Scottish Catholic Observer

Archbishop Philip Tartaglia (above), the representative of  Scotland’s bishops at this month’s Synod on the Family in Rome, drew on personal experience in his intervention today.

Addressing the recommendation ‘that attention be given to the importance of adoption as a means of bringing children who are not being raised by their birth parents into a loving family with a father and a mother,’ the Archbishop of Glasgow said: “I am fortunate enough to have a Catholic adoption agency in my archdiocese. This agency is called the St Margaret of Scotland Children and Family Care Society. This year St Margaret’s is celebrating its 60th anniversary.”

St Margaret’s is one of the top adoption agencies in Scotland and has won public recognition for its adoption service and for its particular speciality of finding loving  parents for children who are categorised as difficult-to-place.

“Equality legislation in Great Britain has ruled that adoption agencies must provide adoption services for same sex couples,” the archbishop added. “Because of that, sadly, some Catholic adoption agencies have been forced either to close or to disavow their Catholic identity and ethos. St Margaret’s, however, continued to operate on the principle that it would only place children in a family with a married mother and father.”

He went on to says that ‘predictably, there was a challenge from a secularist group.’

The Charity Regulator in Scotland, having received the complaint, ruled against St Margaret’s. St Margaret’s appealed, and at the appeal hearing, won a comprehensive victory which allowed the society to continue its adoption service as a work of religion with a specifically Catholic vision of the family. The legal process was, however, time consuming and expensive for the charity.

The archbishop said he used the example of St Margaret’s: “Firstly, to praise the generosity of adoptive parents who welcome a child into their lives, their family and their home;  Secondly,  to commend the work of Catholic adoption agencies for the good of children and of the family; And thirdly, to offer you a real-life example of the task of asserting freedom of religion in a modern liberal democracy, as freedom not just of worship but also of conscience and of pastoral activity.”