Catholic Social Services and Foster Care: Ideology vs. Children – Part 1

on June 14, 2021

The alternative gospel of liberation from external authority – and particularly from the past – moves forward with striking consistency in our day, destroying women’s sports, unborn children, and the crucial sexual development of children in pre-adolescence and beyond. And so it is not surprising to find this heartlessness done in the name of compassion depriving foster children of loving homes, and depriving compassionate adults of children to care for. 

A key constitutional case dealing with religious foster care, Fulton vs. City of Philadelphia, will be decided by the Supreme Court this month. Catholic Social Services (CSS) has provided children who need homes with homes for two hundred years. Fulfilling its religious duty of charity, CSS places children with married opposite sex couples, or single adults. It cannot place them with same-sex or cohabiting opposite-sex couples and still provide Christian service. This policy is opposed by the City of Philadelphia, which cancelled its contract with CSS in 2018, ending CSS’s badly needed foster care service in the city.

The case of Catholic Social Services in Philadelphia was heard by the Supreme Court on November 4, 2020, the day after the election, with CSS represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. This and subsequent articles will review the case, focusing on interviews conducted shortly after the oral arguments by the National Review Institute with Lori Windham, who argued for CSS before the Supreme Court, and Naomi Schaefer Riley of the American Enterprise Institute. Also of interest will be positions taken by various religious groups on this religious liberty case.

Windham discussed the case with Kathryn Jean Lopez of NRI in November. Windham said that the case is really about the right of people in a free society to have conflicting opinions on important issues. She recounted that a reporter called Catholic Social Services and asked about their policies on same-sex adoption and foster care. CSS indicated its belief and practice based on traditional opposite-sex marriage.  In the resulting furor the City of Philadelphia investigated all religious foster care agencies it worked with – no secular ones – and revoked Catholic Social Services’ right to place children. No same-sex couple actually asked CSS for help in finding a foster child. Lopez and Windham observed that there is thus a denial of the right to disagree with the prevailing leftist orthodoxy on sexual issues. 

Windham said that like most people, she had a limited understanding of the foster care system. She spoke of the people deeply involved in foster care, including Cecelia Paul, who passed away during the course of the case, and who cared for more than one hundred children. But because of the case, Paul spent the last part of her life unable to care for children. She said “it takes real strength” to love children who are in such a troubled situation in their lives, and to seek their reunion with their parents if possible. The children cared for “have been abused, they’ve been neglected, and … [the foster parent(s)] are willing to bring them into their homes.” She said that the ministry is “important” and “difficult.”

Lopez asked why would “anybody, as a result of politics, want to take away these resources.” She observed that “every child in the foster care system has some kind of trauma.” Windham responded that for people committed to providing foster care for children, it is not a matter of temporarily accepting a child into one’s home, but lifetime work, in which one gets to know agency social workers, and thereby acquires skill that most people don’t have in fostering. Such people show traumatized kids “that there’s someone who loves you, that is thinking of you, and that is going to be there to support you.”

Lopez remarked that the Bible has many references to widows and orphans, and Christians believe that they have “been adopted” by God. Charity toward others is simply part of being a Christian, and foster parents exemplify this to a striking extent. Is this religious commitment to charitable activity, which necessarily must be conducted by religious standards, very evident in the ongoing public discussion about foster care?

Windham said that sometimes it’s hard for people outside of a religious community to understand why people in religious communities engage in religious charity. People are more understanding of the claims to religious freedom of minority faiths. Orthodox Jews and Muslims want children of their religious background in foster care to go into homes with foster parents of the same religion. “People depend on their faith for strength.” She said that people with religious faith are “more likely to foster and adopt, and more likely to do it for longer.” She said that “burnout” is a major problem in foster care and adoption.

As an example of the denial of religious foster care, Windham pointed to a case in the state of Washington in which great grandparents were denied a foster care license because they would not agree to a hypothetical situation in which the child in their care wanted a same sex partner to sleep over, or wanted a “gender transition.” A federal court said that this denial of the right to foster was discrimination against “a particular set of people” with particular religious beliefs. The court also said that this was action against the best interest of the child, which was to live with a relative.

