reconciled to reality

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Jun 26, 2006

As the Boston archdiocese prepares to shut down its adoption services, to avoid (or, to be more accurate, to cease) placing children with same-sex "married" couples, the head of Boston Catholic Charities reflects on the sad situation:

"The overwhelming majority of the time we reconciled the differences between our roots in the Catholic Church and our mission to serve the larger society," said the Rev. J. Bryan Hehir, president of Catholic Charities of Boston. "But this time, it was irreconcilable."

From this we can reasonably conclude that:

• placing needy children with homosexual couples-- which the Vatican describes as an act of violence toward those children-- would "serve the larger society."
• generally speaking, there's some tension between being a loyal Catholic and serving the larger society.
• this tension can usually be resolved by "reconciliation"-- rather than by, say, energetic preaching of the Gospel.

Or at least, that's what the head of Boston Catholic Charities thinks.

There are some people who think that the unapologetic pursuit of Catholic social teaching is a way of serving "the larger society." (And just by the way, what society is "larger" than the universal Church?)

• Ask yourself whether the quote above could possibly have tumbled from the lips of Mother Teresa.
• Ask yourself whether Mother Teresa would be comfortable today within the framework of Boston Catholic Charities.
• Now ask yourself why they should stop with the adoption services, when they could just close down the whole Catholic Charities operation?