A Little Housekeeping at FR!
This is DAY 41 of the FReepathon! Please End it!
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Posted on 08/09/2011 10:29:01 AM PDT by schmootman
Catholic Campaign for Human Development Update – May, 2011
Extensive research by reform groups during 2009 and 2010 revealed that dozens of Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) grants were going to organizations which either directly or indirectly opposed Church teaching. An in-depth analysis of CCHD’s mission, strategies and actions, conducted in March, 2011 by the St. Gregory VII Chapter of CUF, shows that no sustainable progress has been made to reform CCHD in the last year.
We believe that CCHD’s mission statement is fundamentally flawed, and as a result, the Catholic Church is spending millions of dollars each year to undermine its own teaching regarding moral absolutes.
Objectionable CCHD grants fall into two essential groups: 1) those that support organizations which directly oppose Church teaching concerning the sanctity of life and/or heterosexual marriage, and 2) those that support such organizations more indirectly via political activity or membership in coalitions.
Beyond the problems associated with these organizations, we are appalled by the deceptiveness and lack of transparency which CCHD has demonstrated in responding to the recent criticism concerning the direction of its grants. Let us outline four aspects of this critical issue:
1) CCHD’S MISSION STATEMENT
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) website states that the CCHD’s mission is “to address the root causes of poverty in America through promotion and support of community-controlled, self-help organizations and through transformative education.” Although the website does not specifically identify these “root causes” of poverty, the selection of community-controlled, rather than Church-controlled, organizations as the preferred vehicles for addressing root causes infers that the solution to poverty in America will come from the earthly “community.” We believe that it most assuredly will not. Sin resides in “poor” communities as well as affluent communities. The belief that specific secular communities can solve the problem of poverty is an essentially Marxist notion.
2) ORGANIZATIONS WHICH DIRECTLY OPPOSE CHURCH TEACHING
At least six groups receiving grants during 2010 oppose Church teaching directly via their actions.
Two of these groups, Southwest Organizing Project (SWOP) and Intercommunity Justice and Peace Center (IJPC), were funded in 2009 and their actions were reported by reform groups at that time. SWOP continues to participate in Elev8 Chicago which sponsors pro-abortion health clinics in area schools. IJPC merely scrubbed its web site to cover up evidence of its direct support of pro-death, pro-homosexual “friends and colleagues”.
Besides SWOP and IJPC, the 2010 awards list includes at least 4 new groups who directly support positions that are counter to Church teaching. These groups are Desis Rising Up and Moving, NYC Aids Housing Network, Philadelphia Unemployment Project, and Youth United for Change. The first two of these groups endorsed a Transgender Day of Remembrance sponsored by an organization that supports the “life choices” of people who “do not choose monogamy.” The second two co- sponsored a voters’ guide that called Roe v. Wade “a framework for access to safe and legal abortion in this country based on protecting women’s health.”
3) ORGANIZATIONS WHICH INDIRECTLY OPPOSE CHURCH TEACHING
During 2009 and 2010, reform groups identified close to 60 CCHD-funded organizations that oppose Church teaching more indirectly through de facto political action and/or membership in coalitions/partnerships with anti-life, anti-marriage agendae. Although many groups in this category were defunded in 2010, other objectionable groups have been added to the recipient list, and the net improvement has been minimal at best.
Two aspects of the activities of these “indirect” groups bear examination. First, when reform groups began to publish accusations concerning CCHD funding in 2009, CCHD responded by accusing the reform groups of “McCarthyism,” especially with regard to the utilization of “guilt by association” tactics. Nevertheless, Bishop Zubik’s “Review and Renewal” document, approved in September, 2010 by the USCCB Administrative Committee, rightfully recognized that membership in anti-life, anti-marriage coalitions is indeed a cause for defunding. Quoting from the Zubik document: “CCHD funds cannot go to groups that knowingly participate in coalitions that have a part of their organizational purpose or coalition agenda, positions or actions that contradict fundamental Catholic moral or social teaching.”
At least four dozen current CCHD grantees are members of anti-Catholic coalitions including Center for Community Change, Mobilize the Immigrant Vote California, California Partnership, Health Care for America Now, National People’s Action Network, U.S. Human Rights Network and Jobs with Justice.
The second troublesome aspect of the activities of the “indirectly” problematic grantee group goes straight to the heart of the CCHD mission statement. Again, the CCHD's mission, as rubber-stamped by the Zubik Study, is "to address the root causes of poverty in America through promotion and support of community-controlled, self-help organizations and through transformative education.” The "project" that CCHD’s web site mentions first on its list of recommended CCHD efforts is "voter registration." Nothing in the Zubik document suggests that these criteria will change.
It is hard to deny that when community organizing groups in “poor” communities register voters, nearly all these voters vote for Democrats, and the Democrat Party has taken a clear, anti-Catholic, stand on the cornerstone of Catholic teaching, the sanctity of life.
Leading up to the 2008 election, national CCHD gave $7.3 million to the supposedly "non-partisan" ACORN, which observers from both major political parties believe played a major role in the 2008 Democrat landslide by registering 1.3 million voters. Whatever else might be said about the politics of community organizing groups, one of their practical effects is to elect pro-abortion Democrats.
While ACORN was eventually defunded by CCHD, at least ten supposedly “non-partisan” community organizing groups in the Gamaliel network continue to receive major national grants, as do almost two dozen groups in Saul Alinsky’s Industrial Areas Foundation network.
4) CCHD’S DECEPTION AND LACK OF TRANSPARENCY
It gives us great pain to say this, but the USCCB/CCHD reaction to accusations concerning CCHD grants has been appallingly deceptive, even arrogant.
In 2009, CCHD coordinated web site scrubbing with Center for Community Change to remove evidence of their alliance. Meanwhile, the list of 2009 grantees was removed from the USCCB web site and Bishop Morin, then the head of CCHD, declared: "Personally I think (the claims) are totally ridiculous."
When CCHD misconduct was finally addressed by the Zubik Study, problems were downplayed and blamed on internet communication and polarization. And in November, 2010, the bishops decided to proceed with that year’s CCHD collection despite the fact that they were unwilling to publish the list of earlier 2010 recipients.
Meanwhile, a reformer was fired from his directorship of CCHD in Chicago, and numerous conflicts of interest were revealed concerning CCHD leaders and Church teaching concerning moral absolutes. The most recent revelation involved the current CCHD director, Ralph McCloud, who was treasurer for the pro-abortion campaign of a Texas Senate candidate while leading CCHD.
SUMMARY
Upwards of five dozen of the 217 national CCHD grants for 2010 remain problematic, even by the standards of the Zubik study. Recent “reform” has been half-hearted at best. Moreover, the deceptive behavior and the left-leaning ideologies of CCHD’s current leaders give us little hope that reform has been embraced by USCCB. We call for a complete revamping of CCHD’s mission and strategies.
When you have this kind of money floating around corruption is bound to take place. Even in a small parish, if you don’t know where the money is going, it will go to the wrong places.
If I recall correctly, the CHD is Saul Alinsky’s baby.
Check out this RealCatholicTV video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymwguwy5BCw
bkmk
bkmk?
Sorry about that...it’s my shorthand for “bookmark”. Just a place holder to posts I like or may want to refer to at a later time.
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