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appellate court denies stay in catholic charities case

The 4th District Appellate Court has denied a stay in the Catholic Charities case, according to Catholic Conference of Illinois information.

As of now, the Thomas More Society is planning an appeal, according to Mary Massingale, CCI director of communications.

The agencies in the Illinois dioceses of Belleville, Springfield and Joliet were awaiting the ruling from the Appellate Court regarding their foster care and adoption services.

On Oct. 19, the Thomas More Society filed a reply to the oppositions of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services and the ACLU to Catholic Charities’ earlier emergency motion, which would allow the Charities to continue foster care services. The original emergency motion for Catholic Charities asked the appellate court to stay the trial court’s order ruling against Catholic Charities and to prevent the state of Illinois from taking away the foster children under Catholic Charities’ care during their appeal.

After the original ruling in August, the Diocese of Peoria announced it would separate its foster care and adoption services from the diocesan agency and form a new separate entity to handle those services.
In the Oct. 19 filing, Catholic Charities’ attorneys point out that the DCFS is allowing Catholic Charities of the Peoria diocese to operate “business as usual” until Jan. 31, 2012 before starting a transition of the children to other agencies.

However, at a recent meeting between DCFS and Gary Huelsmann, executive director of Catholic Social Services of Southern Illinois, DCFS revealed its intentions to have the transitioning with his agency fully completed with all children removed from plaintiffs’ care and transferred to secular agencies, or religious agencies that do not share plaintiffs’ beliefs, by Nov. 30, 2011.

In his affidavit filed Oct. 19, Huelsmann said: “I know of no child welfare-based reason why our foster children must be transitioned within approximately 45 days, in view of the fact that the foster children served by Peoria’s Catholic Charities are being prepared for transitioning over approximately 105 days, and Peoria will enjoy the status quo as it existed under their FY2011 contract with DCFS.”