Recently, our Catholic paper published a fantastic issue centered entirely on the Church’s consistent ethic of life. It served as a good reminder to readers that the pro-life issue encompasses more than abortion, for which I am deeply grateful. As I flipped, I was searching for the resource page for families interested in adoption or making themselves available for foster care; and it was not there.
It simply is not there.
There is a gaping hole in adoption services within the Church’s consistent ethic of life. I have heard this from hopeful adoptive parents for years, and have been personally frustrated that any hope I have entertained of enlarging our family in this way has been thwarted simply by the expense, or red tape of working through state programming.
For hundreds of years, providing care to children without families (for whatever reason) was the work of the Church. Creating opportunities for those children to be placed in loving homes was a vibrant ministry. This is no longer the case and there is a great deal of collateral damage in terms of families who dream of having children, who cannot. And children who dream of having families, who simply will age out of the system while they wait for the bureaucratic wheels to turn.
Echoes of social work classes I took back in the day have been coming to mind with frequency. There was always a tremendous emphasis placed on the baby boomers who would require resources, care, nurses, etc. in our lifetime. The current systems would experience a surge that would likely push past the breaking point of what the care industry would be able to absorb. We needed to be attuned to this, and ready to step up with creativity and awareness.
In the wake of the recent Dobb’s decision, I cannot help but feel that we are approaching a very different sort of baby boom. In a new way, it is clear that we are not prepared for the surge of needs that are about to come down the pike, but we haven’t had decades to prepare for it in the same sense. Not that the resources aren’t available, but the systems are simply not in place. Which is shameful as the current number of families in the U.S. waiting to adopt is somewhere between one and two million.
‘Good news and bad news. The good news is we have all the money we need for the project. The bad news is, it’s still in your pockets,’ as my favorite tongue-in-cheek fundraiser put it.
I wonder if you have ever considered adoption as an option? Do you know families who are? If so, you’ll likely know that US private adoptions cost somewhere in the ballpark of $40k. In many cases, the adoptive family is required to make a website advertising their eligibility as a candidate and they can wait years (YEARS) to be matched with a child. That’s if they have the resources to shell out tens of thousands of dollars to expand their family (in addition to time off, paperwork, legal fees, agency fees, etc). What about the families with the desire and space for more children in their homes for whom cost prohibits the very idea of adoption?
Mainstream media is looking to the Church as a first responder in the recent turning of the tide when it comes to abortion laws in the US. ‘What is the Church going to do now that Roe has been overturned?’ I heard in one interview. A wise Archbishop responded: ‘The Church will do what it has always done to accompany women in crisis pregnancy situations, but we cannot do it alone.’
During the pandemic, while church buildings had closed their doors, there was an important distinction being made while criticism of churches closings cropped up. ‘The Church isn’t closed–we are the Church!’ That is as true today as it was in the early days of Covid.
In other words, this change is going to ask something of all of us. If we haven’t stepped up our game to support individuals in crisis pregnancy situations already (or any crisis situation), it’s time.
“What we would like to do is change the world–make it a little simpler for people to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves as God intended them to do. And, by fighting for better conditions, by crying out unceasingly for the rights of the workers, the poor, of the destitute–the rights of the worthy and the unworthy poor, in other words–we can, to a certain extent, change the world; we can work for the oasis, the little cell of joy and peace in a harried world. We can throw our pebble in the pond and be confident that its ever widening circle will reach around the world. We repeat, there is nothing we can do but love, and, dear God, please enlarge our hearts to love each other, to love our neighbor, to love our enemy as our friend.” -― Dorothy Day
The Catholic Church holds all life sacred from conception to natural death and will advocate for life in all circumstances. However, without a major overhaul of accessible adoption options, Catholics (or anyone for that matter) are no more likely to avail themselves for the impending baby boom, no matter how pure and deep the desire to do so might be. It will simply remain out of reach. I suspect this is where the creativity of the Body of Believers is needed most urgently.
Instead of go fund me pages and yard sales, what if families could go to their parish and request financial assistance to become certified foster families, or to help fund adoptions? Creativity & awareness.
I think the good Archbishop is right about one thing, it is going to take everyone re-thinking and stepping up to support the women, men, and children most intimately affected by the Dobbs verdict who find themselves in uncharted waters; coincidentally that has a ripple effect. That might mean finding a local pregnancy center to support, accompanying families walking through new parenthood, or the emotional road of placing a child for adoption. At its core, I think living into this new era as the Body of Believers begs the question of each of us:
Why not us? Could we make room for one more?
Because at its core, that’s what love does. It makes room where there was none (think Advent). A longer table; more water in the soup. What greater witness could we offer than to open our own homes so that all would know the love of family (and that doesn’t just imply babies)? That instead of laws that are strictly pro-birth, we could embrace the all-encompassing title of pro-life. What if we resembled the shocking community of the early church that found people slack-jawed in its wake, murmuring: ‘Look how they love one another.’
There is no such thing as other people’s children. This is a reality I find myself grappling with in a new way. Maybe you do, too?
(For further inspiration, listen to The Highwomen’s Crowded Table)
I read that issue also and was surprised at the lack of articles on adoption and foster care. There is a huge waitlist and cost for adoption of infants but not many resources within the church for assistance to families wanting to pursue that option. That’s not even addressing the lack of foster families and need of those families for older kids. I looked into the ‘safe haven baby box” program and brought it up as something that could be done in Denver in response to the Dobbs decision but was met with a simple “that’s just not the culture in Denver.” I wasn’t sure how to interpret that… meaning we shouldn’t even try to give women the option? Would it overburden our already burdened down foster system with more children? I think, at it’s heart, the church, isn’t as pro-life as it proclaims. I’ve heard claims that the earliest Christians used to take in pagan infants that were going to be sacrificed. It takes a village; I agree we’re all the body of Christ from conception to natural death. Until the church embraces this reality fully, the rest of the culture won’t change.
Thanks, Stephanie. It is a tricky time to navigate next steps. I appreciate your creativity and am also frustrated by the response you received. I take heart in Dorothy’s prayer: ‘We can throw our pebble in the pond and be confident that its ever widening circle will reach around the world. We repeat, there is nothing we can do but love, and, dear God, please enlarge our hearts to love each other, to love our neighbor, to love our enemy as our friend.’