
November 13, 2009 at 4:22 am
We blogged on this at the Archdiocese of Washington Website: http://blog.adw.org/2009/11/dc-same-sex-marriage-bill-an-imposing-agenda/
November 13, 2009 at 4:28 am
In this secular country, equal rights always prevail.
Even the most secularized of the Founding Fathers would never, ever, Ever thought that homosexuality, much less homosexuals marrying each other, would be considered an equal right. A
No imaginary guy in the sky will have any say in our laws
Read the Declaration of Independence again: "When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them…"
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…"
So it's pretty well evident that a Guy in the Sky has a say in our country's law and governance.
but with all the molestation charges hard to see how they can look any worse!!
We're cleaning up our mess. OTOH, have you ever read GLBT "coming of age" stories? I've had the misfortune of reading a few. They usually feature a teenage boy being initiated into gay sex by an older man – usually a role model of some kind. So I guess it's okay when a coach or a relative does it, but when one Catholic priest out of 10,000 does it…
November 13, 2009 at 7:20 am
Somebody call the Dept. of Transportation; there must be a bridge collapse, because the trolls are scurrying everywhere!
"I denounce your Church"
And our Church says to you, "You are dust."
November 13, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Good heavens, our Church has been denounced by "Anonymous," what ever shall we do?!?!
November 13, 2009 at 3:15 pm
And speaking of trolls, and weren't we, I have been contemplating their function and meaning on blogs such as this one. I do think they have meaning for us, especially in noting our own reactions to them, or at least, that is how it is working for me.
I am reminded of many places in the scriptures where I am told what people will be like as they forsake God, choosing darkness rather than light. Even yesterday, as I was researching Augustine and Aquinas to try to understand a joke (yes, for me it took researching:-), I encountered Augustine's wisdom in regard to the three types of students. The type that seems to be running rampant, especially in trolldom, is the student who believes he is well-educated, but clearly is not because he is lacking any semblance of a moral foundation in relation to a loving and gracious God.
So, for me, they provide a reminder of the battle between good and evil, pure and simple. They will never agree with that and would easily and quickly scorn any such notion. Oh, well.
November 13, 2009 at 3:17 pm
What in the world is wrong with helping another HUMAN BEING!!!??? And if that "being" happens to be gay, black, asian, white, male, female, child, adult, married, single, etc are we not obliged by our humanity to aid them?
Your recovered dudgeon has blinded you to the fact that the Church has and continues to do so. She's the biggest charitable organization in the world, as a matter of fact.
While the DC City Council wants the Church to continue to do that, it also is bent on using the power of the state to force the Church to fund activities that violate Catholic teaching. With your full-throated "goodbye to all that" approval.
Be careful of cheering on the state-coerced violation of conscience–it has a way of boomeranging back around.
–Dale Prie
November 13, 2009 at 6:40 pm
Have you provoked the Anonymous posters through your rhetoric?
Discuss.
November 14, 2009 at 7:25 pm
I've been wondering about this ever since the news broke, but I haven't seen anyone address it. That is, since Washington DC is so small, won't Church services in the areas of Virginia and Maryland that are close to the boundaries of DC be able to serve DC residents (or homeless)? Doesn't that make the "threats" look a little bit different?
Even if DC were an isolated city, the Church's gotta do what the Church's gotta do when a government tries to close it down (which is what the DC council is trying to do to all traditional churches with these ordinances).
November 14, 2009 at 10:37 pm
"Several D.C. Council members said the Catholic Church is trying to erode the city's long-standing laws protecting gay men and lesbians from discrimination."
The laws aren't that old and, frankly, it's unclear what sort of things the Catholic charities would be forced to do in order not to fall foul of the law.
As for anonymous posters: By all means, support the many secular homeless shelters and charities. The more the merrier.
But don't pretend that nonreligious American people are as willing to live in poverty themselves or give up everything to serve strangers who are sometimes ungrateful and even belligerent. The charitable entrepreneurs do a great deal of good, but they also have theirs, don't they? There are several organizations (such as United Way) that have directors making a good salary. That's human nature.
But the reason that the Catholic Church is running so many charities is that there are people who take very seriously Jesus's words to the rich young man. They're giving everything away to follow him.
November 16, 2009 at 2:23 pm
I don't see the the problem. The Catholic Church has for centuries exploited the poor, persecuted homosexuals, interfered in politics and not paid tax. The Pope says its OK and the Pope is God on earth so why the fuss now?
November 16, 2009 at 4:52 pm
meilinPR,
When I lived in the area, I volunteered at a homeless drop-in in Fairfax County, VA (just outside of DC). The people who came through our doors rotated among different shelters and agencies throughout the winter (their hardest time). There were many Catholic volunteers where I worked (I was protestant at the time) and there were many churches of all denominations that banded together to meet certain needs during precarious weather conditions. The situation in DC is both sad and ridiculous – hey, I think that's a general description of DC! – but no, I don't think they will be abandoned.