a new campaign to reform the CCHD

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Oct 30, 2009

A coalition of Catholic and pro-life groups-- including Human Life International, the American Life League, and the new Bellarmine Veritas Ministry-- has joined in a call for the American bishops to reform the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD).

The Bellarmine Veritas Ministry burst on the scene this year with a carefully researched critique of the CCHD, showing that the organization supports a number of groups whose purposes are at odds with the teachings of the Catholic Church: groups that support legal abortion and same-sex marriage. Why, the group asked, does an arm of the Catholic bishops' conference make common cause with such groups?

It's a good question-- but not a new one. Thoughtful Catholics and conservative non-Catholics have been asking that question for at least two decades. In the 1980s I produced my own exposé on the many ties between the CCHD and radical activist groups. The individual groups supported by the CCHD may change, but the fundamental orientation does not.

Recently, however, things have heated up, with the revelation that the CCHD has supplied $7 million in subsidies to ACORN, the group that has been in the headlines so much this year, accused of voter fraud, massive misappropriation of public funds, and such grotesque improprieties as providing consulting help for people who said they wanted to set up a brothel. It's true that the CCHD cut off funding for ACORN last year, but again the question arises: Why was the bishops' agency involved with that group in the first place?

The CCHD is dedicated to helping poor people organize self-help efforts. There's nothing wrong with that goal in itself, but from its early days, the CCHD has been wont to politicize the process, forming alliances with leftist community organizers (such as, years ago, Barack Obama!) and often giving those organizers financial support.

There's something seriously wrong with this approach, I believe. Each November, as Catholics across the US are asked to contribute to the special collection for the CCHD, the promotional materials portray the CCHD as an anti-poverty program, not specifically as a community-organizing program. That fundraising approach is misleading, I submit, because the CCHD does not provide poor people with food and clothing, but with organizational support-- a worthy effort, perhaps, but a different one.

In any case the new "Reform the CCHD" coalition asks the bishops to insist that CCHD support should go only to groups whose purposes are fully compatible with Catholic social teaching. Absent that assurance, the coalition suggests that thoughtful Catholics refuse to contribute to this year's special collection, which will be taken up on November 22.

Better still, the coalition has prepared a coupon that you can download, print out, and drop into the collection basket, announcing that you have chosen not to support the CCHD, but instead to support a worthy charity whose work is "fully in agreement with Church teaching on social justice and family and life issues."  You might choose an organization that actually supplies food, clothing, or shelter for those in need.