Catholic Charities' Slogan . . . Examining Its Left-Wing Roots
The federal budget is a moral statement to the people of our country. It is through the budget that the values of our society are expressed. — So reads the mission statement of Catholic Charities of the United States (CCUSA).
This radical claim might come as a surprise to many Catholics. Clearly it is not a truth required for our salvation. Money does not define "the values of our society" — unless, of course, our society is a mere aggregation of greedy materialists. It's like saying that the "values of our parish" are expressed by the collection revenue — not by the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, our obedience to the Church's teachings, our frequenting the sacraments, or our performing in love the corporal and spiritual works of mercy.
For "the people of our country," the abiding "values of our society" were spelled out in the Declaration of Independence. "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" are not "budget items." Nor are "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" that made them possible. No, these are the "self-evident truths" that our Founding Fathers proclaimed as the indispensable moral foundation of American independence.
Nonetheless, CCUSA's Legislative Agenda for the 110th Congress boldly insists: "Tell the President and Congress the Budget Is a Moral Document."
Clearly the CCUSA is not recommending Congress as a trusted model of moral authority. So it is only fair to ask, "What gives?"
To find out, I did an Internet search of the CCUSA's slogan, "the budget is a moral document." The results were more than mildly disquieting. The phrase appears to be the keyword for a radical political coalition. It appears in the talking points, speeches, and campaign materials of countless liberal politicians and left-wing advocacy groups in that coalition.
Among the politicians are the Democratic leadership of the House of Representatives: Senate Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid; Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards (who hired as his Internet communications directors two vulgar and virulently anti-Catholic women, who've since resigned); and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The organizations operate under the umbrella name "Faith and Public Life." It features a familiar crowd of left-wing religious groups that have advocated various versions of "Christian socialism" in America for decades. In Virginia, its web site includes the Justice and Peace office of the Arlington Diocese; GLAD ("Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders"), whose values are listed as "Gay Rights/Sexuality"; and Dignity of Northern Virginia, which professes values of "Peace/Human Rights, Gay Rights/Sexuality."
Dignity's web site whines, "Why have bishops expelled Dignity chapters from church property?"
The answer is simple. The organization embraces "gay rights" as its reason for being. And they have no doubt been "expelled from Church property" because Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, then-prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, wrote on October 1, 1986 that "all support should be withdrawn from any organizations which seek to undermine the teaching of the Church, which are ambiguous about it, or which neglect it entirely" — Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons.
In spite of this instruction, literally dozens of bishops have unwittingly allowed their dioceses and local offices of Catholic Charities and Catholic Relief Services to join the coalition, even though its roster is replete with groups that openly defy, vilify, and condemn central truths of Catholic teaching.
Just what is the Catholic Church doing there?
The budget issues that constitute the "moral" agenda represent a typical catchall of secular liberal government spending programs. For years, the bureaucracies running these programs have been totally radicalized. Their unions are among the most powerful advocates of abortion and homosexual rights. They all have "gay days." They complain when their Christian employees gather privately before work to pray. In short, they are the institutionalized culture of death.
Does the CCUSA confront this materialist and secular culture head-on? Far from it. When outside groups must work with a government bureaucracy, their own organization begins to reflect at every level that bureaucracy. It is impossible to work with it every day, and still to condemn it. That would require heroic virtue, which is quite rare in bureaucracies.
CCUSA cannot bite the hand that feeds it. It has sought accommodation, not confrontation. On every specific issue, the CCUSA agenda limits itself to positions that are palatable to the radical left. But every one of these positions addresses issues on which Catholics can disagree. Holy Mother Church does not embrace any particular political agenda. Rather, she teaches the principles and truths that must underlie all political agendas, whatever their particular content.
But CCUSA insists on embracing a left-wing agenda — and does so in the name of the Catholic Church. In the same breath, however, CCUSA has deliberately avoided every single political issue that pits the Catholic faith against the culture of death in the public square. Abortion, homosexual "marriage," embryonic stem-cell research, funding for Planned Parenthood — all these crucial issues are nowhere to be seen in the CCUSA's "moral" agenda.
Yet the message is clear: The budget priorities advocated by CCUSA and its allies in the leftwing coalition are "moral"; disagree, and you're immoral.
CCUSA's bureaucrats attempt to add luster to their radical agenda by invoking the name of Holy Mother Church. They know that, if they did it in their names alone, no one would pay any attention. So they hijack the goodwill and authority of the Church to pursue their own private and radical goals. In short, it constitutes theft and fraud. It constitutes a manipulative deception.
Apparently, CCUSA doesn't want to "rock the boat" by advocating Catholic truths that fly in the face of the culture of death. That would alienate its left-wing coalition allies.
Hence, Catholics confront a CCUSA agenda that stridently embraces political issues that divide us. On central moral issues that unite us, it is silent.
But all this avoids the simple truth: One cannot act in charity if it is mandatory. Yet every "charitable" political program advocated by the CCUSA relies on money taken by force. In essence, the CCUSA agenda advocates taking away money from people who can actually exercise true and voluntary Christian charity — the taxpaying faithful, the people in the pews in parishes throughout the country — and giving that money to government bureaucrats to distribute — after taking off a generous slice, of course, for their own salaries, benefits, and expenses. This is hardly the essence of charity: After all, the government cannot "give" to anyone a dollar that it has not first taken away, by force of law, from the taxpayer.
