Yes, it just may be possible that there are a few honest, helpful community organisers on this earth. One of them, Rey Lopez-Calderon, appears to be one of the good guys who went into organising to genuinely help the underprivileged. He’s worked with the United Farm Workers in California and in the Pilsen neighbourhood in Chicago.
He also worked for the Gamaliel Foundation, recipients of Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CHD) funding. And that’s where he got a slightly different insight about community organising. He wrote his story recently for Blogcritics. It’s called ‘Walking the Edge of Immorality’. What a picture he paints.
As regular readers of Churchmouse Campanologist know, Gamaliel’s head organiser is a chap named Greg Galluzzo, who is either an ex-Jesuit or went to a Jesuit seminary — reports differ. Barack Obama also worked for them in the early 1990s.
By way of apology, Rey says:
The idea of an international, faith-based organization that brings together people of all colors and creeds is certainly a noble cause. But the organization’s philosophy was flawed from day one. I worked for Gamaliel in the late 1990s up until 2001…
My former mentors, Greg Galluzzo and his wife Mary Gonzalez, took over the Gamaliel Foundation after breaking with the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), the organization founded by Saul Alinsky. Gamaliel’s leadership system was built on notes obtained from the IAF …
Working life was more Alinsky-oriented than faith-based. It certainly wasn’t Catholic. Rey says:
I have never seen such a strange and warped culture anywhere. Staff were pitted against each other by Galluzzo and Gonzalez.
Galluzzo, in Rey’s words:
wanted organizers to be tough bastards who could build power like the Conquistadors … (no virtù needed at all).
felt that organizers should fight fire with fire.
used to give a cultish advanced training seminar titled ‘Walking the Edge of Immorality’ where he repeatedly stated ‘the ends justifies the means’ and nonchalantly told us that to have an impact on society we had to be willing to ‘lie, cheat, and steal for the greater good’.
… We could be shady to get power but once we had enough power, knowing the Good would be enough for us to make the right decisions.
Rey explains:
Too bad Galluzzo … skipped the course on Aristotle where he would have learned that character is a function of habit — i.e. doing shady things makes you shady whether or not you grasp the Good. The final straw for me was when Galluzzo sent out a weekly report with a reflection that we organizers needed to promote a noble myth to our churches that our work was about justice, God, and peace even though we really knew it was about power.
He knows it’s the wrong way to go about things. Okay, he’s way, way to the left and works with IAF affiliates — you can read his blog here. I can’t see the point in encouraging victimhood in this day and age. Whatever happened to character and virtue? However, do note his conclusion:
I left Gamaliel disillusioned and disgusted by what seemed to me to be pure evil. How could a faith-based organization operate under such a skewed, cynical view of the world? Where was God in that scheme? I should have exposed them then. I had a duty to do so. We can’t content ourselves with feelings of moral superiority while people with corrupt principles are out there building power. We ignore these bad apples to our own peril. We have to be willing to shake the tree, letting the rotten ones fall where they may.
Rey would probably disagree with my advocating a boycott of CHD. Some of that money just might be going to organisations he works for and with. Nevertheless, we know already that some of the funding goes to the Gamaliel Foundation.
Please think carefully before giving to the CHD — in fact, please boycott the collection. It’s not Catholic and it doesn’t support Catholic ideals, no matter what the USCCB or their spokespeople say.
11 comments
November 6, 2009 at 8:11 am
Antonella
Dear Churchmouse……..how appalling and corrupt to use church funding for evil makes me think of this saying from Abba Anthony, the spiritual father of the fourth century, desert movement :
The time is coming when people will be insane
and when they see someone who is not insane,
they will attack that person saying :
“You are insane because you are not like us.”
November 6, 2009 at 8:23 am
churchmouse
How true that is, Antonella — then and now. (Used often by the Soviets and other totalitarian leaders in the 20th century to fill gulags and ‘re-education’ camps.) Plus ca change …
You’ve reminded me of TS Eliot’s lines from ‘The Cocktail Party’:
‘I should really like to think there’s something wrong with me —
Because, if there isn’t then there’s something wrong,
Or at least, very different from what it seemed to be,
With the world itself — and that’s much more frightening!’
