Catholic Campaign for Human Development's Ties Pro-Abortion Group Blasted

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LifeNews.com Note: Deal W. Hudson is the director of the Morley Institute for Church & Culture and InsideCatholic.com, and is the author of Onward, Christian Soldiers: The Growing Political Power of Catholics and Evangelicals in the United States (Simon and Schuster).

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More startling evidence has been unearthed about the Catholic Campaign for Human development that shows a disturbing pattern of cooperation between the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and groups that advocate abortion and same-sex marriage.

Two reports, released yesterday by the American Life League (ALL) and Bellarmine Veritas Ministry (BVM), reveal that the Center for Community Change (CCC), an organization recommended for support by the USCCB, has consistently taken positions opposed to the bishops' teachings on abortion, marriage, contraception, and sexuality.

Our bishops tell us to "lend our support" to CCC. Here is only a partial list of what these reports have revealed about the Center for Community Change:

1. CCC's executive director, Deepak Bhargava, states that they are fighting for "lifting restrictions on women's access to health services." (Bhargava was also a featured speaker hosted by the USCCB at a three-day conference.)

2. CCC joined the "Stop Stupak" coalition through its "Campaign for Community Change" arm, explaining, "Of course, no issue is more critical to women's economic opportunity than the ability to choose when and under what personal circumstances to raise children."

3. CCC is a member of the National Coalition for Immigrant Women's Rights (NCIWR). NCIWR requires all members to sign an agreement supporting, among other things, "Reproductive health care coverage financed through public funds provided to all immigrant women regardless of legal and economic status," as well as "equitable access to confidential and non-coercive family planning services and contraceptive equity."

4. Sean Thomas-Brietfield, Director of CCC's Taproots Project, wrote an article promoting consensual "polyamory," or "relationships where there is no expectation of fidelity."

5. CCC developed leaders for same-sex marriage advocacy and homosexual activists through its Generation Change program. In 2008, CCC received a $50,000 grant for leadership training from one of the chief funders of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered) causes, the Gill Foundation.

6. Ralph McCloud, the current Director of the CCHD, participated in a December 2008 event cosponsored by CCC and the Gamaliel Foundation, "Realizing the Promise Forum," celebrating the election of Barack Obama. McCloud is reported to have proclaimed, "Very soon we will see a New Jerusalem." The conference video suggests the CCC is engaged in "partisan political activity" in violation of the CCHD grant guidelines.

This is the second round of incriminating evidence presented by ALL and BVM about the CCC. Three months ago, they issued a press release and supporting research regarding 31 CCHD grantees with a relationship to CCC -- all of which was ignored by the USCCB.

As ALL's Michael Hichborn points out, these reports have "revealed no less than fifty organizations (one fifth of all CCHD grantees from 2009) that are, in some capacity, engaged in pro-abortion or pro-homosexual causes (www.all.org/cchd). The sad thing, however, is that these recent revelations manifest a pattern of cooperation stretching back for decades."

These latest findings make it impossible for the USCCB not to sever its ties with the CCC. However, the situation is made more difficult by the news that John Carr -- who oversees the CCHD as the USCCB's Executive Director of the Department of Justice, Peace, and Human Development -- served on the CCC board from 1999 to 2006 and on its executive committee from 1999 to 2001. Carr was hired by the USCCB in 1987, but his involvement with the CCC goes back to 1983.

ALL research shows that in 2000, while Carr served on its executive committee, CCC itself received a $150,000 grant from the USCCB. Carr's resume at the USCCB Web site does not mention his service at the CCC, while other published versions of his resume do.

As Hichborn comments, "The omission is odd and, given the new information, quite suspicious." Hichborn also thinks the "cozy relationship" between Carr and the CCC may be the reason the USCCB did not respond to the troublesome findings published last November. The ties between CCC and the USCCB remained close after Carr left the board. (Tom Chabolla, Carr's associate director at the USCCB, replaced him.)

In response to these reports, Carr issued a statement to Our Sunday Visitor, explaining, "I left the board of the Center for Community Change in February of 2005, and I had no involvement in or knowledge of the actions alleged in the press release."

Carr does not deny the charges but claims to have no knowledge of them, including the one that alleges CCC's partisan activity. But one speech Carr gave mentioned being in a CCC board meeting with a John Kerry campaign strategist who stated his political views quite plainly:

The overwhelming evidence about CCC's positions on abortion, same-sex marriage, and contraception make it difficult to believe that Carr was, after six years on its board, unaware of these attitudes among CCC staff.

Rob Gaspar, the founder of BVM, summarizes the issue facing the USCCB:

Printed from: http://www.lifenews.com/nat5954.html

Atheist Soros Funds Catholic Groups

By Cliff Kincaid

The critical role of the Catholic Church in passing national health care reform legislation is coming under serious media scrutiny. But the story has taken a strange turn. It has now been revealed that George Soros, the billionaire hedge fund operator and well-known atheist, has been pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into “progressive” Catholic groups that are significant players in the national debates over health care and immigration.

On the surface, it would appear that Soros would be opposed to many positions of the Catholic Church. A major financial backer of the ACLU, Soros supports such causes as drug legalization, the rights of “sex workers” and felons, euthanasia, radical feminism, abortion rights, and homosexual rights. He does all of this in the name of promoting an “open society.”

But a review of the records of his Open Society Institute finds that a group calling itself Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good (CACG) has received $200,000 over the last several years.

James Todd of the Pewsitter.com web site, which represents traditional Catholics, calls such groups “CINOs,” or Catholics In Name Only. He explains, “This group and several others have sprung up recently -- I suspect purposely organized and funded -- to counterbalance the growing influence of the faithful Catholics AND to try to deceive and mislead the middle of the road Catholics that have determined the last 13 Presidential elections.”

An investigation also finds, however, that Soros money has gone into the Catholic Legal Immigration Network (CLINIC), an organization established by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops back in 1988. It has received at least $530,000 from the Open Society Institute.

The two issues merge in the fact that the Catholic Bishops are demanding that national health care legislation cover illegal aliens.

In a story headlined, “Religious Leaders Seek Healthcare for Illegal Immigrants,” the Los Angeles Times recently quoted Kathy Saile, director of domestic social development with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, as saying that illegal immigrants should be included in any healthcare reform plan. Father Richard Estrada of Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic Church in Los Angeles was described as being part of a religious service and phone bank “to urge congressional leaders to include illegal immigrants in any healthcare reform plan.” His church has in the past offered sanctuary to illegal immigrants.

CACG played a role in House passage of H.R. 3962, the bill known as Pelosicare and boasts that it had joined with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Catholic Health Association, and “dozens of other Catholic and faith-based groups in celebrating this historic vote.”

I have no doubt that a few liberal Bishops may think that "any form of helping the poor is good", but I also have no doubt that they are misguided.

There is NO LOVE in government handouts. There is absolutely NOTHING gained in God's eye's by doling out government handouts. Anyone who's ever dealt with government services can tell you that it is absolutely devoid of love. Paying taxes, or expecting someone else to pay taxes, thinking that will help some unknown person, is NOT charity.

1 Corinthians 13:

1 If I speak in human and angelic tongues 2 but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. 2 And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.

3 If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, (love) is not pompous, it is not inflated, 5 it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, 6 it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 4 Love never fails. If there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing; if tongues, they will cease; if knowledge, it will be brought to nothing. 9 For we know partially and we prophesy partially, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things. 12 At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known. 13 5 So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

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