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Published: January 31, 2008

No idle talk

Archbishop says he will close Catholic Charities rather than compromise Church teaching

Like its sister organization in California did, Catholic Charities in Colorado is facing the prospect of a state law that would require it to violate Catholic teaching. But, unlike his brother bishops in California, Denver’s Archbishop Charles Chaput has said he will shut down his Church’s charitable organization rather than submit.

A bill currently before the Colorado legislature, HB 1080, seeks to add “sexual orientation” to the list of protected classes against which an organization receiving federal or state funding is forbidden to discriminate in employment. The bill provides no religious exemption and so would apply to groups like Catholic Charities, which receive government funding.

Writing in the Jan. 23 Denver Catholic Register, the archdiocesan newspaper, Archbishop Chaput said the bill “would attack the religious identity of religious nonprofits serving the wider community.” Since Catholic non-profits “play a major role in serving the needy through organizations like Catholic Charities -- in fact, Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Denver is the largest non-government human services provider in the Rocky Mountain West -- Catholics will bear a disproportionate part of the damage,” said Chaput.

The bill, said the archbishop, “would greatly hinder any Catholic entity which receives state money from hiring or firing employees based on the religious beliefs of the Catholic Church.” Though non-Catholics work for Catholic Charities,” said Chaput, the organization’s “key leadership positions … obviously do require a practicing and faithful Catholic, and for very good reasons. Catholic Charities is exactly what the name implies: a service to the public offered by the Catholic community as part of the religious mission of the Catholic Church.”

Though Colorado Catholic Charities “does not proselytize,” said Chaput, it also “has no interest at all in generic do-goodism; on the contrary, it’s an arm of Catholic social ministry. When it can no longer have the freedom it needs to be ‘Catholic,’ it will end its services.

“This is not idle talk. I am very serious,” said Chaput.

Catholic Charities does receive government funds, said Chaput; but the partnership benefits governments, which “use nonprofits like Catholic Charities is because they’re cost-effective. As a result, government gets much more for its dollar by working through Catholic Charities to reach the poor.” Catholic organizations are “glad to partner with the government and eager to work cooperatively with anyone of good will. But not at the cost of their religious identity. If Catholic groups, said Chaput, “carry part of society’s weight, then it’s only reasonable and just that they be allowed to be truly ‘Catholic’ -- or they cannot serve.”

In 2000, Catholic Charities of Sacramento filed a lawsuit to contest a California law requiring employers receiving government funds to include coverage for contraception in HMO plans that cover prescription drugs. The organization, however, complied with the law while awaiting the court’s decision. The case went to the California Supreme Court, which ruled against Catholic Charities, and, finally, the U.S. Supreme Court, which refused to hear the case in 2004.

In 2006, after it became known that the San Francisco archdiocesan Catholic Charities had facilitated adoptions by homosexual couples, Archbishop George Niederauer came up with a compromise that would allow the organization to continue in adoption work while keeping on the side of state law. Catholic Charities of San Francisco elected to put its adoption staff and financial resources in a partnership with an adoption agency that welcomes adoption by homosexuals.

© California Catholic Daily 2008. All Rights Reserved.