UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter
Nicole Sotelo | Jan. 23, 2014 Young Voices
I have always been impressed by the Knights of Columbus’ dedication to charity. But over a period of four years, the Knights have donated more than $1.4 million of their “charitable contributions” not to the poor, but to sponsor Catholic bishops to attend medical ethics workshops that increasingly carry a political agenda.
The Knights’ sponsorship of these political workshops is listed in their annual reports as charity alongside their Coats for Kids and Food for Families programs. Charity and bishops are both seven-letter words, but I have never confused the two. Unfortunately, it seems the Knights of Columbus have.
Since the 1980s, the Knights of Columbus have sponsored biennial “workshops for bishops” under the auspices of the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia to train the Catholic hierarchy in medical ethics. Workshop topics have ranged from euthanasia to hospital ethics committees. In recent years, however, the curriculum for these workshops has increasingly focused on anti-gay politics.
For example, last year’s workshop featured the conservative psychologist and activist Thomas Finn, who presented on “Same-Sex Parenting Studies.” He is known for disputing mainstream research, telling lawmakers, and now bishops, that children who grow up with same-gender parents are “vulnerable to risks such as increased presence of sexually transmitted disease, violence, substance abuse, mental health problems, etcetera.”
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