San Francisco Catholic Charities takes new direction in adoptions

Published: 2006-08-10

SAN FRANCISCO (CNS) -- San Francisco Catholic Charities announced Aug. 2 that it would no longer be involved in the child adoption activities of home studies, family and child matching, adoptive placements or finalizations, the last formal step of the adoption process. Instead, it said, its adoption-related efforts and resources will shift to education, outreach, information-sharing and linking prospective adoptive parents to county and private adoption agencies. The shift allows the agency to continue promoting adoption without entering areas of conflict between the church's teaching against adoption by same-sex couples and civil laws requiring adoption agencies not to discriminate against such couples when placing adoptive children. San Francisco Archbishop George H. Niederauer, chairman of Catholic Charities and the Catholic Youth Organization -- the full name of the archdiocesan agency -- said in media interviews that he told board members in March that the agency could not be involved in direct adoptions, but he wished to find ways to serve the adoption community that were compatible with both Catholic moral teaching and the requirements of civil law.

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