An English Catholic diocese will cut its ties with an adoption agency because the diocese cannot accept the government's new laws on homosexual rights. Bishop Malcolm McMahon of Nottingham said he and the trustees of the adoption agency, Catholic Children's Society, felt they had been forced into the decision by the Sexual Orientation Regulations, a law that bans discrimination against gays in the provision of goods and services.
The law would compel the diocese to place children in the care of same-sex couples.
"We have been coerced into this, I am not happy about it at all," the bishop told Catholic News Service April 18.
"The regulations have coerced the children's society into going against the church's teaching, and we don't wish to do that."
A Vatican directive issued in 2003 said it was morally wrong to place children in the care of same-sex couples.
Bishop McMahon said that the agency will try "to salvage what it does best" by merging with another adoption society.
The Nottingham agency, which finds new homes for 25 children a year, will become the third of 13 Catholic adoption agencies in the U.K. to either close or become a secular agency since laws were passed. Last July, Catholic Care in the Diocese of Leeds stopped a service that found new families for 20 children a year.
The Nottingham agency will follow the route of the Catholic agency in the Diocese of Northampton and become a secular institution with a Christian character by merging with the adoption agency of the Anglican Diocese of Southwell and Nottingham in October.
The new agency will not be formally linked to the churches and will be able to place children in the care of gay couples. There will be no more parish-based appeals for help with operating costs.
The bishop first announced that the trustees had decided to cut ties with the agency in a letter to the priests of his diocese in early April. He told them that Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor of Westminster, president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, had "attempted to bring about a political solution which would have exempted these Catholic charities from the act."
But, he added, "it rapidly became apparent to the trustees and myself that it would not be possible to comply with the legislation, follow Catholic teaching and continue to support effectively those families who have generously adopted children in the past."
"There is great sadness about this decision," he added.
The Nottingham agency was founded in 1948 by the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace. It finds couples and individuals willing to adopt and prepares them to meet the criteria for adoption. The couples are then matched with children put up for adoption by social workers.
The government pushed through laws designed to encourage greater use of adoption in 2002, and as part of the reforms gay couples were legally allowed to adopt for the first time.
The gay rights laws, introduced under the 2006 Equality Act, later stipulated that adoption agencies that rejected same-sex couples could be breaking the law.
The Catholic agencies have been given until the end of this year to comply with the regulations.
Other Catholic adoption agencies -- which together find new families for nearly 250 children a year -- are still considering ways of remaining open in spite of the regulations. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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