Missionaries of Charity forced to drop adoption services

Although one of Mother Teresa's strategies was to fight abortion with adoptions, the Missionaries of Charity order in India have suspended their adoption services for more than a year over objections to the country’s new adoption rules, reports Crux.

According to Veerendra Mishra, an official of India’s Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA), there are two main points of tension.

First, the Missionaries of Charity have a policy of discouraging adoption by single parents, and second, they do not generally permit adoption by couples who have earlier gone through a divorce.

Because both sorts of adoptions are permitted under new guidelines issued by CARA, the government has effectively prohibited the Missionaries of Charity from performing their previous work.

In a statement, the Missionaries of Charity said: “If we were to continue with the work set up by Mother Teresa, complying with all the provisions would be very difficult for us.”

Since August 2015, the order has closed down all of its more than 15 adoption agencies around the country.

“The new guidelines hurt our conscience,” said Sr Bressila, a member of the Missionaries of Charity, in a conversation with Crux.

“We stopped adoptions, but we will continue to follow the mission and vision of Mother Teresa,” she said. “We trust in God, who will inspire us on what to do. We will continue to look after the children, but we do not accept the new rules.”

Sr Bressila added that the Missionaries of Charity also have issues with the new practice of allowing prospective parents to choose from among six babies, as it makes children “a commodity and not a gift.”