Today and tomorrow mark the First Sunday of Lent 2017. This is the weekend when the ubiquitous Catholic Relief Services rice bowls will sprout like kudzu in the lobbies of most Catholic parishes in the United States. Last year many of us Catholic bloggers urged a boycott of this CRS collection. When we do so, we always hope that the offending target of the boycott will heed the message of the boycott and take corrective measures to make themselves more worthy of Catholic donations. Alas, our hopes are dashed this year as CRS has proven itself to be even more unworthy of Catholic dollars than they were last year.So what have been the lowlights of the Catholic Relief Services since Lent of 2016?
- One of their vice presidents was found to be in a same-sex #mowwidge, that is, he was a flagrant pervert. Only when the light was shown on this sin did CRS announce his resignation.
- Brushes off our discoveries of their moral failures as "attacks".
- Questionable influence of Caritas over CRS
- Two more sodomy promoters within its ranks
Such are the relatively current scandals of the CRS. For some of their older scandals, see here, here, here (with some videos), here (w/more videos). You can also put "crs" or "Catholic Relief Services" in the search box at the top left to see much more material. The scandals abound.
Last year I suggested a way to do an effective boycott of the rice-bowl effort. I reiterate the suggestion below.
- Pick up one of those "rice bowls" from your church lobby and assemble it.
- At the bottom of the Lepanto article is a note that you can use to let CRS know why you'll not contribute.
- Place that note in your now-assembled "rice bowl". I intend to sign mine, but that's optional.
- When your parish announces that it's time to return the rice bowls to church, please do so. Yours will have the note and no money.
So why are the scandals so numerous? I suspect that CRS, like its cousin CCHD, was never founded to be truly conformable with the Catholic mission of saving souls. Please participate in our boycott and urge your family and friends to do the same. Feel free to post this blog post to your own sites. CRS is a beast that needs to be starved to death.
We already boycott all of them. And......we try to inform and discourage other parishioners to do the same. Pretty soon, we are going to be labeled the 'trouble makers' in the Parish. So be it. We have also decided to give only a fraction of what we did in the past to our Parish and give more to traditional orders etc. The only way to get their attention is through their collection baskets.
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