Church's Charitable Umbrella Organizations Are Decidedly Uncharitable

During the past two days I linked to stories detailing how the Catholic Campaign for Human Development and Catholic Charities are serving anti-life agendas.  Unfortunately the accounts of their misuse of Catholic money continue to accumulate, and the Catholic Relief Services seems to be following suit.

The Lepanto Institute recently exposed the production by Catholic Relief Services of a sex-education program in Rwanda.  It promotes the usage of abortifacients, contraceptives, masturbation and homosexuality.  The program is called "My Changing Body" and it is produced in partnership with Georgetown University's Institute for Reproductive Health.  Ostensibly Georgetown used to be Catholic, but it too has jettisoned all authentic Catholicism from its life and is Catholic in name only.  The Lepanto site links to their full report on "My Changing Body"and has screenshots of some of the material used by that program.  It is immoral, anti-life - and funded with Catholic donations.

The Lepanto Institute learned something brand-new about the CCHD this week.  We know from many years of their misbehaviors that they've funded all sorts of anti-life and socialistic ventures, but apparently "community organizing" has taken a new turn - marijuana farms!  This is occurring in California (of course!).  The California Center for Cooperative Development received $50k to start some "medical marijuana cooperatives".  Next we hear they'll be starting some avant-garde opium dens or safe-haven needle exchange projects - oh wait! - Catholic Charities beat them to it several years ago!

Speaking of Catholic Charities, they have a new president - Sister Donna Markham.  She worked for a while at Georgetown University (there's that name again!) and then became prioress of the Adrian Dominicans.  Under her less-than-illustrious leadership, this order joined the Catholic Health Association and helped ramrod through Obamacare, in direct opposition to the bishops.  She's been associated with the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, serving a term as its president.  When the Vatican launched its investigation into the LCWR, she waxed both arrogant and indignant at the Church for so doing.  Such is Catholic Charities' leadership.

I do want to highlight a few things about CCHD's ongoing linkage to Alinskyian community organizing.  It is alive and well; one must remember that CCHD was founded with the express purpose of funding socialistic and atheistic endeavors with the contribution dollars of unwitting Catholics.  My colleague Stephanie Block has done much work in exposing these "community organizing" outfits for the menaces that they are.  In this piece she exposes the linkage between the Industrial Areas Foundation with illegal immigration.  Recall that a few days ago I exposed the misdeeds of Action In Montgomery.  AIM was front-and-center with the left-wing as they were shilling for the DREAM Act a year or two ago in Maryland.  AIM is an IAF affiliate.  In her next piece detailing the Senate campaign of rabid pro-abort Loretta Sanchez and IAF's support for her, Stephanie details how Sanchez's supporters relied on the votes of newly-naturalized aliens to defeat pro-life Bob Dornan for the US Congress.

Many Catholics are unaware (or they won't accept) that their contributions to Catholic Charities, Catholic Relief Services and/or Catholic Campaign for Human Development actually serve to undermine the Church and facilitate death and destruction, both spiritually and physically.  It's time to say #no2cchd, #no3crs and #no2cathcharities.

Boycott CCHD Collection THIS Weekend!

(This originally appeared Sunday Aug 5th.  Now the collection is here - DON'T GIVE!)

The CCHD collection for the Archdiocese of Washington will occur on the weekend of Aug 11-12 (THIS WEEKEND!).  In the August 2nd edition of the Catholic Standard, Mark Zimmerman waxed lyrical about the "virtues" of the CCHD.  Read it.  Notice that one of the CCHD recipients is the Washington Interfaith Network.  Zimmerman describes WIN as being an organization that "advocates for the poor and forgotten in our community".  Well, not exactly!

At the very first glimpse of the WIN website, we see that they are an affiliate of the Industrial Areas Foundation.  The IAF (and thus, WIN, the recipient of CCHD funds from the Washington Archdiocese) was founded by Saul Alinsky himself.  Barack Hussein Obama launched his career as a community organizer along the model of Alinsky, working for both the Gamaliel Project and the now-disgraced ACORN (the latter having received thousands from the ADW in the past).  Here are some quotes, by the way, from Rules for Radicals, Alinsky's signature work.  Notice therein the tribute to Obama issued by David Alinsky, Saul's son.

Now consider where this "community organizer" sits - in the White House.  He, with assistance from faux-katholics Nancy Pelosi, Kathleen Sebelius and others, have enjoined upon each and everyone of us a draconian mandate to fund abortifacients for everyone who thus demands them.  He has been propelled into power with the assistance of Alinskyan organizations such as WIN.  And the Catholic Standard continues to shill for them??? 

