Catholic Campaign for Saul Alinksy Styled Community Organizing

The above video by RealCatholicTV makes some claims that it fails to bring facts to in what CCHD is supporting such as prostitution. It mainly points out connections between George Soros, Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, and people involved with CCHD and other Soros sponsored groups. Certainly it says a lot that people who headed CCHD were also involved in Obama excuse making groups. It certainly seems to me that many associated with CCHD are more than just sympathetic to Alinsky style community organizing and the types of groups that Moveon.org founder George Soros would support. It also is no surprise that many working within the USCCB have been inclined to supporting the Democratic Party. The joke that the Bishops conference is the "Democratic Party at prayer" certainly had some merit - though not as much as it once did. Catholics being reflexively part of any political party is not what it once was.

Though while I don't see the above video being as damning as it intended. I certainly see a real scandal within the CCHD that needs much more of an overhaul than so far planned. Though to be honest if the CCHD in its present incarnation was to disappear entirely I would not shed a tear.

With the collection coming up tomorrow it is unfortunate that the "Currently Funded Projects" page for CCHD at the USCCB sites is now "Not Found." It could actually be a server order, but the disappearance is rather timely.

Though the list off 2008 grants is available. Since before I came into the Church ten years ago I was aware of the scandal surround CCHD and that they were funding groups that were well outside Catholic truth. Long before ACORN came to the front in the nation's attention I had known to some extent that were more an arm of the Democratic Party than a group that was really making inroads into helping the poor and of course the stench of voter's fraud has been around them for years. It was not until I looked at the above list that I saw the full extent of the problem.

Bishop Morin had some very strong words about critics of the CCHD and said "The subcommittee report cited three cases -- out of 250 funded groups during the last year -- in which funding was terminated and the groups were asked to repay any grant funds that were spent." This certainly makes it sound like the problem is limited to a couple bad apple groups and it might even be true that the majority of these groups are not themselves supporting abortion, contraception, homosexual marriage, etc - at least not publicly as part of their mission.

But as Gibbons J. Cooney pointed out the other day one of the funded groups "The San Francisco Organizing Project (SFOP)" not only gives out so-called emergency contraception. It did not take me but a minute to determine that they are also involved in "Family Planning/Reproduction Health services." Does anybody believe that they are teaching married couples NFP and being open children? Or that the "Confidential/Sensitive services for youths ages 12 to 21" falls into advice anywhere within magisterial teaching. So contrary to what Bishop Morin said it certainly appears that that the CCHD is still funding groups that in their day-to-day business deny Catholic truth.

Though what shocked me the most when going over last years list is that out of 250 organizations there was really not even one that I would consider giving money to or supporting myself. The briefs for these groups so often include buzz words right out of the far left's lexicon and of course call themselves nonpartisan and multi-about-everything. The main business seems to be training people about victimology and leader training which seems to be geared towards creating even more leaders in the community organizing effort. The reason the President never bragged about his time as a community organizer is that the communities he organized were just as disorganized as when he started helping them. What are the success stories of the community organizing movement? Since the sixties exactly what are the neighborhoods they have transformed? I would certainly think the MSM would have said something about such a marvelous achievement if it had happened. Much has been said about Saul Alinsky the Communist/ Marxist founder of the community organizing movement. It appears more to me to be about community agitation for political purposes than really helping the poor. They talk a lot about root causes of poverty, but don't seem to have an actual clue as to what they are other than it is somebody else's fault.

Now maybe some of these groups listed actually do some good - well God can bring good out of evil and even community organizing! It is just that the approach taken by almost all of these groups really does not appear to have much similarity with Catholic social teaching. They all seem to be on the far left of the political spectrum and I just can't see any of these groups having so-called religious or social conservatives on their boards. They call themselves non-partisan, but none of the groups supported fall anywhere within a conservative answer to helping the poor. But then again politicization is not what we need - weed need to help our brothers and sister among the poor and I don't see how these groups are actually doing this. Like the Great Society of LBJ it is pretty much a total failure.

That the CCHD does not give any money to specifically Catholic groups helping the poor is rather strange. Plus of course not one dime goes to Emergency Pregnancy Centers. The St. Vincent dePaul Society does great work at the parish and diocesan level and actually interact with and help the poor, yet they don't receive one dime either.

When I first read the following statement I found at And Sometimes Tea I thought it a bit harsh. Matthew Vadum at The American Spectator says:

The charitable arm of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, CCHD has never provided direct relief to the poor. That's not its purpose.

CCHD is an extreme left-wing political organization that was created to feed and foster radical groups, but most Catholics are blissfully unaware of its true mission. CCHD says right on its website that it aims to support "organized groups of white and minority poor to develop economic strength and political power."

After looking over the list I think it is all to true. In my opinion Blessed Mother Teresa would not have been given funding by the CCHD.

So even if all the groups CCHD was giving funding to stopped the intrinsically evil things that some of them do indeed support, I would still not give the CCHD a dime. On a prudential level I think the groups they are supporting are not directly helping the poor and I would much rather give directly to groups that are and that see the poor not as victims, but neighbors.

Some of the links I used were borrowed from And Sometimes Tea which had an excellent post on this subject.