SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (CNA/EWTN News)—Illinois Catholic Charities’ foster-care services may eventually cease to exist after a local judge refused to change his ruling that the state has the right to stop referring children to charities in four dioceses.
“If you don’t have new referrals, the system basically just atrophies,” Robert Gilligan, executive director of the Illinois Catholic Conference, told CNA on Sept. 27.
“We can’t continue to fight this in court if there are no children in the system.”
On Sept. 26, Illinois Circuit Court Judge John Schmidt reiterated his Aug. 18 ruling, which held that “no citizen has a recognized legal right to a contract with the government.”
Because of this, he explained, the state had no obligation to renew a long-standing arrangement with Catholic Charities in the dioceses, as it had annually for over 40 years.
Although the four dioceses are now seeking to appeal the decision in an appellate court and even the Illinois Supreme Court if necessary, Gilligan said that state departments are moving quickly to find other agencies to replace Catholic Charities’ foster-care services.
“I think it’s pretty clear to all of us who are really close to this issue” that the state “is moving on,” Gilligan said.
“They are actively recruiting other child-welfare agencies to provide care for children who are currently being provided care by Catholic Charities.”
The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services previously told Catholic Charities that it was ending the contract over Catholic Charities’ alleged refusal to obey the 2011 Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Unions Act, which established legal privileges for same-sex and opposite-sex couples in civil unions.
Because of the recent court decisions, faith-based agencies “are now basically barred from contracting with the state because they believe that children are best with a mother and a father,” Gilligan said.
Not only are foster parents going to “suffer” the effects of this, he added, but the “children who are currently receiving care will experience another disruption to their already fragile lives.”
Catholic Charities in the four dioceses of Belleville, Springfield, Peoria and Joliet are now seeking a stay in court that would allow children who need foster homes to still be referred to them.
“If we can’t get a court to stay these decisions in order to continue receiving children, I don’t think we’re going to be able to continue in a legal process,” he said.
Gilligan recalled that the state of Illinois has a history of dependence on faith-based organizations. He noted how Catholic, Jewish and Lutheran agencies helped the state’s once severely disorganized child-and-family-services department go from having 46,000 children in the foster-care system in 1997 to only 16,000 today.
But, ironically, Gilligan added, the same religious values that led these agencies to help in such a drastic way are now being penalized by the state.
Joan Frawley Desmond: Bishop Braxton on Belleville Diocese's Catholic Charities
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I guess I’m wondering why the State is involved in this since it is a legal process for adoption. I can think of reasons why a State should license an adoption agency but as many states are moving to push out religious orgs, maybe it’s time to rethink the role of the State here.
Boooo. This is what happens when questions of ‘rights’ become more important than people.
What can one say? The American Catholic Church has been “married” to the Democrat Party ever since Mayor Daley stole resurrected the dead in Cook County to vote for JFK. It was a bad Marriage from the start and the Democrat Party has been increasingly abusive. It is long past time to get an annulment as this Marriage was illicit from the start. There will be NO improvement unless and until this happens.
http://www.priestsforlife.org/magisterium/bishops/10-03-01-chaput.pdf
“(Catholic Charities of Springfield executive director Steven) Roach says if the state contracts are canceled the Springfield agency’s projected 2012 budget would fall from $10 million to $5 million.” Perhaps the Church will be be better positioned to fulfill its mission when it is no longer entangled with the agencies of the state.
It’s a shame that an organization that helps to get children adopted by moral, married, straight and poeple of faith to crumble in favor of placing children in the homes of homosexuals and will subject the children to a anti-god anti-nature environment surrounded by filth, disease along with the lack of appropriate rolemodeling of a mother and father. What a sad thing to do to expose children to such an unhealthy and mentally scarring situation.
The judge should be ashamed of himself and should be charged with abiding to the abuse of children!
The drunkard who has become dependent on liquor may well complain when his bottle is taken away. Charity is a personal virtue. [Remember virtue?]. If the state will not provide money, why then the faithful must cough up. Our ancestors were capable of doing this. Are we not able?
Rockefeller [the ancestor] noted that the most generous people were the poor, who helped out each other: a generosity greater than any princely gifts. The Church has become too dependent on government hand-outs. Is it not time to tear the Church from the government teats?
These children belong to the state(wards of the state). These agencies are being paid to provide services to these children(ie casemanagement), their birth families, and foster families. They can not provide services to these children without taking money from the state.
I am a fostercare provider for one of these agencies. It will be devastating to our foster children and their future. They stand to lose everything.
He who pays the piper calls the tune. When will the hierarchy and other authorities in the Church understand this?
So long as Catholic Charities accepts money to serve “in loco parentis” for the state, it must abide by the laws of the state. The law is quite clear: discrimination against Civil Union same-sex relationships is forbidden. If you don’t like it, change the law, but don’t demand that Catholic Charities be permitted to violate the law and still try to retain any shred of intellectual honesty.
A note for Gabriel ... In 1950 the total tax take [federal, state, local, & social security] was 4%; the husband brought 96 cents of each dollar home. Today that same family with 4 children will bring home only 60 cents of every dollar. Our fathers and grandfathers created wonderful Charitable institutions because THEY controlled where the money went. They picked the institutions. Today an out of control government has subverted these institutions to perverse uses. Time to defund the government so that REAL charity can prevail.
“Posted by Rilke’s Granddaughter on Wednesday, Sep 28, 2011 6:01 PM (EDT):So long as Catholic Charities accepts money to serve “in loco parentis” for the state, it must abide by the laws of the state. The law is quite clear: discrimination against Civil Union same-sex relationships is forbidden. If you don’t like it, change the law, but don’t demand that Catholic Charities be permitted to violate the law and still try to retain any shred of intellectual honesty.”
—my reply: The govt. not helping to fund Catholic Chartities because they place children by their faith (To straight, married couples) is like taking away funding to the college Nergo Fund since they don’t give scholarships to whites.
Give me a break! And don’t think adopting out kids to gay poeple is the norm, for less that half the country allows it; Alabama, Alaska, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont, and Washington
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