I will now go into another personal irritation with Zimmerman's shill piece.  He mentions "Gabriel Network of Prince George's County".  What???!!?!  Whazzup with this "of Prince George's County" nonsense???   The Gabriel Network is a state-wide organization that is over ten years old!   As a former board officer of the Gabriel Network, I am rather familiar with the structure of the organization - it is not limited to PG County.  This gaffe on the part of the editor of an archdiocesan publication is absolutely inexcusable!!!!

The Gabriel Network is most definitely a worthwhile charity, offering practical aid to mothers in crisis situations.  Here is their website.  If you are inclined to support their excellent work, please donate directly to them.  That is in fact a suggested practice for any favorite charity.  Donate directly to them.   Why trust a "middleman"?

To render more effective your boycott of the CCHD collection, I make available to you now a flyer that you can place in that CCHD collection basket.  Last year we sent this out as a postcard to Catholics in the Baltimore area to urge a boycott of their CCHD collection.  We didn't have time to do the same here, but you can still use this.  Print it out, preferably in color.  If you have a duplex printer, you can print the two pages on both sides (flipping on the long edge).  In the big white space, you can sign your name or write a note elaborating on the need for a boycott; of course you'll want to maintain respect and decorum as you write that note.  You can fold it and put it in your envelope if you use them.  Who knows?  If the chancery sees enough of these notes, they might finally wake up.

Those of you outside the DC area who might want to use this template for your own locality, please contact me via the comments and I'll be happy to email the original file (in Microsoft Publisher 2010) to you.

EmpowerDC - Recipient of DC's CCHD Funds

EmpowerDC has been a regular recipient of CCHD funding from the Archdiocese of Washington.  They are an organization that claims to be for grassroots organizing for the plight of poor people.  As with many recipients of CCHD funding (and thus of Catholic donations) questionable connections abound.  Although they do have a website, I find that their Facebook page lists their mission statement, address and key players in one succinct place.  As you look down their list of campaigns on the right side, their goals all have to do with getting the DC government to spend more and more money - money that the DC government just doesn't have.  Now recall what I posted earlier about the Cloward-Piven Strategy.  You see it in play here - this is a key feature of Alinskyan organizing, whether or not the EmpowerDC folks are conscious of it.

Daniel Del Pielago, their "quality education organizer", has given workshops sponsored by DC Jobs for Justice and Washington Peace Center.  As you look to the left of the WPC webpage, you'll see some planned events - including Bank of America's Week to Pay.   We all know from the riot that "community organizers" (really labor-union types) staged on the front lawn of a Bank of America official in Chevy Chase what "payment" can entail.  I have to admit that I am somewhat intrigued about the idea of a "Sleepful Protest".  Does that means the protest is boring?   A perusal of the coalitions of DC Jobs for Justice lists not only EmpowerDC but other sordid little cabals such as: DC Democratic Socialists of America, DC Trans Coaltion, Feminism Without Borders and sundry big-labor unions.

On Empower's "grassrootsmedia" page, we see a link to DC's Independent Media Center.  Click on that.  On the left side we see "calendars and feeds".  Scroll down to "Machination.org's clippings" to see a most ominous title: Why We Must Ration Healthcare.  It is a New York Times op-ed piece, written in 2009 by Peter Singer, the notorious anti-life Princeton professor.  This is indicative of how EmpowerDC values (or doesn't value) the lives of the ill and elderly, allowing for imperious bureaucrats to determine who receives medical care.  So much for championing the disenfranchised.

EmpowerDC has another connection to another entity - one that I hope not too many of these Alinskyan organizations have.  It's so unique that I was taken aback.  If you look at Empower's Facebook page, you'll see that its street address is 1419 V Street, NW in DC.  That address is identical to that of St Augustine Catholic Church in DC.

My, my!  Doesn't this just raise a bunch of questions?

• Neither St. Augustine nor EmpowerDC are up front about their shared address on their respective websites.  Why?
• The DC real estate data base makes clear that the usage code is "religious".  How is that justified with EmpowerDC's presence?
• Do any St Augustine staff members hold positions with EmpowerDC (and vice versa, too)?
• Under St Augustine's "social committee" webpage, we see WIN, that is, Washington Interfaith Network, listed.
• Why is that the only activity listed without its own contact person?
• What is the nature of the relationship between this parish's WIN and EmpowerDC?
• For the information of this blog's readers, WIN is an affiliate of the Industrial Areas Foundation, founded by Saul Alinsky himself.

