How Faithful Catholics Can Do Operation Rice Bowl - #no$2crs

Today is the first Sunday of Lent.  On this day, the ubiquitous cardboard "rice bowls" from Catholic Relief Servcies are in all Church lobbies to be picked up by unsuspecting parishioners.  I say "unsuspecting" because many, if not most, of these parishioners have no idea that CRS is funding the distribution of contraception, abortifacients and "population control" propaganda to the people whom they are ostensibly assisting.

The Lepanto Institute has done stellar work in exposing the malevolence of the Catholic Relief Services.  They recently published a piece outlining some of their most egregious violations of Catholic moral teachings.  In that post, Hichborn published a slip that can be used during CRS collection times.  Please keep that page open; I'll return to it in a minute.

Hichborn didn't include every wrong of the CRS in his litany; others can be found here (and this is most likely not exhaustive either).  Let me highlight a few other "lowlights" from CRS's checkered record.

• Thanks to Lepanto, we learned that a CRS vice president was "married" to his accomplice in the mortal sin of sodomy.  The man made no secret of it, blasting it all over his twitter page.  It was only after public scrutiny was brought to bear on the situation that the man resigned.
• In 2005, while Terri Schiavo was being deliberately starved to death in the Diocese of St Petersburg Florida, the local bishop, Robert Lynch gave thinly-veiled approval to her murderous husband to have his way with her.  At the time, Bishop Lynch was chairman of the board of CRS.  That brings us to the third "bullet".
• The pro-euthanasia crowd in Florida was being heavily funded by George Soros during the struggle for Terri's life.  If you read the link from the second bullet, you'll see that Soros was also funding CRS (along with other progrssive "katholyc" organizations).
• Please read my anthology of prior posts and follow the links to learn more of CRS.  Clearly they are utterly unworthy of one penny from faithful Catholics.

So how do we faithful Catholics do Operation Rice Bowl?  First, we give them not one red cent.  As Lepanto stated in that first link, there will be more information released; I'll notify you as it becomes available.  So here are the steps to our Operation Rice Bowl.

1. Pick up one of those "rice bowls" from your church lobby and assemble it.
2. At the bottom of the Lepanto article is a note that you can use to let CRS know why you'll not contribute.
3. Place that note in your now-assembled "rice bowl".  I intend to sign mine, but that's optional.
4. 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.

Like most progressive "katholyc" organizations, the only language CRS seems to understand is that of $ka-ching$.  Well, let's speak it and encourage all faithful Catholics to do the same.  Give the money that you would have donated to CRS to a worthy organization, such as your local pro-life pregnancy center.  Please spread the word on your own social media cites and among your contacts.

Catholic Relief Services Arrogantly Defends Its Disregard For Jesus' Moral Teachings

The Lepanto Institute reports on an interview between John Burger of Aleteia and Carolyn Woo, president of Catholic Relief Services.  Burger asked her about the many instances where CRS was caught partnering with organizations dealing in abortion, sterilization and contraceptives.  He also touched upon Richard Estridge, the CRS vice president who was exposed as being in a "gay marriage" for two years - and who still retains his position.

In typical progressive fashion, Woo describes as "attacks" our discovery and exposure of CRS derelictions of Catholic duty.  When queried about CRS's squalid association with anti-life organizations, she replie (with my comments in red):

"The type of attacks come in three forms. The first is: Why do we work with other organizations which don’t follow Catholic Church teaching?… So when we have responsibilities for these types of activities, for the scope of these activities, if we don’t reach out to other partners who have coverage of those territories, we are basically leaving a big swath of population unattended. … If we don’t collaborate with other agencies, we are leaving those people without any hospitals or clinics or access to those medications"  Our first concern as Catholics is to save souls.  Any other concern, while important, is secondary and ancillary to the overriding concern for eternal salvation.  There is no indication of any such concern in Woo's remarks.  The activities of CRS, in legitimizing contraception and abortion, may well be leading souls to eternal damnation.

In dealing with the CRS vice president who is in a "same-sex marriage", Woo trips over herself during her verbal tap-dance.  "CRS has a senior person who is in a civil gay marriage, and the question is, Is that a violation of Church teaching?  I just want to say we are working through this."  As I said in a previous post, if the person was found to be a member of the Ku Klux Klan, there would be no "question", no "working through this".  He would have been out on his ear in a heartbeat.  If Woo really has to ask if it's a violation of Church teaching, she should be handed her pink slip as well.

Catholic Relief Services is showing itself to be a thinly-disguised front group for all sorts of progressives.  It can be argued that CRS is merely the international version of Catholic Campaign for Human Development.  Both are under the direct control of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.  The whole apparatus is showing itself to be quite the devil's liar and should be unceremoniously scuttled at once.

Catholic Relief Services VP - A Flagrant Sodomite

The Lepanto Institute broke the news that the current Vice President of Overseas Finance for Catholic Relief Services, Rick Estridge, entered into a mockery of marriage with his sodomite accomplice, William Goretsas.  Lepanto has a copy of the Maryland marriage license on their page.  The legal travesty happened over two years ago.  Lepanto also has numerous screen shots from Estridge's Facebook and Linkedin profiles that show Estridge to be, well, "out and proud" regarding his promotion of perversion - and his thumbing of nose at Catholic moral teaching.

The Facebook and Linkedin accounts are deactivated as of today.  Presumably that was done in a lame attempt at damage control.  It appears that he hasn't completely cleaned up his Twitter account. (UPDATE!  That's gone, too!)  We see that he is following both Michelle and Barack Obama as well as Ellen Degeneres.

At any rate, given his rather high-profile flaunting of his mortal sin, no reasonable person can gainsay that Estridge's objectively sinful status wasn't known by the higher-ups inside the Catholic Relief Services.  For over two years, Catholic Relief Services - the same that pretends to uphold Catholic moral teachings - has harbored within its ranks of power a known sodomite.  If the CRS directors have allowed this to fester in their midst for over two years, what does that say about their own loyalty to the Catholic Church and to Jesus Christ Himself?

Will John Rivera (or whoever now occupies the none-too-enviable position of CRS Director of Communications) go all-out into damage control mode as he tried to do three years ago (and miserably flopped)?  What will the leadership of CRS do about this highly-placed official who is flouting Church teaching and contributing to the ongoing lie that is its "mission statement"?  I think we all know the answer to that - zilch, zip, nadda!

I think we also have a glimpse regarding the reason why the upcoming March for Marriage on Saturday the 25th has received so little support from the two Maryland archdiocese.  Yes, a few parishes have heroically promoted this march, but they are few and far between.

It is my opinion that the Catholic Relief Services is jaded beyond repair.  In fact, the same can be said for the entire United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.  The whole apparatus needs to be dismantled.  In the meantime, do not drop one red cent into any collection that is held for the benefit of CCHD, CRS, Catholic Charities or anything masterminded by the USCCB.