The Wanderer on Saul Alinsky

Below is an article from The Wanderer on Saul Alinsky and the influence he has had on the Campaign for Human Development in the United States:


A Commentary on Catholic Campaign for Human Development Funding of the Industrial Areas Foundation
Prepared for the Catholic Bishops of the United States by the Wanderer Forum Foundation
I. Introduction:
This commentary is submitted to the Catholic Bishops of the United States as a response to recently proposed changes in the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) guidelines. The Wanderer Forum Foundation is encouraged by these reform efforts and thanks the United States Catholic Bishops for their work to more accurately shape the guidelines into greater conformity with Church teaching.
However, the Wanderer Forum Foundation is aware that guidelines alone, without adequate information about potential CHD grantees, will be insufficient to make informed decisions about the capacity of given organizations to respect Catholic moral and social justice principles. This commentary is offered in an attempt to provide some of that information.
It is essential to note the limited purpose and scope of this commentary:
1. This commentary is intended for the use of the Catholic Bishops of the United States in their consideration of the issues discussed. In view of the objections raised by the CCHD over the Wanderer Forum Foundation's having made the 1997 CHD Commentary available to the public, the Wanderer Forum Foundation will not make the 1998 IAF Commentary public until January 1999. We hope this will allow adequate time for in-depth perusal of the Commentary by the bishops and will permit a serious exchange between the CCHD committee and the Foundation.
2. This commentary endeavors only to set forth facts. Supporting documentation can be made available to any bishop who so requests it. The commentary does not call into question the good faith or integrity of anyone involved with the CHD. Nor does it assert that any recipient of CHD funds has engaged in any misrepresentation or intentional misuse of funds in any way contrary to the stated purpose of CHD. This commentary does not assert that any persons or organizations involved in these matters have engaged in conduct that is illegal in any way.
3. This commentary is entirely directed to issues of prudence and judgment rather than legality and good faith. The discussion herein is intended merely to raise legitimate questions about specific CHD funding.
4. The scope of commentary is limited to examination of one CHD grant recipient, the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF).
II. Reasons for selecting the Industrial Areas Foundation for this Commentary:
1. The IAF receives the largest percentage of CHD grants of any CHD grantee. During the funding period of 1992-1997, CHD has awarded significant grants to the IAF. The IAF has received approximately 15% of the national CHD annual budget between 1992-1997. This represents approximately $6,466,500 during this funding period.
2. The CHD is historically related to the IAF. The consistently high proportion of CHD grants to the IAF are in themselves a reason to study IAF activities. Its historical relationship to the CHD is another: "There was no formal link between the Campaign for Human Development and the Industrial Areas Foundation [at the CHD's inception]; but the philosophy behind the newly established CHD had been influenced by key Catholic leaders who in turn had been influenced by Alinsky and the IAF. In fact, funding from the CHD over the years has often gone to broad based community organizations established with the support of the IAF. During his visit to Britain in 1990, Rev. Al LoPinto, then director of the Campaign for Human Development, explained that the Campaign had no formal commitment to the IAF and broad based community organising; however, they found the approach to be effective and the IAF organisers to be very professional."
III. Founding of the Industrial Areas Foundation:
1. The IAF was founded by organizer Saul Alinsky. Saul Alinsky wrote two books outlining his organizational principles and strategies: Reveille for Radicals and Rules for Radicals.
· Rules for Radicals opens with a quote about Lucifer, written by Saul Alinsky: "Lest we forget at least an over-the shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins-or which is which), the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom - Lucifer."
· In Rules for Radicals, Alinsky says: "Here I propose to present an arrangement of certain facts and general concepts of change, a step toward a science of revolution." He builds on the tactical principles of Machiavelli: "The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away."
· Rules for Radicals is concerned with the acquisition of power: "My aim here is to suggest how to organize for power: how to get it and how to use it." This is not to be done through assistance to the poor, nor even by organizing the poor to demand assistance: "…[E]ven if all the low-income parts of our population were organized…it would not be powerful enough to get significant, basic, needed changes."
