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Hillary Clinton’s adoption home no more
WORLD Washington Bureau reporter Emily Belz attended last week’s National Prayer Breakfast and noted that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton discussed at length about how when she was first lady, she and Mother Teresa helped start an adoption ministry in Washington, D.C. So Emily tried to locate the Mother Teresa Home for Infant Children and made an interesting discovery:
Last Thursday Clinton described Mother Teresa “beaming about what this meant for children and their futures,” seemingly oblivious that the Mother Teresa Home for Infant Children in northwest Washington, D.C., is now defunct. She said she worked tirelessly to “cut through all the red tape,” although it appears that red tape prevented the work from continuing.
According to a pastor at the church next door to the home’s former location, the adoption ministry failed to take off because the Roman Catholic nuns who ran it weren’t allowed to care for babies without medical personnel on site. “I’m not sure the legal thing that came down upon them, but they realized they needed to expend their energies in another way,” said Maureen Freshour, who along with her husband, David, pastors Chevy Chase Baptist Church and lives nearby. Freshour has stayed in touch with the nuns from the Missionaries of Charity order who ran the home and said that the remaining three or four sisters have moved to another house in Washington, where they are ministering to the homeless.
To read Emily’s report in its entirety, click here.
back to top26 Comments to “Hillary Clinton’s adoption home no more”
I’m shocked! Just shocked! A politician not recognizing the impact of their words? Tell me it isn’t so, please someone!
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This is scandalous.
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“Medical” personnel at an orphanage isn’t “red tape.”
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There was no medical personnel in my house when my son was a baby. I ran into a friend who is a foster parent he and his wife have five children under the age of four and they don’t have medical personnel in the house. Why is it necessary to have medical personnel in the orphanage?
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Kbells – probably because of the number of children they would be caring for -
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Exactly. Such requirements are silly.
One of the stupidest requirements I faced as a foster mom was an annual three-hour class on giving medication. Now, I wasn’t listed to take medically fragile children, so this wasn’t a class on how to safely give an insulin injection. This was basic stuff like making sure you’re giving the child what was prescribed for him, that it hasn’t expired, that you’re giving the proper dose. Yes, all of this is important, but parents figure it out every day. If they don’t trust a foster parent enough to figure out that kind of basic stuff, then the foster parent shouldn’t be licensed to care for a child. And certainly to make the class three hours, and annual, was beyond absurd.
Red tape shouldn’t make it overly difficult to care for those who need help, period.
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…and we have childrenn still without homes.
Who will champion adoption? Who?
David
http://www.redletterbelievers.com
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Cheryl,
I’m certain you didnt need any training as to how to adminster medication, or how to read directions, and interactions with other meds a child would be taking – BUT there are far to many people who don’t bother to read the directions.
How often to take meds
Which medications have to be spaced
Which foods cannot be eaten either at time med is administered or at all.
Grapefruit and its juice are often times not allowed because of severe consequences.
Regular Aspirin should never be given to a person under 18 years of age.
Side effects which could become dangerous with an allergic reaction, what to look for, and when to call the doctor OR go straight to ER.
This might sound strange, but often times people, even with a so called education skim the directions, not realizing that they need to READ, and perhaps READ a second time to make sure they are doing it right.
You most certainly don’t fall under this category however, there are all too many foster parents who are not educated, and need the class in order to insure the children in their care will get the proper meds, etc.
I believe there should be a mandatory class in H.S.’s which cover these subjects – lots of young women having babies, without proper guidance as to how to do the simplest tasks.
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Victoria, I wouldn’t have had any problems at all with a one- or two-hour, one-time class. And if I were taking medically fragile children, then an annual class would make sense. But I didn’t even have any children in my care, and I had to sit through three hours of basic material. As it was, I had to record every dose of every medication given (even over-the-counter), which made a lot of sense–but simply have a one-hour class, and maybe have the required form list a one-sentence summary of proper medication handling, and even require me to sign that I’ve read it it if I have a sheet to turn in that month (in other words, if I’ve given any medication). I do think that foster parents need to be held to very high standards–they’re responsible for someone else’s children–but I felt like this was over-the-top ridiculous. (I’m pretty sure not all states have this standard; it was a Tennessee thing.)
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Hillary Clinton. Nice that she is so involved that she knew that home was now closed..NOT! I would not trust that woman as far as I could throw her. What I would’ve given to see Mother Theresa pierce the heart of this wicked woman with the truth of God.
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Cheryl as I said, I don’t believe you needed the class at all, but in order to make those who are not as educated or dedicated as you are….. they have to make the class a 3 hour class.
It’s hard to sit through classes when you know your stuff, and it’s all about covering ALL the bases for those who don’t, and might never GET IT. I understand how you must have felt.
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#4 – “Medical” personnel at an orphanage isn’t “red tape.”
You’re missing the point. It sometimes can be and is. It may be wonderful to have medical personnel on hand, but if not, it’s silly to (apparently) disallow babies from being cared for. Let good be done wherever possible.
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My only experience with orphanages is the Buckner Baptist Benevolence homes in Texas.
On site medical personnel can mean a lot.
Sounds too vague to me. Does that mean someone with an EMT basic permit? CPR card? Sounds too as if any church could locate a current or recently retired physician who would at least be on call or be on medical retainer. I would imagine an orphanage would really need not much beyond the same RN who served so admirably at our camp in Tyler Texas. For the record, I have worked in Catholic hospitals. Some of the nurses/administrators were in the Order. Sounds like Diocesan leaders expected Clinton to help and she expected the church to provide.