November 9, 2009 at 2:31 pm
Rey Lopez-Calderon
Churchmouse,
Thank you for engaging my post. I do think we Catholics ought to question what organizations get money and whether or not the work funded coincides with Catholic values and teaching. That, said you are correct about me disagreeing with a boycott of CCHD. You note that promoting victimhood is problematic. But isn’t boycotting CCHD, an institution that does fund many (or at least some) groups who do good Christian work by helping the poor to take responsibility for their own lives, also a victim’s approach? Why not get involved? Why not tighten the criteria? Why not create an alternative?
Yes, my blog is very left in some ways, though most of my self-identified lefty friends say it’s too conservative since I often defend the church, quote thinkers such as De Tocqueville and Milton Freidman, and recently I defended the Supreme Court’s decision in the Ricci v DeStefano case. my blog helps me deal with difficult systemic questions that are not easily explained away by ideological commitments. If I am “left” as you say it’s because I do tend to side with the poor. You also should know that at least 3/4 of all the work I do as an organizer is in the form of discussions, dialogs, and workshops that push poor people to take responsibility for their own lives. This work requires a strong dose of character and virtue. very infrequently do we do something as radical as a protest or a boycott–however sexy that sounds. My commitments regarding character and virtue were precisely the values I felt were violated during my time at Gamaliel.
I think “right” and “left” categorizations allow us to be sloppy in our arguments. If I agree with you, it’s because I think your argument adds up. If I don’t then, well you get the point.
BTW, IAF affiliates are a lot like Catholic parishes; there’s a lot of variation depending on location and who is at the helm…
November 9, 2009 at 3:06 pm
churchmouse
Thanks so much, Rey, for writing in. I had hoped you would.
I agree about using ‘right’ and ‘left’ — it is limiting. However, it gets the point across quickly. I can also appreciate that some people would find you conservative.
My objection to IAF, having done a whole series on Alinsky, which you are welcome to critique, is that it’s the fruit of a man who had no belief in God, the Creator of all things. And you strike me as a good Catholic, therefore, I wonder why you wouldn’t be involved with Catholic Charities or lay church work directly. That’s not an accusation, by the way, just a question.
For you, personally, your work requires character and virtue, but I wonder about the majority of people who work in these organisations, which really seem to focus on ‘power’ rather than following the Gospel. To me, and I’m sure to many of my other readers, ‘power’ would seem antithethical to that message. Surely it’s about strong family units, education and independence?
My message about a boycott is to send a strong signal to the bishops to not give to organisations which do not support a Catholic message. I am not sure how the bishops came up with the unusual goal of giving to secular organisations. Some of these groups support abortion and ungodly (Alinskyite) objectives. I would think that with progressivism being popular these days, many of these organisations would have no problem getting money from secular fundraisers.
Apologies in advance, but I find the bishops’ stance puzzling. Why don’t they simply direct the monies to Catholic organisations? If you have time to explain it, many of us would be interested to read what you have to say.
Thank you again for commenting — much appreciated!
All the best.
November 10, 2009 at 12:36 am
Cinzia
Dear Churchmouse – I don’t know much about all the community organisations, except what I read in your blog – but I’m still a bit confused. There seem to be SO MANY!!
One thing I am sure about however: Catholic bishops should have nothing to do with secular organisations who support abortion. If anything, they should do their utmost to stop these organisations and speak up loud and strong against such ciminal acts!
Also, all this leftist Alynskian flavour mixed in with all these organisations does not sound good at all …. very sinister – There was nothing Godly or Christian about Alinsky and his teachings. Quite the opposite. If I am not mistaken, someone who dedicates his book to Lucifer should not be the “example to follow” and the one whose rules and ideas are advocated and quoted in any of these do good organisations.
I am sure that if one starts to dig deep inside the makings of most of these do gooders, there is a lot of rot ….. money making, scheming, lying, hypocritical, godless organisations who are successful only because of a whole lot of propaganda and support from the many leftist governments.
Correct me if I am wrong. But in my simple mind and humble opinion, I thoroughly dislike the sound of all of them!