Alinsky advises the organizer to target the middle class, rather than the poor: "Organization for action will now and in the decade ahead center upon America's white middle class. That is where the power is." Alinsky is interested in the middle class solely for its usefulness: "Our rebels have contemptuously rejected the values and way of life of the middle class. They have stigmatized it as materialistic, decadent, bourgeois, degenerate, imperialistic, war-mongering, brutalized and corrupt. They are right; but we must begin from where we are if we are to build power for change, and the power and the people are in the middle class majority."
To accomplish this, Alinsky writes that the organizer must "begin to dissect and examine that way of life [the middle class lifestyle]…He will know that 'square' is no longer to be dismissed as such - instead his own approach must be 'square' enough to get the action started."
· Rules for Radicals defends belief that the end justifies the means: "To say that corrupt means corrupt the ends," writes Alinsky, "is to believe in the immaculate conception of ends and principles….the practical revolutionary will understand…[that]in action, one does not always enjoy the luxury of a decision that is consistent both with one's individual conscience and the good of mankind."
Altogether, Alinsky provides eleven rules of the ethics of means and ends. They are morally relativistic:
- "The practical revolutionary will understand Goethe's 'conscience is the virtue of observers and not of agents of action;' in action, one does not always enjoy the luxury of a decision that is consistent both with one's individual conscience and the good of mankind."
- "The second rule of the ethics of means and ends is that the judgment of the ethics of means is dependent on the political position of those sitting in judgment." Alinsky elaborates his meaning on this point, saying that if you were a member of the underground Resistance, "…then you adopted the means of assassination, terror, property destruction, the bombing of tunnels and trains, kidnapping, and the willingness to sacrifice of innocent hostages to the end of defeating the Nazis. Those who opposed the Nazi conquerors regarded the Resistance as a secret army of selfless, patriotic idealists….To the occupation authorities, however, these people were lawless terrorists, murderers, saboteurs, assassins, who believed the ends justified the means, and were utterly unethical…" Rules for Radicals is therefore concerned with how to win. "…[I]n such a conflict, neither protagonist is concerned with any value except victory."
- "The third rule of the ethics of means and ends is that in war the end justifies almost any means.
- "There can be no such thing as a successful traitor, for if one succeeds, he becomes a founding father."
· Rules for Radicals teaches the organizer that he must give a moral appearance (as opposed to behaving morally): "All effective action requires the passport of morality."
The tenth rule of the ethics of means and ends states "that you do what you can with what you have and clothe it with moral garments. ....Moral rationalization is indispensable at all times of action whether to justify the selection or the use of ends or means."
· Rules for Radicals provides the organizer with a tactical style for community organization that assumes an adversarial relationship between groups of people in which one either dominates or is dominated.
- "The first rule of power tactics is: power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have."
- "Wherever possible go outside the experience of the enemy. Here you want to cause confusion, fear, and retreat."
- "Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules. You can kill them with this. They can no more obey their own rules than the "Christian church can live up to Christianity."
- "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also, it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage."
- "The threat is generally more terrifying than the thing itself."
- "In a fight almost anything goes. It almost reaches the point where you stop to apologize if a chance blow lands above the belt."
- "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it."
- "One of the criteria for picking the target is the target's vulnerability....the other important point in the choosing of a target is that it must be a personification, not something general and abstract.."
- "The enemy properly goaded and guided in his reaction will be your major strength."
· Saul Alinsky urged the active and deliberate "consciousness-raising" of people through the technique of "popular education." Popular education is a method by which an organizer leads people to a class-based interpretation of their grievances, and to accept the organizer's systemic solutions to address those grievances. "Through the People's Organization these groups [of citizens] discover that what they considered primarily their individual problem is also the problem of others, and furthermore the only hope for solving an issue of such titanic proportions is by pooling all their efforts and strengths. That appreciation and conclusion is an educational process."
