According to CNA/EWTN News, the Catholic Social Services agency announced on November 11 that it will split from the Belleville diocese with which it has been aligned since 1947 and form a new agency operating under the name of "Christian Social Services of Illinois."
Gary Huelsmann, the agency's executive director, said that the separation "is best for the children by providing for their continuity of care and allowing for the retention of the caring, dedicated and professional staff employed by the agency."
In a statement issued on the same day, the Diocese of Belleville explained that the agency was unable “to remain faithful to the moral teaching of the Catholic Church” while adhering to a civil union law enacted by the state of Illinois in June of this year.
“What you're seeing at the state level in Illinois, what you're seeing at the national level in Washington, D.C., is a consistent promulgation of policies and laws that are making it very difficult for faith-based agencies that believe that marriage is between one man and one woman,” Robert Gilligan, executive director of the Illinois Catholic Conference, told CNA.
“The message in Illinois from the state government—and increasingly from the national government—is that you (religious groups) cannot interact with the state” and receive public funds from it to assist “the most poor and vulnerable among us,” Gilligan said.
“That's a tragedy because our country has a long history of interaction with faith-based organizations for social services.”
The battle between Church-run adoption agencies and the state of Illinois has been ongoing ever since the state, which contracts out 80 percent of its adoption caseload to private agencies, decided to end all contracts with religious-based agencies that refuse to allow same-sex couples to adopt children.
A lawsuit is currently pending in which Catholic Charities organizations in several Illinois diocese are suing the state, claiming that the new civil unions law is impinging on their religious freedom.
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