I think Hillary was caught in a lie on the same or greater magnitude than the “dodging sniper fire in Bosnia”. Cant she at least hire a staffer to vet her whoppers?
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Victoria is right. I had to sit through a short sale/foreclosure class on Monday, and I knew a lot of the basic stuff, but I learned a few things along the way, too, because we looked at the issues from a different perspective. It really does come down to the fact that there are some people who are not as educated or dedicated. We assume that everyone is capable even on basic things, but they aren’t. And the state has to worry about liability — it pays out millions if a mistake is made.
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Unfortunately, many of these classes become money makers for the people who put them on. That is true for a lot of different mandatory classes. Some are very good and some are just a waste of time and energy, but someone gets paid for them.
I have to agree with Cheryl, if your foster care providers are so foolish that they will not read or listen to instructions about medications, then they probably should not be caregivers at all. It shouldn’t take much of a class for that.
Perhaps this particular group just was not sold on the idea of an orphanage to battle the problems. It seems, Sawgunner, may have a point. Most camps need to get at least one nurse to come on board and they can usually find one or more volunteers to fill in.
It doesn’t look good for Hilary, at any rate, to find it closed and she not knowing, if she were so involved.
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Every school and summer camp my daughter attended conquered the bureaucratic Mt. Everest of employing a nurse and retaining a school doctor.
Faith is supposed to move mountains, but faith-based initiatives can’t run into a regulation without grinding to a full stop. “Red tape” is their constant whine, and a perpetual motion bee in Marvin Olasky’s bonnet.
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Sawgunner,
I confess that I am confused by:
As far as I can tell from the article, it sounds like the home did in fact open some 15 years ago, in 1995. The house was sold, appearantly, in 2002. The fact that Hillary’s involvement ended at some point, and that the home subsequently closed doesn’t make it false that she may have cut through red tape and helped start the home.
So what, exactly, was she lying about?
Do you have evidence that Hillary was not involved in the 1994 or 1995 time frame, in helping cut red tape to start the home? Her level of subsequent involvement would seem moot in establishing whether that claim is factual or not.
If I tell you that I started a landscaping company in 1992, the fact that I left it in 1993 to finish an MBA, and that the company subsequently folded in 1995, doesn’t make the statement about starting the company a lie. Nor is it misleading to relate the experience if I am pointing out to someone that I have some knowledge of running a (very
) small business.
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. . the home did in fact open some 15 years ago, in 1995. The house was sold, appearantly, in 2002.
Maybe the nuns received prophetic word about house prices . . . nah, it was the pesky orphanage inspectors.
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18 RoyClay,
you are quite correct. If she helped launch it and then backed away from the launch to leave day to-day operations in the (capable?) hands of the nuns, perhaps she didnt purposefully prevaricate.
I wonder if when the red tape monster began to close in on them, did the nuns approach Mrs Clinton for additional help or legal counsel? That would be a good question to ask.
I’m suspecting that the house was sold to cover pedophile priest lawsuit verdicts.
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Are we looking at a softer, kinder, gentler Hillary?
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I’m suspecting that the house was sold to cover pedophile priest lawsuit verdicts.
That’s disgusting. In contrast to some other Catholic orders, the Missionaries of Charity are not alleged to have been involved in cases of sexual abuse in the US or in any other country. The reported crimes against children are bad enough without SAWGUNNER’s irresponsible invention. His suggestion that the nuns were liable for damages undermines the nun’s ongoing work.
The true complaint against Mother Teresa has to do with her wealth, power, and co-operation with right-wing governments.
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Scroop, I confess ignorance of the various orders within the Roman Catholic church. But presumably all the tithe money winds up in the same big basket, no? You are expected to assist those wearing the same jersey as you.
I never once suggested the nuns were molesters. But perhaps the bishop or other diocese leaders confronted a huge dmg settlement and realized the property value. Adios sisters, we need that property ahora mismo!
Again, I said pedophile PRIEST lawsuits. I havent disparaged any nuns without any basis in fact for doing so.
I deem it unlikely but if there are nuns who molest they have yet to be revealed by their victims.
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#22 Okay, I’ll bite: tell us how nuns who take a vow of POVERTY can have WEALTH??!
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The Missionaries of Charity include orders of Brothers and Fathers, but are not mentioned in lists of the dozens of orders that were accused.
The dioceses and orders get sued separately and have to pay up separately or seek bankruptcy.
#24 has been asked for a thousand years, most painfully of the papacy and orders that preached the poverty of Christ. It’s a question that has led to schism and violence (and in these latter days to books by Christopher Hitchens).
The Sisters of Charity who do the work of ministry (as opposed to finance and administration) are not the brightest bulbs in Christendom, and they do live on little more than what they need to keep body and soul together, under fairly clean frocks. They chant the Rosary until they can’t think straight, and serve maggots to the homeless. Soup kitchens test the furthest extent of their skill set. They’ve probably been sued for food poisoning, or should be. I don’t think they are qualified to operate an animal rescue shelter, much less an orphanage. (I briefly volunteered.) Their primary purpose is reciting the Rosary. The bishop R.I.P would have nothing to do with them. I’d strongly advise parishes not to make facilities available to this order in the US.
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I dropped by to see if World had anything relevant – and I see this.
Kudos to Emily!
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