The Attack of the Church by the Left

Not surprisingly, the elected officials of San Francisco have continued their war on the Church.

A few years ago they required all organizations doing business with the city to provide benefits to homosexual partners. Unfortunately, the Church collapsed after initial and promising resistance. As noted in the San Francisco Chronicle's March 22, 2006 article:

In 1996, San Francisco adopted landmark legislation requiring city contractors to provide their employees in domestic partnerships with the same benefits extended to their married co-workers. The Archdiocese of San Francisco, which holds a variety of city contracts to provide social services through its Catholic Charities arm, balked at that requirement because of its disapproval of homosexual relationships. After much hand-wringing, closed-door negotiations and public debate, a compromise was reached that appeased city officials and allowed the church to keep within its doctrine. Under the compromise, employees of city contractors could pick any one other person in their household to receive benefits, whether a domestic partner, a spouse, blood relative or roommate.

In other words, the Church blinked and the radical homosexual groups were emboldened.

It appears that things may have changed. Recently, soon-to-be Cardinal William Levada (ironically the previous Archbishop of San Francisco), issued a statement stating that Catholic agencies should not place children for adoption in homosexual households. The Archdiocese of Boston and now San Francisco have publicly stated that they will no longer provide adoption services to homosexual couples.

Maurice Healy, spokesman for the Archdiocese of San Francisco, told The Chronicle that adoptions into gay and lesbian households "are not in sync with church teaching, and we've committed ourselves to being in sync with church teaching.''

Not surprisingly, the elected officials at San Francisco, so intent upon diversity and tolerance, immediately attacked the beliefs of the Catholic Church. Read the following passage closely, because they liberals do three things:

1. The liberals aggressively seek the local church to disobey the higher ups.
2. The liberals discredit the Church by calling it a foreign country (let us note that they do not object to foreign interference when it supports their agenda). This is
   reminiscent of the anti- Catholicism of bygone days.
3. The liberals characterize their political gains as part of the "established customs and traditions" regardless of how new or blatantly contrary it is to the established customs and traditions of our culture.

The Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a non-binding resolution that takes aim at a statement issued two weeks ago by Cardinal-elect William Levada, the former archbishop for San Francisco who now serves as second-in-command at the Vatican. Levada said Catholic agencies "should not place children for adoption in homosexual households.''

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors wasted little time chiming in, and challenged local church officials to defy the Vatican.

"It is an insult to all San Franciscans when a foreign country, like the Vatican, meddles with and attempts to negatively influence this great city's existing and established customs and traditions, such as the right of same-sex couples to adopt and care for children in need,'' the resolution stated.

Of course, there will always be some, especially in Catholic Charities, that will seek to disobey the Church, deny their place in the Church, and claim that the left's demands must be met because they are the established customs and traditions or, even more nauseating, that love calls for it. In this case, the individual was Brian Cahill who, with an Irish Catholic sounding name and the title of "executive director of Catholic charities", is very important.

Brian Cahill, executive director of Catholic Charities, asserted Monday and again Tuesday that the agency has not decided to change course and prohibit the placement of children with gays and lesbians.
"Our policies and procedures have not changed,'' Cahill said.

This in spite of the church's clear statement relating to homosexual adoptions that, "Allowing children to be adopted by persons living in such unions [homosexual] would actually mean doing violence to these children.''

We shouldn't be surprised to discover that Brian Cahill is an active homosexual who adopted a child with his homosexual partner. According to Valerie Schmalz of IgnatiusInsight:

Cahill, who has a gay son, recently promoted the director of HIV/AIDS services, Motola, to his second-in-command as director of programs and services. Motola was quoted and described favorably as a gay adoptive father in the archdiocesan newspaper, Catholic San Francisco, in a December 3, 2004, article written by the public relations person for Catholic Charities. Motola is listed on several websites as a gay father, as well as in the December 6, 2005, issue of the alternative gay newspaper, The Advocate.

Here we have the fourth tactic of the left:

4. Put your people in charge!

If you were waiting for the government to call it "hate speech" (the fifth tactic of the left) you need not wait long...

That statement, in particular, drew the scorn of the supervisors who in their resolution called it "hateful and discriminatory rhetoric (that) is both insulting and callous, and shows a level of insensitivity and ignorance which has seldom been encountered by this Board of Supervisors.''

For a good summary of what is at stake for the Catholic Church in America