November 10, 2009 at 5:49 pm
Rey Lopez-Calderon
We radicals have a love-hate relationship with Alinsky. On the one hand, he tends to symbolize a very white, male macho attitude in Chicago that permeates all of politics and organizing (oddly the so-called left hates him as much as you do[or at least his teachings]). On the other hand, he said and practiced a few major points that transformed organizing in a good way. First, he reacted to the armchair radicals who were promoting the hippy attitude of destroying all order or “smashing the state.” Alinsky felt this was elite mumbo jumbo that had nothing to do with the needs or wants of actual poor people. he challenged us to look at the actual interests of people rather than imposing our own utopian BS on them. The other major contribution to organizing was the conceptual development of power. Alinsky did not develop this language; obtaining power has always been part of the struggle of the powerless. Power is the idea that charity is not enough. People need to learn how to fish rather than be given fish by the government or even by the church! This to me is a fairly uncontroversial premise. The problem is that building people’s capacity includes increasing levels of civic engagement which overlap with political institutions such that obtaining power (again capacity to act for themselves) becomes synonymous with obtaining political and financial power. Hence without clear moral direction, the power-seekers become obsessed with power for its own sake which we all know tends to corruption. This is not Alinsky’s fault, we as a Church know just what it is like to obtain a lot of power in order to spread the gospel only to be thwarted by our own struggle with corruption and fidelity to our doctrine/mission.
From an academic perspective, one can get caught up with Alisnky’s deliberately hyperbolic personality (the Lucifer quote is a good example) since he wrote a lot of crazy stuff. A lot of people of color despise him because he advocated that organizers not be from the community they intend to organize–many interpreted this as perpetuating a colonial/imperial attitude. There’s a lot to find fault with in his writings and even him as a person.
But in the real world where organizations are acting, it’s important to understand the influence of Alinsky on a practical level. First, Alinsky thought organizations should be temporary so as to not become part of the establishment. No one follows this principle and in fact they tend to nurse what you call Alinskyite groups. Second, Alinsky did struggle with the idea that people might think that corrpution is ok becuase of his focus on self-interest and power–Alinsky fleshed these problems out often with his best friend Jacues Maritain. In fact if you want to see the evlolution of Alinsky’s thinking with regard to the inherent Machiavellianism in his work, i highly recommend a collection of correspondence with Jacques Maritain called the Philospher and the Provacateur. This struggle toward the end of his life actually spwaned a whole new generation of so-called Alinskyites who have spent their lives correcting some of the philosophical flaws in the old ALinsky. A good example of this shift at the IAF can be found in the work of Ernesto Cortes in Texas. Ernesto is the main person responsbile for revamping the IAF leadership system to include a strong moral dimension. In fact the way they teach power now is through the idea of building deep human relationships for their own sake and connecting with like minded people to make systemic change. Capacity to do this involves having relationships that can make this possible, but the IAF now teaches that power, itself a neutral concept, can be a shared thing (power with) an oppressive thing (power under someone who controls you, powerlessness) or power over someone (which negates the person’s humanity by subsituting thw power-holders will for the powerless person’s). There are still problems with focusing on self-interest. To that the IAF has responded with the concept of enlightened self interest which includes others than the self. This however is not in my opinion rich enough to account for the fact of altruism–here is where I depart from the IAF.
Overall, what the IAF usually does for its affiliates is give leadership training and faciliate campaigns for social justice by leveraging the power of the collective. I think that many church people who struggle with low attendance at events even after making calls and passing out flyers, find it refreshing to be around people who make it a point to build relationships intentionally, creating trust and friendship and in the process revitalizing the work they do. This is often the main reason churches join these IAF affiliates, not out of some warped philosophy hidden in the writings or life of Alinsky himself. In fact, having attended a dialogue this past weekend in honor of the Alinsky Centennial, I was thoroughly convinced that a majority of organizers and churchgoers were clueless about the life, message, and teaching of the ever-conflicted Alinsky.
My point is that to attack groups that are IAF affiliates because of their affiliation does not help to challenge the truly shady groups out there who did read a little ALinsky and decided that the ends justify the means and that they could step on other people to get power as long as they were doing it for a good cause (I mean Gamaliel and possibly ACORN and perhaps Stalin!).
