Diocese of Springfield, Massachusetts: Why would it have us believe that funding for the Catholic Campaign for Human Development won't be used to promote dissent from Catholic teaching?

Once again, the Diocese of Springfield, Massachusetts is promoting the "Catholic" Campaign for Human Development.  This is most alarming since the CCHD, an organization which was inspired by radical agitator Saul Alinsky, a Marxist who dedicated his Rules for Radicals to Lucifer, whom he called "the first radical," is an umbrella organization and/or a front for various groups which dissent from the Church's authentic teaching. Especially in the area of sexual morality.


According to American Life League's Michael Hichborn, "..no less than fifty organizations (one-fifth of all CCHD grantees from 2009) are, in some capacity, engaged in pro-abortion or pro-homosexual causes." See here.

At its website, the Springfield Diocese asserts that, "The activity for which funding is requested must conform to the moral and social teachings of the Catholic Church. Organizations that receive CCHD funds must not participate in or promote activities that contradict the moral and social teachings of the Catholic Church and must in no way work against the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ priorities to defend human life and dignity, strengthen family life and the institution of marriage, and foster diversity. For example, organizations that support or promote same-sex marriage, discrimination, capital punishment, abortion, euthanasia, or punitive measures towards immigrants are not eligible for CCHD funding.

The organization must be fully nonpartisan when engaging in political activities. Organizations engaged in partisan political activity are not eligible." (See here).

But, as this website documents in its 2010-2011 CCHD Grants Report:

For a number of years, there has been concern with the grants that CCHD distributes. There have been specific complaints that a significant portion of the grants have been given to organizations working in direct contradiction to Church teaching.

In 2009, American Life League joined with several other concerned organizations to form the Reform CCHD Now Coalition. In March of 2010, the coalition sent a report on CCHD to each bishop, showing that, in 2009–2010, 51 out of 237 groups receiving CCHD funding either directly or through coalition membership promoted abortion, birth control, homosexuality, and/or Marxism. Thus, 21% of the groups funded by CCHD were involved in such work.

As a result of this activity, CCHD conducted an internal effort to revamp its grant process and ensure that all grantees adhered to strict guidelines. The results were published in a CCHD Renewal Document.

2010–2011 Grantees

In January, 2011, CCHD published its list of 2010-2011 grantees. At that time, American Life League reviewed the list and was disappointed to see that many of the offending organizations were still on the list and, in fact, others have been added.

The attached report documents that, of the 218 organizations funded by CCHD, 14 are directly involved in activities contrary to Church teaching and 40 are actively involved in coalitions with such activities. Thus, 54 groups (24%) funded by CCHD are involved in anti-Catholic work.

The number, and percentage, of offending organizations has actually INCREASED in the last year —from 51 to 54 groups and from 21% to 24%.

These 54 organizations received a total of $1,863,000 of the $7,608,000 distributed in CCHD grants in 2010-2011."

The number and percentage of offending/dissenting organizations receiving CCHD monies has actually increased since 2009.  In 2011, 14 organizations funded by CCHD are directly involved in activities which are contrary to Catholic teaching and another 40 are actively involved and associated with coalitions in support of such activities.

And the Diocese of Springfield would have us believe that such is not the case.  Perhaps diocesan officials should meditate very carefully upon the eigth chapter of the Gospel of John verse 44.   In a speech given on March 21, 2009 in Detroit, Archbishop Charles Chaput, having been asked to examine what November 2008 and its aftermath can teach Catholics about American culture, the state of American Catholicism and the kind of Pauline discipleship necessary today, said that, "November showed us that 40 years of American Catholic complacency and poor formation are bearing exactly the fruit we should have expected. Or to put it more discreetly, the November elections confirmed a trend, rather than created a new moment, in American culture."

 And noting that there was no question about President Barack Obama’s views on abortion "rights," embryonic stem cell research and other "problematic issues," His Excellency said that, "Some Catholics in both political parties are deeply troubled by these issues. But too many Catholics just don’t really care. That’s the truth of it. If they cared, our political environment would be different. If 65 million Catholics really cared about their faith and cared about what it teaches, neither political party could ignore what we believe about justice for the poor, or the homeless, or immigrants, or the unborn child. If 65 million American Catholics really understood their faith, we wouldn’t need to waste each other’s time arguing about whether the legalized killing of an unborn child is somehow ‘balanced out’ or excused by three other good social policies.”


Then His Excellency offered a stunning indictment of American "Catholicism":

"We need to stop over-counting our numbers, our influence, our institutions and our resources, because they’re not real. We can’t talk about following St. Paul and converting our culture until we sober up and get honest about what we’ve allowed ourselves to become. We need to stop lying to each other, to ourselves and to God by claiming to ‘personally oppose’ some homicidal evil -- but then allowing it to be legal at the same time." See full text here.

Let's all pray that the Diocese of Springfield, Massachusetts will take these words to heart and stop lying to faithful Catholics.

Related reading here and here.