Yet the CCUSA advocates the subsidy of government largesse, while it advocates more taxation of those who exercise true Christian charity in a private, voluntary way. Where is the "charity" in this?
Every dollar taken in taxes to pay for the gamut of government programs advocated by CCUSA is one dollar less that Catholic families can spend on homeschooling, parish soup kitchens, volunteering at local charities, taking care of aging parents, and all the other unsung acts of heroic service in the Lord's name. These are the true acts of voluntary "Catholic charity," and millions of people perform them every single day, without ever sending in a time sheet to CCUSA.
We learn as children that "charity begins at home," but the political agenda of CCUSA does everything it can to make that nearly impossible.
Where in CCUSA is there a voice for Catholics who believe in budget frugality, not profligacy? Where is the advocate for the faithful who want to take home more of their hard-earned salaries so they can exercise true, voluntary charity? Why is CCUSA so adamant about endorsing only mandatory (and often wasteful) government programs that amass huge and well-paid bureaucracies (most of them with higher salaries and benefits than the average Catholic taxpayer)? Don't they realize that millions of poor and middleclass mothers — who would rather be at home with their children and having more children — have been forced into the workforce because of the same irresponsible federal spending that is advocated by the CCUSA? Don't they know about the Law of Unintended Consequences?
And why can't the bishops put a halt to this charade? Aren't they surprised and outraged to find themselves allied with the radical anti-Catholic left, the pro-abortionists and the homosexuals who constantly heap calumnies on Holy Mother Church?
A friend of mine used to say, "The only way you can coast is downhill." Are America's bishops coasting? Are they trying to "wait out" the scandals, the bankruptcies, the prosecutors, the plaintiff lawyers, the victims, the Vatican — and the faithful?
Whatever it is that distracts the bishops, they have not been able to ride herd on the left flank of their bureaucracy. Even though Pope Pius XI condemned socialism in Quadragesimo Anno, socialism thrives unfettered in the CCUSA. And so does one other feature of bureaucracies: It is the nature of the beast to defy its superiors, to cavalierly enact its own agenda, and to perpetuate itself endlessly without interference from above.
While bishops cannot err when speaking in union with Rome on the teachings of the Magisterium, they can make disastrous decisions when it comes to the political realm, whether with regard to management, to chancery policy, or to advocating political positions on which Catholics can disagree. Alas, the CCUSA leadership has managed to blur that vital distinction — for its private ideological purposes. The results have been ruinous. They wind up serving the interests of precisely those politicians who are most likely to oppose pro-life legislation and judicial appointments. And all the while they confer upon those politicians the Catholic imprimatur.
It is unlikely that any American bishop directed his bureaucrats to go join forces with the pro-gay/lesbian, pro-abortion, socialist, and anti-Catholic left. Most bishops are probably totally unaware of the situation. But that is the fix their bureaucrats have gotten them into. On analysis, the problem is essentially political, and bishops are just not good politicians.
Conclusion
The Catholic Church in America is facing the gravest crisis in its history. Bishops already have their hands full, not only with their religious and canonical duties, but with lawsuits, bankruptcies, prosecutors, and plaintiff lawyers. They certainly shouldn't be expected to excel at retail politics. After all, politics is the proper realm of the laity, not the clergy, and it is up to us, the laity, to deliver Holy Mother Church from this mess. It is clear from the CCUSA's own figures, as well as common experience, that millions of lay volunteers (and simple laity who never consider themselves as "volunteers") already perform the major share of "Catholic charity" in America. That is as it should be.
It is not the people at the bottom, but the bureaucracy at the top, that has delivered the CCUSA into the camp of the culture of death. Whether this has come about intentionally or otherwise is beside the point: It is a sad but inescapable fact. It is also the case that many of the pro-abortion politicians in Washington are ardent supporters of the coalition's political agenda. Let us pray that their financial support has not played a role in guiding the CCUSA's moral direction.
Many of these pro-abortion politicians — of both parties — are "Catholics." Yet, for whatever reason, the bishops cannot bring themselves to implement the Vatican guidelines for the reception of the Eucharist. They will not end the public scandal. These same politicians, like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, continue to flaunt gaily their "right" to receive the Eucharist at will.
Of course, one would hope that the bishops are not refusing to enforce the Vatican guidelines for merely financial reasons. But politicians do not think like bishops. Politicians think that, when they give someone $2 billion, they get something in return. And political observers might well conclude that the bishops are giving the pro-abortion politicians a pass because they get over $2 billion a year in return. The situation is fraught with what in Washington is called the "appearance of impropriety."
The laity must come to the rescue. We must plead with the bishops, in charity and in truth: Please, Your Excellencies, tear yourselves away from the government, its leftist programs, its pro-abort politicians, and their allies in the culture of death. If you're worried about the money, don't worry. We'll finance you. After all, look at Catholic colleges and universities. Those that take government money have gone the way of all flesh — Georgetown, Boston College, Notre Dame, USF — their name is legion. Those that refuse government support have remained sparkling jewels of orthodoxy and obedience to Rome.
We must pray every day for our bishops. Recent events teach us, however, that few will want to change summarily the CCUSA's political platform. Perceiving threats from every direction, it is unlikely that today's bishops will want to make themselves unpopular with a very powerful government.
It will be up to the next generation — of bishops and of laity — to transform the politicized and secularized culture of organized Catholic charity and to lead the Church back to independence from government at all levels.
This item 7474 digitally provided courtesy of CatholicCulture.org