As far as the church’s decision to fund CCHD, I have never been one to overtly attack the church’s leadership (I’m not particulary protestant in that realm); I’m not about to start here in the blogosphere. I will say that there are some groups (I can think of one in particular) who have no relationship to the church, promote abortion–in fact, the group I am thinking of actually got into a verbal altercation with a priest friend of mine because he told them they could not give out condoms as people were exiting mass! Yet that same group managed to write a good proposal and drag a few poor people to a site visit–they received CCHD money. This group is exactly the kind of group that should be weeded out. On the other hand, another a group I know that is made up of about 9 churches and has three symbolic members (i.e. they give a check every year but don;t particpate) recently became a target of anti–CCHD Catholics. I know these folks very intimately. I can’t think of anything they do that does not coincide with Catholic teaching (this makes sense since all the participating members are catholic churches). But one of their symbolic members, a health clinic, has a statement on their website that says they support a patient’s right get all possible reporductive information (I assume this includes info about abortion). This is required by law and is the exact same statement that most of our Catholic hospitals are required to post as well. To me it was ridiculous that this group became a target regardless of their actual activity while the aforementioned condom-distributing group continues to get funding. I support actual weeding out of groups that are anathema to Catholic teachings but I don’t support Catholic McCarthyism.
November 11, 2009 at 12:51 pm
churchmouse
Rey — Thank you so much for this nuanced, eloquent explanation of today’s community organisations. I take your point that we shouldn’t tar them all with the same brush.
Let’s put your good work and that of the better organisations aside for one moment. Here is where I believe people have a problem with the CHD:
- We (and I’m going to include myself here as someone who was Catholic at the time the CHD came into being and for the next couple of decades) relied on our bishops to guide us spiritually in a Catholic way of life. So, naturally, we believed them when they said the CHD was a force for good. We had little to no reason to believe otherwise. We trusted our bishops to do the right thing in the interest of the Church.
- We remember that our grandparents, aunts and uncles and parents gave generously to the CHD over the years, thinking that the money was going to Catholic causes, Catholic education and charity. Well, it did further charity, but of a secular, sometimes radical, nature. Now, 40 years later, we find out where millions of dollars have been going all this time. It’s no wonder that Catholics are angry, hurt and disappointed.
- Many American Catholics still don’t understand why their bishops would want to give to secular fringe groups with a questionable political outlook. (Incidentally, I didn’t expect you to criticise the bishops on this point but simply wondered if you knew their reasoning behind it.)
- Catholics have also picked up on the fact that there appear to be no conservative or traditional recipients on the list. People naturally wonder why that is. This is something the bishops must explain to the people.
- We have watched our neighbourhood schools and churches close over the years. For many, this is heartbreaking and distressing. What makes it even worse is that the bishops could have put CHD funds into these parishes, but they didn’t.
- American Catholics want to fund the Catholic Church with CHD donations, not secular organisations. Finding out that the bishops were giving CHD funds to ACORN angered many people last year. Their mood wasn’t improved as they watched the bishops drag their feet before stopping the money flow ACORN’s way. Had it not been for Catholic lay people acting like ‘Protestants’, it never would have happened. It was their pressure that finally forced the bishops to act.
- The bishops have a considerable amount of explaining to do about the CHD. All that money — $225m, I believe — could have been used to subsidise Catholic schools and churches in disadvantaged areas. Instead, many are shut — I and many others can speak from personal experience on this point. So many middle-aged and older people — as well as their forebears — owe so much to the dedication of Catholic priests, brothers and nuns who dedicated their lives to the faithful. Now, what do we see but a corrupt, sclerotic institution which has, in so many ways, sold its soul.
In closing, I would invite you — if you find it appropriate — to send in more information (including website) about the organisation for which you work. I would be very happy to profile it in a future post and let people decide whether to send in a donation. I realise that you might not be able to do this for several reasons, but it would seem preferable for people to give to an organisation which they can actually read about — along with your extensive and informed comment here — than to give to the CHD with its list of ‘unknowns’. Should you decline the offer, I would understand. Yet, it is a serious one.
Thank you for your time, Rey. Your comments have been most helpful.
November 10, 2009 at 11:27 pm
Rey Lopez-Calderon
P.S. I am quite active in my Church and I work with the Archdiocese on several endeavors. I think Catholic Charities is needed but it does not address my preference for challenging poor folk to take responsibility for their own lives (it may even do the exact opposite). In any case, my vocation is that of a community organizer as yours appear to be a marketing copywriter. We can both have a job and work with the Church, right?
November 11, 2009 at 12:10 pm
churchmouse
Yes, of course. It’s just the IAF aspect: Alinsky I find appalling on many levels. Yet, you explain the nuances of today’s IAF very well — and thank you for taking the time to do so.
November 19, 2009 at 1:19 am
churchmouse
This thread is now closed.
August 12, 2012 at 8:42 pm
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