Paul,
Your comparison doesn't fit and doesn't reveal any inconsistency on the part of the Church. Catholic Charities withdrew from the adoption arena, because the state mandate would require it to actively participate in the actual act with which it disagreed (i.e. placing children for adoption with gay couples). In your example, there is no conflict for the Church in ministering to the souls of those in the prison system. Such action is not in any sense active participation in capital punishment.
I'm entirely with Rick in saluting Catholic Charities for its decision. People may disagree with the rationale for the decision, but the decision is ultimately an act of a religious organization placing its religious values first.
Will
Paul Finkelman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Paul Finkelman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I wonder if the Catholic Church should withdraw all support for the prison system because the Church opposes Capital punishment? It would be a shame for those on death row not to get last rites, or those in prison not to be able to talk to a priest, but at least the Church would be consistent.
Paul Finkelman
Rick Duncan wrote:
The Boston Globe has two good articles today on the decision by the Archdiocese to end its adoption services rather than submit to the government's antidiscrimination rules requiring the Church to place children with homosexual couples despite its sincerely held religious belief that ''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 human development."
Rick Duncan
Welpton Professor of Law
University of Nebraska College of Law
Lincoln, NE 68583-0902
"When the Round Table is broken every man must follow either Galahad or Mordred: middle things are gone." C.S.Lewis, Grand Miracle
"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered." --The Prisoner
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Will Esser --- Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam
Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein
Charlotte, North Carolina
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