Catholic church in India opposes adoption guidelines

NEW DELHI: Endorsing the stand taken by Kolkata-based Missionaries of Charity, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) on Friday said it was "unacceptable" to allow single parents to adopt children. It also expressed deep concern over the directive to choose six children so that one among them will be selected.
Earlier, Missionaries of Charity (MoC) announced that it was voluntarily withdrawing from the adoption process in opposition to the guidelines that allow single parents including unmarried, divorced women and gay couples to adopt children.CBCI spokesperson Father Gyanprakash Topno said that over 25 organizations across the country had expressed similar reservations against the guidelines.
If other institutions follow suit, it could spell trouble for the legal adoption process. There only 411 registered agencies with a pool of 1200 eligible children while the waitlist of parents is about 8000. MoC has 16 registered organisations with 150 children under its care. If Catholic-run children’s homes also opt out of the adoption process like MoC, the process for adoption could get longer for prospective parents.
A senior official with the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) described the move as unfortunate. "We are trying to streamline the process of adoption. The guidelines have been brought after extensive consultation and it is unfortunate that these agencies are expressing their reservations to the law of the land," the official said.
CBCI’s committee for law and public interest litigation endorsed the stand taken by the Missionaries of Charity as it "would be difficult for them to continue with the adoption centres, as some of the provisions of the new guidelines go against the well-established and widely accepted principles, set up by Mother Teresa, and the principles of ethics and human dignity."
In a statement, CBCI said, "It would be quite an unacceptable procedure to allow the single parent to adopt a child, as it involves many risks for the adopted children and defeats the very purpose of adoption. Equally unacceptable is the directive that six children to be shown to the adoptee to select one from among them. This would be tantamount to consider the children as mere commodities for preferential choice and a denial of human dignity to children."
CBCI secretary general, Archbishop Albert D’Souza, has appointed a team of legal experts to study the implications of the guidelines and suggest appropriate measures to be followed so that adoption centres run by scores of dedicated religious men and women throughout the country, will continue to function with dignity and purpose, and that the children will be adopted by those capable of bringing them up with love, care and dignity."