Catholic CHD forced to back down on grants — it’s a start

Thanks to the findings and pressure from the Bellarmine Veritas Ministry’s (BVM) Campaign, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CHD) has had to back down on some of its funding allocations.

On September 22, 2009, LifeSiteNews (LSN) reported that two of the four groups the BVM had mention have been defunded.  CHD Director Ralph McCloud said:

… they have defunded the Chinese Progressive Association (CPA), which has been funded for the last four years, and was set to receive $30,000 this year.  The CPA’s 2008 voters guide (on the BVM website here and here) urged Californians to vote against enshrining the true definition of marriage in the state’s constitution (proposition Eight) and requiring parental notification for minors seeking abortions (proposition 4).  LSN left a message with CPA, but has not heard back.

CCHD has also defunded the Los Angeles Community Action Network (LACAN), says McCloud, which has been funded for the last five years and was to receive $40,000 this year.  LACAN has promoted same-sex ‘marriage’ and actively supports contraception and the morning-after pill through a clinic at the Downtown Women’s Center.  An LACAN representative told LSN that they have not yet been informed about any change to their funding status.

At the time the article ran, McCloud had received no word on the other two groups in question — Young Workers United and Women’s Community Revitalisation Project. Both are known for their liberal sexual advocacy.

Forgive me, but it’s difficult to believe that McCloud was ‘shocked’ by the BVM’s report.  The 26-page list on the USCCB website, which Churchmouse Campanologist featured yesterday, had all the hallmarks of organisations no true Catholic would wish to donate to.  Can’t the USCCB and McCloud interpret language?  How many times did my post highlight ‘Industrial Areas Foundation’, ‘PICO’ and ‘community organisation’?  It must follow, therefore, that these groups espouse a leftist philosophy and will support leftist programmes, whether sexual, social or political.  

And, what Catholic groups were in there?  Catholic Charities, for example?  None, anywhere!  This is why I ask you to stop being duped and to please desist from dropping money in the CHD collection in November.

Not giving any money will dry the CHD up quicker than Clearasil can work on a zit.

The BVM’s founder, Rob Gasper, said of the CHD’s response (emphasis mine):

… the response so far is not satisfying.  [Gasper] maintains that every grantee should be required to state publicly, rather than merely privately, that they would abide by the Church’s social teaching, including on the right to life. ‘Put that in a public forum and I think that would go a long way to help the situation,’ he said, ‘because, some of these groups, they don’t mind doing this sort of thing in private … but they wouldn’t want to do something like that in public, because their membership base would be in an uproar.’

That last sentence alone should be telling Catholics that the CHD is giving to the wrong organisations.  Why they persist in giving to leftist groups is unfathomable.

So far, it seems as if only one Catholic priest has come out criticising the CHD.  Unfortunately, Fr John Neuhaus died earlier this year.  In 2008, he said:

… the CCHD ‘has nothing to do with Catholicism, except that Catholics are asked to pay for it’. 

He called the organization ‘misbegotten in concept and corrupt in practice’, and went so far as to urge that it be terminated.  ‘What most Catholics don’t know, and what would likely astonish them,’ wrote Fr. Neuhaus, “is that CHD very explicitly does not fund Catholic institutions and apostolates that work with the poor.’ Neuhaus suggested that the bishops would do better to spend their money on more Catholic-related projects, such as ‘Catholic inner-city schools’.

What more can one say?  Please consider this campaign over the next few weeks and your prayerful response to it. 

Thank you and God bless.