Catholics should not donate monies to CCHD. For to do so would constitute formal cooperation in an immoral project

In a letter to Mr. Paul Rondeau, the Executive Director of American Life League, Dr. William Marshner, a moral theologian who teaches at Christendom College, explains why Catholics should refrain from donating monies to the "Catholic" Campaign for Human Development (CCHD).  He writes, "..the funding of an organization is formal cooperation in what it regularly does.  But in Catholic moral theology, it is never licit to cooperate formally in an immoral project." (See here).

And, in the same letter, Dr. Marshner, referring to the report on CCHD's development grants for the fiscal year 2010-2011 prepared by Reform CCHD Now, writes, "Your Report has documented at least 11 cases which, in my judgment, are cases in which prima facie the grantee has done or promoted an immoral activity.


These cases are:

Centro Campesino (granted $35 K), which distributes condoms, as CCHD now admits; it claims to have defunded the group, but evidence for this correct decision is not yet forthcoming; the bishops are owed an explanation of what exactly has been done;

Somos un Pueblo Unido (granted $45 K), which trains immigrant women to advocate “reproductive justice” (i.e. contraception and abortion) and which took from other sources at least two grants to do so; CCHD has yet to explain its lack of response to this information;

NY City AIDS Housing Network (granted $30 K) which is listed on an NYC government website as a place to get condoms; CCHD has yet to explain its lack of response;

Southwest Organizing Project (granted $ 45 K); which is involved in the Elev8 sex-ed program, which distributes condoms and IUDs and refers for abortions at Marquette Middle School in Chicago; CCHD was informed of this problem by its own regional director, Mr. Ray Florez; to date, CCHD has explained neither its lack of response nor its termination of Mr. Florez;

Desis Rising Up and Moving (granted $ 35 K), which advocates and participates in groups advocating sexual “liberation” and abortion;

Michigan Interfaith Voice, A.K.A. Gamaliel of Michigan (granted $ 25 K), which has taken grants from the pro-abortion and pro-homosexual Arcus Foundation to advance Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual and Trans-sexual (LGBT) rights, which include a “right” to be legally “married”;

Michigan Organizing Project (granted $40 K), which has taken grants from the Arcus Foundation for the same purpose in 2007-2009 and in 2011;

Coalition LA (granted $45 K), which produced a voters’ guide favoring same-sex marriage and telling people to vote NO on the ballot-measure to repeal it; the issue here is not just how the state will treat homosexual persons but whether state law will abandon the meaning of the word ‘marriage’, contrary to Catholic doctrine;

Women’s Community Revitalization Project ($40 K), which sponsored a pro-abortion voter’s guide in Pennsyl-vania and took money from a feminist, pro-abortion organization called Women’s Way; CCHD was informed of this problem in 2009 but re-funded the group in 2010; since the bishops of PA have played an historic role in the pro-life cause, they are certainly owed a specific explanation of this payment to their declared enemy;

Philadelphia Unemployment Project (given $25 K), which, despite its good work toward issues of workers’ compensation, sponsored the same kind of pro-abortion voter’s guide; in a state as heavily Catholic and Democratic as Pennsylvania, it passes belief that the Church cannot find a pro-labor organization that keeps fully clear of the culture of death;

Restaurant Opportunities Center of NY (given $40 K), which produced “guidelines” telling businesses to make questionable accommodations to LGBT preferences, including permission to cross-dress during work-hours and to choose whichever lavatory suited the worker’s subjective preference.


In every one of these cases, the grantee has behaved in such a way that continued funding puts the Church in a position of formal cooperation (or in the apparent and proximate danger of formal cooperation) with moral evil."
 
Dr. Germain Grisez explains that formal cooperation in other's wrong acts is always wrong.  He writes, "Cooperation is formal in the following three kinds of cases: (i) one intends or one's purpose includes that another commit a sin; (ii) one shares the other's wrong intention, in the sense that the proposal one adopts - that is, precisely what one chooses to do - includes something (and perhaps everything) objectively wrong in the other's proposal; or (iii) one's proposal includes the other's successfully carrying out an objectively wrong choice.
 
In all these cases, one wills moral evil; thus, formal cooperation of all three kinds is always wrong.  It occurs in the first way, for example, when a misguided counselor encourages a person to commit embarassing sins, imagining that this will lead to his or her spiritual growth; in the second way, when a nurse who favors abortion volunteers her service in an abortion clinic, in order to help women seeking abortions to get them; in the third way, when an inspector takes bribes to approve faulty construction, wishing the fraud to succeed so that the bribery will not be exposed.
 
Formal cooperation with others' sinful acts can be by means of an omission.  For instance, a police officer who ignores criminal activities in order to obtain a percentage of the proceeds intends the success of the criminal act; thus, he or she formally cooperates with them by omitting the police work that would impede them."
 

Catholic priests who are faithful to the Church's teaching and who have a genuine love for souls will not ask the faithful entrusted to their care to donate monies to the "Catholic" Campaign for Human Development.  To do so is to ask faithful Catholics to formally cooperate in an immoral project.