· Rules for Radicals stresses organizational power-collecting: "The ego of the organizer is stronger and more monumental than the ego of the leader. The leader is driven by the desire for power, while the organizer is driven by the desire to create. The organizer is in a true sense reaching for the highest level for which a man can reach - to create, to be a "great creator, 'to play God.'"
2. The IAF has not repudiated Saul Alinsky's organizing tactics. The Alinskyian roots of the modern-day IAF are openly acknowledged by the organization. In 1996, when the IAF was organizing a local in Chicago, reporters wrote: "CMS [Chicago Metropolitan Sponsors] has hired IAF to do its organizing, a coup for Monsignor John Egan, a longtime Alinsky supporter, IAF board member, and activist on Chicago urban issues."
The Illinois Welfare News, announcing the October 19, 1997 founding convention of the fledgling Chicago Metropolitan Sponsors, wrote: "The staff of Saul Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foundation assisted in laying the groundwork for the new organization over the past two years in neighborhood meetings in church halls and high school gymnasiums throughout the area."
Alinsky's principles are still very much in force in the contemporary IAF: "All participants in the Industrial Areas Foundation national training programs are given a reprint of a 1933 article by John H. Randall, Jr. titled 'The Importance of Being Unprincipled'...The thesis is that because politics is nothing but the 'practical method of compromise,' only two kinds of people can afford the luxury of acting on principle...everyone else who wants to be effective in politics has to learn to be "unprincipled" enough to compromise in order to see their principles succeed."
This idea has been echoed by Ernesto Cortes, Southwest Regional Director of the IAF: "One of the worst things you can be is overly principled. Everybody has got to compromise, adapt, change. So one of the hard things we've always had to learn in the world as it is, is that there are no permanent enemies and no permanent allies."
This is not to imply that the contemporary IAF has changed nothing that Alinsky put into place. One significant change is that the present-day IAF has abandoned Alinsky's original vision of self-determination of people through local control and replaced it with an nationally networked organization. "After Alinsky died in 1972, the foundation's leadership passed to Edward T. Chambers, who believed it was necessary to create a formal national network of community organizations with stronger links between the groups."
Conclusion regarding the IAF's relationship to Alinsky's organizational philosophy: The principles of Saul Alinsky's organizing are inherently unethical and render any organization so grounded unfit for receipt of Catholic charitable money. As the IAF proceeds upon the principles of Saul Alinsky, the IAF should no longer receive CHD grants.
IV. Structural Organization of the Industrial Areas Foundation:
1. The IAF is an organization of over 50 local affiliates around the United States, with several affiliates in Great Britain and one in South Africa. Membership in IAF local affiliates is by institution, rather than by individual. Those institutions are most commonly religious congregations, but may include unions locals, schools, and health care centers.
2. Organizing by institution, rather than by individual, has a number of practical advantages. One advantage is that it gives the appearance of greater political strength or support than the local organization may actually possess. Newspaper accounts of local IAF action, for example, frequently report the local IAF constituency in the hundreds of thousands, when in point of fact only a small fraction of that number are actively involved in IAF-related activities.
Religious institutions, such as churches, are the backbone of the IAF. Churches have a pre-existing structure, access to money, and an immediate moral credibility. The IAF handbook states: "...one of the largest reservoirs of untapped power is the institution of the parish and congregation. Religious institutions form the center of the organization. They have the people, the values, and the money."
3. Every individual belonging to each institutional member of an IAF affiliate is counted as a member of the affiliate. While only institutions join the IAF affiliate, each member of the institution is considered a member of the IAF affiliate. The half-century IAF commemorative publication, Organizing for Change, states, for example: "There are now twenty-eight IAF organizations nationwide, located in New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Texas, Tennessee, Arizona, and California, representing more than 1.5 million families."
