Mother Teresa’s charity ‘blames gay people’ after stopping all adoptions
A Catholic charity founded by Mother Teresa has chosen to close down its adoption services, rather than allow divorced couples to adopt.
Charitable group Missionaries of Charity was founded by the Catholic figure in 1950 with the aim of caring for the sick and needy, and is operating in over 130 countries around the world.
However, in India – which accounts for 17% of the world’s population – the Missionaries of Charity have come into conflict with new government rules that don’t allow them to restrict adoption based on Catholic doctrine.
The rules mean that in theory, the charity might not be able to prevent children from being adopted by single parents or remarried divorced people – and it has chosen to stop all adoptions instead.
According to NPR, Sister Amala told local media: “The new guidelines hurt our conscience. They are certainly not for religious people like us.
“What if the single parent who we give our baby [to] turns out to be gay or lesbian? What security or moral upbringing will these children get? Our rules only allow married couples to adopt.”
The charity’s claim is surprising, given that homosexuality was re-criminalised in India two years ago, and same-sex adoption remains banned.
The country’s Supreme Court opted to re-enact a colonial-era anti-gay law in December 2013.
The re-instated Section 377 of India’s penal code bans ‘sex against the order of nature’, which is widely interpreted to mean gay sex.