Lopez asked Windham what she has seen that is encouraging in foster care. Windham said it was the commitment of Catholic Social Services and foster care families to continue their work in foster care. “It’s been a hard fight, it’s been 2 ½ years now” that Catholic Social Services have been blocked from service in Philadelphia. “It’s heartening to see the courage of those who are willing to persevere.”

Windham said that three Jewish groups, Seventh-Day Adventists, Evangelicals, Muslims, Sikhs, and the Bruderhof religious community filed briefs in support of Catholic Social Services and the plaintiff, Sharonell Fulton, who uses CSS to foster children. These groups maintained that despite religious disagreements, including for some disagreement about the case itself, that religious liberty should protect disagreement about religious belief and practice in the public square. They understand that religious liberty “should be protected when it’s unpopular, that’s when we need it most.”

Lopez asked what are some of the consequences of the legal standoff regarding Catholic Charities. Windham said that there are about 250 children who cannot be placed because Catholic Social Services cannot place them. She noted a particular case in which a boy was removed from a foster mother against his and her wishes. He did not have a home, because the City of Philadelphia did not allow him to go to a woman who worked with Catholic Social Services. If it had been “any other case,” the boy would be “reunited with his foster mother.” Eventually, through great effort, the boy was reunited with this foster mother, who was then able to adopt him. However, “the trauma would not have happened,” if the city had not initially refused to allow the boy to return to her home. The city “put politics ahead of the needs of children.”

Lopez asked if city officials had any idea of how inhuman this was. Windham responded that it was “disheartening” to see the “roadblocks” the city put up. In a number of other cases, it was necessary to “get the courts involved to do the obvious thing.” Lopez asked if the public is receptive to “the more the merrier message.” Do they think that there should be “agencies gays can go to, [but] let’s have the agencies Catholics can go to?”

Windham said that there are people who are coming to a “real understanding” that people should be able to be able “to get along together in society.” Religious agencies, which are vital to foster care, should not be required to act against their religious beliefs in order to legally function. The Supreme Court seemed receptive to the observation that there had been no complaint against Catholic Social Services, making the controversy unnecessary.

Lopez pointed out that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor (who is not normally friendly to religious liberty against the sexual revolution) observed during oral arguments that one would not naturally expect a same sex couple to go to Catholic Social Services for adoption or foster care. Associate Justices Breyer and Kavanaugh were also disturbed that there had been no complaint. It shows that “people are thinking about the real human side of this story.”

Windham observed that Fulton has said she had never experienced such discrimination as she experienced when the City of Philadelphia said “no more foster placement.” For her, it was deeply personal, as a Catholic and black woman. She was in fact fired from a job because “she was spending too much time with her foster kids.”

Lopez said that “these women are doing a ministry that most people don’t even want to know about, because it’s too emotional and painful, and it reminds you of things that you hear or have had to experience in your own family life.” The stories of Paul and Fulton give the public the opportunity to see another side of the religious world, beyond the scandals which often dominate the news. This should be a place where people can agree, she said.

Windham said that “that’s exactly right.” The case shows how religious people “step up” to do the hard work. Times of tragedy and heartbreak are times “when religious communities really show what I believe are their true colors, the love and care that they have for their fellow man.” 

Subsequent articles will further explore the details of the case, and the various positions being taken on it. Here’s Part II.

  1. Comment by Dan W on June 14, 2021 at 9:36 pm

    Great article Rick!

    “Windham said that the case is really about the right of people in a free society to have conflicting opinions on important issues.”

    Absolutely.

  2. Comment by David on June 15, 2021 at 7:22 am

    The guardianship of children, like marriage, is something that is done under the auspices of the state. While private groups may be involved in these, they are under the authority of the government today, unlike the 19th century.

  3. Comment by Rick Plasterer on June 15, 2021 at 9:10 pm

    David,

    As Lori Windham pointed out, the Philadelphia municipal government clearly targeted religious belief, which is unconstitutional even under the narrow Employment Division vs. Smith definition of religious freedom. Only religious – no secular – agencies were investigated as to their policy on same-sex couple foster care, in the very reasonable belief but unconstitutional motive of attacking a specific religious belief, namely that homosexuality is sinful, or at least in some way contrary to religious doctrine.

    Rick

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