Catholic Church abandons social services for homeless

By Patrick MacAnaney     1/14/10 6:00pm

One of my favorite parts of going home to Washington D.C. for the holidays is the opportunity to find out what's really going on in national politics. Sure, you can watch the news or read the newspaper anywhere in this country and learn about current events. But only in D.C. are people truly immersed in the political arena.So when I went home this winter break, I was surprised to discover that one of the hottest topics had nothing to do with the White House or Congress, but rather with the intense battle brewing between the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, the City Council and the homeless. The issue? Believe it or not, gay marriage.

On Dec. 1, the D.C. City Council voted on a law legalizing same-sex marriage. As 11 of 13 council members openly supported the bill, it was expected to pass easily. The Catholic Church, per usual, had been one of the most vociferous opponents of the legislation. In November, the Conference of Catholic Bishops wrote a letter, supported by Washington Archbishop Donald Wuerl, describing same-sex marriage as "a multifaceted threat to the very fabric of society" that affects "the intrinsic dignity of every human person and the common good."

However, this approach made little progress with the council. As such, in a sinister twist, the church reverted to another tactic. Wuerl declared that if the law passed, Catholic Charities would cut off all services to the city's homeless.

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Poverty is a serious problem in Washington. As an independent district with a weak tax base and a dependence on allocations from the federal government, the city has historically had limited resources to devote to the poor. As a result, D.C. is the jurisdiction with the third-highest poverty rate, one of the highest homicide rates and one of the worst public school systems in the nation. Many of the city's poor and homeless rely on services provided by non-government organizations such as Catholic Charities, which feeds, clothes and houses low-income residents. The Catholic Church plays an important role in protecting some of society's most vulnerable individuals.

In an odd departure from its previous charitable efforts, however, the Catholic Church threatened to remove all of its aid for the homeless if the gay legislation were to pass. Fortunately, the council didn't bend, and the Dec. 1 vote, which required the Church to provide equal benefits to its gay employees and prohibited it from denying adoption services to gay couples, passed.

The Church's message, coming directly from the Vatican, has stated that such practices violate its religious ideology. Therefore, Wuerl alleged, it would not be able to sign contracts with the city government and would thus be forced to reduce many of the services it now provides to the homeless.

The homeless, of course, were furious at the threat. In the most recent edition of Street Sense, a newspaper produced and sold by the city's poor, five homeless individuals criticized the Church for abandoning them in order to send a political message about homosexuality.

The message I took from this debate was loud and clear. Even though the Catholic Church preaches social justice and charity, it is completely willing to throw the needy under a bus in order to advance its archaic religious dogma. As a former Catholic, it was hard for me to accept this. I believe in the Church's commitment to social justice and charitable causes, and I always believed that the Church prioritized curing the sick and feeding the hungry above its political doctrine. The fact that it would rather abandon D.C.'s homeless than allow gays to adopt shows how wrong I was in this assumption.

When the bill passed by an 11-2 margin, the Catholic Church issued a scathing critique arguing that its religious freedom had been jeopardized. It has since been negotiating with the D.C. city government to reach an understanding to the conflict, but no timetable has been set.

It's clear that the Archdiocese of Washington now faces a crucial choice. It can recognize that our nation is going through a period of crisis and embrace the people on the streets in desperate need of care. Or it can leave these people to suffer in order to take a stand against the gay community.

I believe the Catholic Church has every right to express its opinions regarding freedom of religion and same-sex marriage, but it is disgraceful to me that an institution that preaches love and compassion is willing to use the D.C. homeless as a pawn in this debate. This is not the Catholic Church that I grew up in.

Patrick McAnaney is a Brown College senior and Student Association president.

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