Comments on Carpe Canem: Catholic Children's Society?

The recent collection for Plymouth Doicese Childre...

2008-05-26T08:17:00.000+01:00

The recent collection for Plymouth Doicese Childrens Society caused me to find out what's happening here. It seems in 2003 adoption work was given over to a new charity called 'Families for Children',a joint venture between the R.C.Diocese of Plymouth and the Anglicans.It received a 'start up grant from the Catholic Childrens Society (Plymouth) of £264,351.As recently as 2006, 'Families for Children' received a grant from Plymouth C.C.S. of £2000. 'Families for Children' does not discriminate against prospective adoptive parents on grounds of marital status, sexual orientation, gender etc.The Rt. Rev.Bishop Budd (Plymouth)and the Anglican Bishop of Exeter Michael Langrish are joint Presidents of 'Families for Children'.
Not sure that I want to contrib ute any of the hard earned stuff, as I don't know if its still making grants to the SORs compliant,'Families for Children'.

I've just seen Whitestone's comment, and I'd say "...

2008-05-17T18:47:00.000+01:00

I've just seen Whitestone's comment, and I'd say "hear hear" to that too!

Hello, I've just popped over from Mum6kids blog. ...

2008-05-17T18:46:00.000+01:00

Hello, I've just popped over from Mum6kids blog. When we were in our previous diocese (Clifton) my husband and I, wanting to become adopters, had some dealings with the Catholic Children's Soc. We found out that they were not averse to placing children with unmarried couples, as to not do so would "seem discriminatory" ! We contacted our (then) Bishop - he never replied. We mentioned it to our PP, who told us he'd "back us all the way" in our opposition to this policy, yet several years on, he was still putting out the collection box for them as the Crib offering. We went with the Local Authority to be approved as adopters, as we were not comfortable with going with an organisation that compromised the name Catholic. Our social worker, who was very unknowledgeable about Catholicism, went (without our knowledge, but later told us) to a CCS social worker, to ask what she thought about us - given that we'd been foolish enough at that stage to admit to going to daily Mass etc. The CCS social worker informed her that that was definitely "not normal". However, our social worker, eventually getting to know us, managed to see enough positive things in us to get us approved. We never had a child placed with us though, even though we moved and became re-approved by another Catholic Agency, where our lapsed Catholic social worker ("who wouldn't necessarily agree with all our Church teaches")did mention that we were a rare couple for the Agency to have on its books - ie a practising Catholic couple. We've withdrawn from the process now, six years on, it seems it wasn't what God wanted for us after all!! But we do feel aggreived that these agencies are taking funding from Catholics, when they are frequently not at all Catholic in their policies.
I like your blog - I shall be linking to it on mine.
God Bless.

I don't know what's happening. I just remember my ...

2008-05-17T17:24:00.000+01:00

I don't know what's happening. I just remember my deep disappointed when I heard Archbishop Vincent Nichols glibly mentioning that Catholic adoption agencies already hand over children to single gay people for adoption as though that was okay somehow.
I've seen adoption close up both as a professional and as someone who just sees families with adopted kids. Somtimes I think social services actively LOOK to put kids where they'll be the worst off and refuse to put them where they'll thrive.
God have mercy!