SF Catholic Charities official is gay adoptive parent

SF Catholic Charities official is gay adoptive parent

San Francisco, Mar. 21 (CWNews.com) - The controversy over Catholic agencies' involvement in same-sex adoptions has taken a new turn, with a report that the chief administrative officer of Catholic Charities in the San Francisco archdiocese is an openly homosexual man with an adopted daughter.

Writing on the Ignatius Insight internet site, Valerie Schmalz notes that Glenn Motola, the director of programs for Catholic Charities in San Francisco, is openly gay-- as are at least four members of the Catholic Charities board. Motola has been identified as a gay adoptive father in the archdiocesan newspaper, Catholic San Francisco, as well as in the gay publication, The Advocate.

Archbishop George Niederauer, the newly installed head of the San Francisco archdiocese, announced last week that Catholic Charities must stop placing children for adoption by same-sex couples. It is not yet clear whether the San Francisco office of Catholic Charities, like its counterpart in Boston, will pull out of the adoption business rather than risk a legal confrontation in light of anti-discrimination laws that require adoption agencies to give equal treatment to homosexual couples.

Archbishop Niederauer's policy decision came after a message from Archbishop William Levada, the prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, indicated that Catholic agencies cannot be involved in same-sex adoptions. Ironically, Archbishop Levada had allowed Catholic Charities to facilitate same-sex adoptions during his term as the Archbishop of San Francisco.