Illinois

Joel Osteen, the pastor of America’s largest church, is set to rock the U.S. Cellular Field, the home of the Chicago White Sox, with praise and worship and a message of hope on Saturday night as part of his roving, inspirational event series, “A Night of Hope.”

As America is reeling under financial insecurity, the pastor of the Houston megachurch wants to highlight the hope a loving and caring God offers, to change the perception that “God’s out to get me.”

The pastor of Lakewood Church told The Chicago Tribune Friday that the God he preaches does not have “a baseball bat to knock us down.” more >>

Catholic Charities will take on the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois in its lawsuit to reinstate state contracts dropped after the adoption services expressed a religious objection to Illinois' civil unions law.

In a preliminary hearing Monday, an Illinois judge allowed the ACLU to defend the state's decision to drop its contracts with the faith-based organization because it would not allow gay or co-habitating couples to adopt or care for a child.

The group asserts that the Catholic Charities' policy does significant harm to children in the custody of the state Department of Children and Family Services. more >>

Three adoption and foster care agencies of Catholic Charities have been joined by another influential group, Catholic Social Services, as they seek protection from compulsion to place children with gay or cohabiting couples.

The Catholic Social Services of Southern Illinois from Belleville petitioned a Sangamon County judge to let them join Catholic Charities for the Dioceses of Springfield, Peoria, and Joliet as plaintiffs in their lawsuit filed in June, Belleville agency’s legal representative Thomas More Society said in a statement Tuesday.

The suit seeks relief against efforts by the Illinois attorney general’s office and the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services to halt the Roman Catholic agencies from any further participation in state’s programs for foster care and adoption. more >>

Illinois is experiencing an explosion in civil union ceremonies as Cook County reports issuing nearly 1,000 licenses to same-sex couples eager to be joined together since the Illinois civil union law went into effect June 1. Returned licenses show that 23 percent of recipients had a religious ceremony.

The Cook County clerk's office has issued 956 civil union licenses since they first became available last month.

The county issued 831 of those licenses in June alone. The office, headed by David Orr, handed out 209 civil union licenses on June 1. The numbers of couples asking for civil unions following June 1 decreased to a steady flow of an average of 30 licenses a day, reported the Chicago Tribune. more >>

A judge in Illinois put a temporary hold on plans to end Catholic Charities' contract with the state to provide foster care services. Governor Pat Quinn believes Catholic Charities is not in compliance with the state's civil unions law because Catholic Charities refuses to place foster children in the homes of same-sex couples.

The judge seemed particularly concerned about the nearly 2,000 foster-care children that would be affected by the sudden disruption. “We're not going to be removing children from homes,” Sangamon County Circuit Court Judge John Schmidt said late Tuesday.

Catholic Charities has argued that placing children in the homes of same-sex couples, or unmarried heterosexual couples, is a violation of its religious doctrine. more >>

llinois Gov. Pat Quinn affirmed the state's decision to not renew adoption contracts with Catholic Charities, making it clear that he fully supports a new civil unions law giving homosexual couples the right to adopt children.

Gov. Quinn is standing by the state's decision to not renew contracts with the faith-based organization after it expressed a religious objection to a recently passed legislation allowing homosexuals in civil unions the right to adopt or provide foster care.

Long before the law took effect on June 1, Catholic Charities had made it clear that the law violated Catholic beliefs and went against its mission to place children with married couples rather than co-habitating individuals. more >>