02 November 2011

CCHD: Rival Magisterium?

One doesn't know how else to explain their outright disregard for Church teaching by consistently funding groups that advocate or participate in anti-Catholic positions. Even after being called to account with incontrovertible evidence, the USCCB continues to tolerate the CCHD's shenanigans. Some Catholics will claim the "rival Magisterium" charge is "uncharitable", but these are generally Catholics who think anyone wearing a mitre is free from suspicion. They might do well to recall that every English bishop but one caved in to King Henry VIII's demands to renounce the Pope as head of the Church; the one who did not is a canonized saint and martyr. And who can forget the wholesale rebellion of the entire Canadian Bishops Conference when it issued the infamous Winnipeg Statement?

As to the CCHD, here is one example: Ralph McCloud, who runs the daily operations of the CCHD, was discovered to be an active supporter of pro-abortion democrat Wendy Davis when she ran in Texas (she actually defeated the pro-life incumbent). McCloud stayed on board, and continues to run the organization's day-to-day affairs. And then there's this, as reported by Stephanie Block:
[T]here’s the CCHD’s extraordinary funding of the Center for Community Change , an organization that was not only awarded a $150,000 CCHD grant in 2001 but is promoted on the US Catholic bishops’ website and has sent speakers to CCHD functions.

A former chair [John Carr] of the Center’s board heads one of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ departments. Furthermore, at least 31 other CCHD grantees a “partnered” with the Center. Some of those grantees have extensive networks of their own CCHD-funded affiliates and many of these partners and their affiliates work directly within Catholic parishes. This makes the Center for Community Change’s sphere of influence within the US Catholic Church enormous.

What’s the problem with that? Well! The ALL report states, “[T]he culture of death is pervasive throughout the Center for Community Change, from its board members to the grants it receives, to its projects and its promoted literature. Any group partnering with this organization is directly involved with this pervasive attitude.”
The USCCB has since scrubbed clean its website of any evidence of collaboration with the CCC, but John Carr, who was chairman at CCC, remains Executive Director of the USCCB's Dept of Justice, Peace & Human Development.

The following exposé makes it beyond clear why giving a penny to this group should be impossible for any Catholic.