Kansas archdiocese cuts ties with Girl Scouts and ends cookie sales

The archdiocese covering the Kansas City, Kan., region and much of the eastern part of the state has announced it is severing ties with the Girl Scouts and urging an end to cookie sales, citing philosophical concerns with the organization.

The Archdiocese of Kansas City said in a statement Monday that the Girl Scouts is “no longer a compatible partner in helping us form young women with the virtues and values of the Gospel.”

The archdiocese said it is switching its support to a 22-year-old, Christian-based scouting program, American Heritage Girls.

American Heritage Girls, with 1,005 troops and more than 47,000 members, has become an option for those who believe the Girl Scouts has turned too liberal and who say it has relationships with organizations that don’t share their conservative values. The Girl Scouts denies any ideological shift.

“I have asked the pastors of the Archdiocese to begin the process of transitioning away from the hosting of parish Girl Scout troops and toward the chartering of American Heritage Girls troops,” Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann said in the statement.

Naumann said pastors have the option of making that shift “quickly, or to, over the next several years, ‘graduate’ the scouts currently in the program,” and to form American Heritage Girl troops this fall.

Naumann, in a January letter to the archdiocese’s priests, also called for an end to Girl Scout cookie sales in the archdiocese, effective after the current school year ends.

The action has angered some Girl Scout leaders and parents in the archdiocese who consider the Girl Scouts a respected program and view Naumann’s move as punitive and unfair, treating girls in their troops like second-class citizens.

“This is frustrating; parents are very irritated,” Maria Walters, a former Girl Scout leader in the archdiocese and mother of two Girl Scouts, told the Kansas City Star. “I feel we should all be together as one in the community. This does nothing but divide us.

“I don’t know why you would take an organization out of a school when it provides an option for girls to feel like they’re part of a group.”

Last year, St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson urged priests to sever ties with the Girl Scouts, saying the organization promotes values “incompatible” with Roman Catholic teachings.

Carlson’s letter, which was addressed to priests, other Catholics and Scouts leaders, said the archdiocese and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops for several years have been investigating concerns about the Girl Scouts of the USA and its parent organization, the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts.

Naumann’s letter expressed concern that contraception and abortion rights were being promoted to Girl Scouts. It also objected that Scouts resources mention Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan, among others, as role models, who “do not reflect our Catholic worldview but stand in stark opposition to what we believe.”

Steinem, 83, is a feminist, journalist and political activist. Friedan, who died in 2006 at age 85, was a feminist and writer.

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