A little "aside" about St Augustine's - they have "liturgical dancers".  That's a liturgical no-no.

I mention all this because next month, the weekend of Aug 11-12, the second collection will be for "Catholic Communication and Human Development".  Yes, they're mish-mashing it again this year with another collection (Catholic Communications).  It seems that they're trying to disguise the name a bit so you won't know that this is a collection to be boycotted.  Please don't give one red cent to this collection.  Give that money to a truly deserving charity.

Alinsky's Paw-Prints On The MD DREAM Act

Comes now the news that the MD DREAM Act has the support of the Maryland chapter of the Industrial Areas Foundation.  Frankly, I'm not surprised in the least; I just didn't think they'd be so blatant about it. 

While they give the obligatory blather about "investing in our children", what they really mean is:

1. "investing" in future community-organizing foot-soldiers
2. "investing" in future progressives likely to vote for socialists (as was Alinsky himself)

Now ponder this.  The chanceries of the three MD dioceses and the Maryland Catholic Conference now find themselves openly in league with one of the most prominent progressive agitation outfits.  Of course they've probably been all along, as the chanceries, via the CCHD collections, have been funnelling Catholic money to them over the years.  Isn't this just..well...special?

HT to Pewsitter

Local CCHD Funds Alinskyite Organization

If anyone thought that the local CCHD in the Archdiocese of Washington was not funding any innimical organization, please be advised that they are.  Proof can be found in the November 11th issue of the Catholic Standard, page 9.  If you don't have a copy, no problem - it's online right here.

We read that Holy Comforter-St Cyprian parish has a "relationship" with the Washington Interfaith Network (WIN), which in turn receives CCHD funding.  Let's look at the website of the Washington Interfaith Network.  Right off the bat we see that they are affiliates of the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF).  Let's look at the "about the IAF", then "overview" page.  They unabashedly admit to being founded by Saul Alinsky, the self-proclaimed "radical" who has made it his publicly-stated aim to remake our country into his image of a socialistic utopia.  Read his book, "Rules for Radicals", obtainable anywhere online.  Read as he states quite plainly that he believed that the "ends justify the means".

Let's go to the "links" page and look at VOICE.  My colleague at Les Femmes, being based in Virginia, has done much research on them.  Rather than rehash what she's learned, I post two of her links:
http://lesfemmes-thetruth.blogspot.com/2009/09/fr-mitch-pacwa-and-thoughts-on-alinsky.html
http://lesfemmes-thetruth.blogspot.com/2009/09/fr-gerry-creedon-trivializes-murder-of.html
http://lesfemmes-thetruth.blogspot.com/2009/09/turn-up-heat-on-catholic-campaign-for.html

Have you noticed something that seems to be a problem for the CCHD, everytime there's an effort to convince Catholics that the CCHD is "on the up-and-up"?  Their very attempts betray more squalid associations.  They simply can't get away from the putrid stench of Alinskyite organizing.  I regret saying that there is an obvious reason to this plight of theirs.  That foul stench doesn't merely permeate them; it is the very essense of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development.

Let's step away from the dubious entanglements and look at some of the problematic statements made by archdiocesan officials.  Anthony Bosnick, the director of the archdiocese's Department for Charity and Justice, stated that the CCHD helps to "reach out to the poor and vunerable and that's really the most important thing that we can do as a community."  Well, that's not my understanding of the mission of the Church.  As I see it, and as I've been taught, the primary mission  of the Church is about the saving of souls.  That's not to say that "reaching out to the poor and vulnerable" isn't important.  It is an important thing that we do, but it is NOT "the most important thing."  Msgr Charles Pope, pastor of the church mentioned above, said something similar, "Certainly care for the poor is central to the Gospel, and every Catholic should support the poor."  Again, is not eternal salvation central to the Gospel?  Of course it is.

Now why do you think there is the emphasis on "reaching out to the poor" at the expense of eternal salvation?  Here it is, in a nutshell.  Saul Alinsky, the inspiration behind the CCHD, was an atheist.  As a non-believer in eternity, he saw only the here and now as being reality.  Unfortunately, some of the apologists for the CCHD are unwittingly chanting that Alinskyan mantra, even though they themselves believe in eternity.

Again, I urge a complete boycott of the CCHD collection this weekend.