Monicks: Unleashed

Tag: church

  • Catholic adoption agency loses bid to bar gay parents from service

    I find this was a just decision.

    A Catholic adoption agency has lost its attempt to restrict its service to heterosexual couples after the Charity Commission found there was no justification for barring gay and lesbian parents.

    Leeds-based Catholic Care sought exclusion from the 2007 sexual orientation regulations and began legal action to change its constitution so it could continue helping married couples only. The commission initially refused to give its consent, but the charity won the right to appeal against its decision.

    Catholic Care told the high court that it would have to stop finding homes for children because Catholic donations would cease if it helped gay prospective parents. Mr Justice Briggs instructed the commission to reconsider the case.

    But the commission said today it could not accede to the charity’s demands, with its chief executive, Andrew Hind, saying the decision had been “complex and sensitive”.

    He said: “In certain circumstances, it is not against the law for charities to discriminate on the grounds of sexual orientation. However, because the prohibition on such discrimination is a fundamental principle of human rights law, such discrimination can only be permitted in the most compelling circumstances.

    “We have concluded that in this case the reasons Catholic Care have set out do not justify their wish to discriminate.”

    A one-line statement from the Catholic bishops of England and Wales said the welfare of children had “always been Catholic Care’s primary concern” and that it would now carefully consider the ruling.

    Catholic Care said it was very disappointed by the outcome as it would reduce the number of people recruited as adoptive parents.

    It would now consider whether there was “any other way” in which the charity could continue to “support families seeking children in need”.

    The country’s Catholic hierarchy fought hard to secure an exemption for adoption agencies and their struggle became the focus of an unprecedented papal outburst last February, which saw Benedict XVI condemn UK equality legislation.

    In a strongly worded letter to the Catholic bishops of England and Wales, the pope criticised the then-Labour government for creating “limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs”.

    He wrote: “The effect of some of the legislation designed to achieve this goal has been to impose unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs. In some respects it actually violates the natural law upon which the equality of all human beings is grounded and by which it is guaranteed.”

    Harriet Harman, who was equality minister at the time, defended the laws. The two will come face-to-face for the first time next month, when the pope visits Britain and is due to meet Harman in her role as acting leader of the Labour party.

    Their meeting will follow “courtesy calls” from David Cameron, who will enjoy 20 minutes with the pontiff, and his deputy Nick Clegg, who gets half that time, before mass at Westminster Cathedral.Other details from the full papal itinerary, released today, show there will be two joint public appearances by the archbishop of Canterbury and the pope. Relations between the two churches have been strained since the Vatican announced a new structure for disaffected Anglicans that would make it easier for them to convert to Catholicism.

    Source guardian.co.uk

  • US Catholic Church tarred with new child sex abuse scandal

    Not that this is extremely surprising, is it.

    LOS ANGELES — The Roman Catholic Church in the United States has become embroiled in a new pedophilia scandal with six women and one man alleging sexual abuse by a priest over three decades.

    The lawsuit filed Wednesday in Oakland, California accused Father Stephen Kiesle of acts of sexual abuse between 1972 and 2001, and alleged that Catholic Church officials knew of the crimes but did not stop them.

    Pedophile priest scandals and allegations of high-level cover-ups that swept Australia and the United States in 2004 have surged again since last year and rocked the Catholic Church in Europe and the United States.

    “The Catholic bishops in the United States of America and the Holy See have long facilitated the sexual molestation of children by engaging in the harboring and protection of known child molesting priests,” read a copy of the latest lawsuit obtained by AFP.

    “The bishops and Catholic hierarchs have done so to prevent the priests from being prosecuted and to avoid scandal,” the lawsuit read.

    It said church figures “have subjected Catholic families and children in these communities to known pedophiles, counting on the devotion and reverence in the communities to keep any further abuse by the priests secret.”

    The plaintiffs, six women and one man, said they were abused by Kiesle throughout childhood and adolescence, although one alleged victim, Teresa Rosson, 48, said she suffered abuse at the hand of the cleric until about a decade ago.

    The lawsuit is the latest of several to embroil the US Roman Catholic church, which has been repeatedly accused of closing its eyes to the sexual and physical abuse of children by priests and church officials.

    In response, the Vatican last month issued new rules against pedophile priests and promised an acceleration of internal investigations and extension by a decade of the statute of limitations in abuse cases.

    The church paid out 436 million dollars in 2008 for sex abuse cases involving clergy members, according to an official report last year.

    The bulk of that money — more than 374 million dollars — was paid out in settlements to victims, according to the report that tracks how well the church is implementing a charter to protect children.

    The US Catholic Church was plunged into crisis in 2002 after the Archbishop of Boston admitted he protected a priest he knew had sexually abused young members of his church.

    During a trip to the United States in 2008, Pope Benedict XVI, the leader of the world’s 1.1 billion Roman Catholics, sought pardon from victims, saying he felt deeply ashamed by the sex scandals.

    The pope himself has faced allegations that, as archbishop of Munich helped to protect predator priests.

    Source google.com

  • Atheist Chaplin Believes You Don’t Need God to be Caring, Loving People.

    This is SO wrong. Stop! Stop it! We’re not a congregation, we’re not another church! We atheists are a diverse group of people, our only common denominator is our lack of belief in any god.

    Of course we don’t need a god to be good. In fact, we are good people (or rather most of us are) because it is the right thing to do, because it feels good to be good, because it is best for our societies.

    Get a grip, people! This is the kind of thing that makes the gullible and delusional people think that atheism is a religion.

    Also, we’re not here to change other people’s minds or their belief system against their will.

    The best way to teach is by example.

    Be the kind of person you would admire, make a difference by being the best you can be, and go live your life.

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYI_wbVG92g]