The Rockford diocese announced that it would halt state-funded adoption and foster-care services at Catholic Charities rather than comply with state anti-discrimination laws.
With state funding of $7.5 million, Rockford Catholic Charities handles about 350 adoption and foster-family cases in 11 counties in northern Illinois.
Officials said that the agency would terminate 58 employees.
The announcement came on May 26 at a press conferenceone day after the Illinois Senate tabled an amendment that would have carved out an exemption to the Illinois Religious Freedom Protections and Civil Unions Act.
The new law, which takes effect June 1, extends all equivocal spousal benefits available at the state level to registered same-sex partners.
For months, the Catholic Conference of Illinoisthe church's lobbying armsought an explicit exemption for religiously affiliated child-welfare agencies from providing adoption services to same-sex couples in civil unions.
Two previous amendment attempts failed.
Church officials say that their faith, or church teaching, does not allow them to place children in homes with same-sex couples and that they are in effect being "forced" out of the adoption business.
"It's an issue of conscience," said Robert Gilligan, executive director of the Catholic Conference of Illinois, according to the Associated Press.
"The law of our land has always guaranteed its people freedom of religion," said Penny Wiegert, the Rockford diocese director of communications, according to a press-conference transcript.
"Denying this exemption to faith-based agencies leads one to believe that our lawmakers prefer laws that guarantee freedom from religion," she explained. "We simply cannot compromise the spirit that motivates us to deliver quality, professional services to families by letting our state define our religious teachings."
The decision by Rockford diocese officials was not unexpected. Gilligan suggested as much earlier this month.
"There's a real possibility that we will be forced out of foster care and adoption," he told reporters at a Statehouse news conference May 4, according to the Associated Press.
However, the Chicago archdiocese had already halted its foster-care services in 2007. As the Associated Press reported, "Catholic Charities told the Chicago Tribune the decision came after a $12 million lawsuit payment caused the agency's insurer to drop its coverage." A 2001 lawsuit, settled in 2006, alleged that foster parents licensed through Catholic Charities had abused three children.
Meanwhile, officials from the Belleville, Joliet, Peoria and Springfield dioceses have not yet indicated what they will doalthough last week Gilligan said, "No diocese is going to willingly put a child in a same-sex household," according to the Associated Press.
His remark drew strong reactions from gay-rights activists and gay Catholics.
"Attempts to brand same-sex couples as unfit parents solely because they are gay sends a harmful message to LGBT youth. It signals that there is something inherently wrong in being gay or lesbian and in a same-sex committed relationship," said James L. Bennett, Midwest regional director for Lambda Legal, a national advocacy organization.
"Such a policy is not in the best interest of children and is contrary to the policy of every leading professional child welfare organization in this country," he added.
Bernard Cherkasov, CEO of Equality Illinois, said, "Gilligan's statement at last revealed what so many also suspected to be the case. That his organization cared more about enforcing its dogma than about the welfare of children in its care."
Jennifer Chrisler, executive director of the Family Equality Council, offered her perspective. "Our country is facing a child welfare crisis with 424,000 children in foster care waiting for loving, stable homes," she said. "Placement agencies have an obligation to consider the best interests of these children and welcome any qualified parent who is committed to providing a home for a child in foster care."
The Family Equality Council is a national advocacy organization for LGBT parents and children.
Marianne Duddy-Burke, executive director of Digntiy/USA, even offered to introduce Gilligan to her family.
"I invite Mr. Gilligan, or any other Catholic Charities or diocesan official, to come and talk with my kids and see how they feel about having two moms," she said.
"Come for dinner, and listen to our daughters pray for people who don't have enough to eat or homes to live in, or sit with us as we read books chosen to reinforce their self-esteem. Listen to my partner sing the girls to sleep with songs she wrote just for them. Then tell us that lesbian and gay people can't be good foster or adoptive parents," Duddy-Burke added.
Altogether, the Rockford diocese's decision to end its foster-care and adoption services also hit close to home for Chicago lesbian and theater professional Heather Schmucker. "I've always been very proud to say I was adopted through Catholic Charities [ in Pennsylvania, 34 years ago ] ," she said, adding, "I'm incredibly grateful for so many of the core values I learned growing up Catholiccompassion, fairness, generosity, service, a commitment to social justice, and a responsibility to those most vulnerable in our society."
As Schmucker explained, "What saddens me most about the Diocese of Rockford's decision is that it simply stands in opposition to those very basic values that are truly at the heart of Catholic teaching."
Attempts to reach Gilligan were unsuccessful.
Sure enough, Rockford diocesan and Illinois Catholic Conference officials may well be taking their cues from Rome. A 2003 Vatican document called gay adoptions "gravely immoral."
The document, "Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons," stated, "Allowing children to be adopted by persons living in such unions would actually mean doing violence to these children, in the sense that their condition of dependency would be used to place them in an environment that is not conducive to their full development."
However, a Catholic majority seems to disagree with the Vatican point of view. Recent polling found that 60 percent of American Catholics nationwide say same-sex couples should not be limited in their ability to adopt of foster children, according to the Public Religion Research Institute.
The Rockford diocese's decision to drop foster care and adoption services is not unusual.
Nationwide, Catholic Charities in the Boston ( 2006 ) , San Francisco ( 2006 ) , and Washington, D.C., ( 2010 ) archdioceses ended their programs rather than comply with state and city non-discrimination laws.
In Boston and San Francisco, for example, despite the Vatican's decrying of gay adoptions as "gravely immoral," Catholic Charities agencies openly acknowledged that through their programs, gay men and lesbians had adopted a small number of hard-to-place foster children.
"Children, especially those with special needs, have had very successful adoptions by caring and competent individuals and couples who also happened to be gay," said Charles Martel, a Boston-based licensed clinical social worker now in private practice.
Martel is a former Catholic Charities employee in Massachusetts where he assisted in home studies of prospective adoptive parents.
He went on to explain what happened after Catholic Charities in Boston got out of the adoption business. "Other public agencies took over these services, and have been able to provide the necessary care and support, including the successful placement of children," he said. "This is what has taken place in Massachusetts, and can certainly take place in Illinois as well."
In Washington, D.C., Catholic Charities transferred its entire foster-care program to another provider, the National Center for Children and Families, a private, nonprofit organization dedicated to serving vulnerable children.