New Delhi: The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) has criticized the country’s new adoption guidelines that it says go against the principles of “ethics and human dignity.”
“It would be quite an unacceptable procedure to allow the single parent to adopt a child, as it involves many risks for the adopted children and defeats the very purpose of adoption,” the CBCI said in a statement on October 16.
The bishops’ criticism comes in the wake of the Missionaries of Charity nuns’ decision to stop adoption from its orphanages. The nuns stated on October 10 that the guidelines went against policies set by their founder Blessed Mother Teresa of Kolkata.
The federal Ministry of Women and Child Welfare introduced the guidelines in July by but their details became public only recently. They allow single, separated or divorced people to adopt from registered organizations in India.
The CBCI press release issued by its new public relations officer Father Gyanprakash Toppo said the bishops have endorsed the stand taken by the Missionaries of Charity.
The conference’s committee for Law and Public Interest Litigation that met on October 15 also found as unacceptable a directive to allow an adoptee to choose from six children. “This would be tantamount to considering children as mere commodities for preferential choice and a denial of human dignity to children,” the statement said.
The meeting presided over by CBCI Secretary General Archbishop Albert D’Souza appointed a team of legal experts to study the implications of the new guidelines and to suggest to the conference appropriate measures to help Church-managed adoption centers in the country to continue to function with dignity and purpose.
Father Toppo told The Times of India that more than 25 organizations across the country had expressed similar reservations against the guidelines.
The government says the changes are aimed at boosting the number of adoptions in India.
Thousands of children are orphaned or abandoned in India every year, but government data shows only 4,000 were legally adopted.
On Friday Sister Blesilla, the nun in charge of adoption at Missionaries of Charity, said the new guidelines had forced their hand. Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her work with the poor, sick, old and lonely in the slums of Kolkata.
“We have stopped adoption of children because of the new guidelines issued by the Indian government,” she told reporters. “Complying with all the provisions would have been difficult for us,” she said, adding the decision had been taken two months ago.
The guidelines also allow unmarried, divorced women and gay couples to adopt children.
The legal adoption process in India would face trouble if other institutions follow the Missionaries of Charity. The country has only 411 registered agencies with a pool of 1,200 eligible children while the waitlist is about 8,000. The Teresa nuns have 16 registered organizations with 150 children under their care. If Catholic-run children’s homes also opt out of the adoption process, the process for adoption could get longer for prospective parents.
A senior official with the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) described the move as unfortunate. “We are trying to streamline the process of adoption. The guidelines have been brought after extensive consultation and it is unfortunate that these agencies are expressing their reservations to the law of the land,” the official explained