Another example comes from an IAF concept paper produced in 1994: "IAF now provides leadership training for over 30 organizations representing nearly 1,000 institutions and over one million families."
A third example comes from a newspaper article about the three California IAF affiliates in the Los Angeles area: "Mobilizing hundreds of highly disciplined demonstrators in their current campaign, the unique alliance claims a constituency of 200,000, a figure derived from the registration of 74 member chapters."
A fourth example is taken from an 1987 master's thesis about an IAF local in the Brownsville, Texas area. The author quotes a statement from the Concerned Citizens for Church and State, an organization: "…[W]e are opposed to the Church involvement in politics through social welfare, high pressure, special interest groups that do not represent the total memberships they claim."
4. Some parishioners find themselves members of an IAF affiliate against their wills. As institutional membership in an IAF affiliate is rarely a unanimous decision on the part of every parishioner, some parishes have experienced friction among parishioners who oppose being considered IAF members.
In 1982, nine hundred and eighteen parishioners of St. Matthew's Catholic Church in El Paso signed a petition asking to be withdrawn from affiliation with the IAF local, EPISO. They were supported by the full parish council. The pastor, however, persisted in maintaining parish membership in EPISO and disbanded the parish council.
In 1987, Maryann Eklund provided a profile of a Protestant and Catholic coalition in the Brownsville, Texas area that opposed membership the IAF affiliate: "Concerned Citizens are active church members who serve on parish councils, church committees and governing boards. Many are active not only at the local level, but also at the state and national levels….These individuals are the pillars of the community.... Concerned Citizens are quite vocal about not wanting religious or the church involved in politics or secular activities."
Eight years later, parishioners at St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church in Albuquerque, which is an institutional member of IAF local Albuquerque Interfaith, expressed their opposition to IAF membership. "I believe there's something wrong with politics being an essential part of our congregation's affiliation," one parishioner stated.
Institutional-based organizing has clear advantages for the organizers. However, it is unjust to any individual within member institutions to be forced into affiliation with the IAF (or any other institutional-based organization) if it is against his will - or without his knowledge.
5. The IAF is not grassroots. IAF local affiliates are created as the result of careful planning. For example, IAF organizer Arnold Graf was reported as saying: "Generally, our hope is that by 1996 we would be in twice the strategically located states as we are now and that would give us the capacity to develop either the regional or national base to look at national politics. If we were in the right fifteen or sixteen states, we wouldn't have to be in all fifty states. That would give us enough clout to be able to affect policies, whether it was through political parties or corporations."
A second example is recorded in Eklund's 1987 thesis: "According to one journalistic report…the IAF took an 'experimental tact' [sic] in the Rio Grande Valley. Rather than insisting on a local sponsoring committee for the new organization, the Texas bishops who had been funding Cortes [then lead organizer of the San Antonio IAF local] agreed to build a statewide sponsor, Texas Interfaith, comprised of IAF affiliates in San Antonio, Fort Worth, Houston, and El Paso. This group became the sponsor and provided much of the initial money for Valley Interfaith."
A third example is given by an IAF leader: "We are not a grassroots organization. Grass roots are shallow roots. Grass roots are fragile roots. Our roots are deep roots"
Another example is recorded by writer Harry Boyte. "'We are not a grassroots organization,' thundered the Rev. Johnny Youngblood, a key leader in the organization [New York IAF local East Brooklyn Churches], at one rally. 'Grass roots are shallow roots. Grass roots are fragile roots. Our roots are deep roots.'"
6. The IAF uses the local issues of its membership as a training ground for the larger IAF agenda. Msgr. Jack Egan, a Chicago IAF leader, said in an interview: "I believe that people are first interested in issues as they relate to their own lives. Then they can move from that dimension to city-wide or statewide questions. It's a process, a widening of horizons…I believe that people can be helped to see the connections…. [U]nless the local church or community begins to educate the people of the community to the international dimension of issues, they are doing a disservice."
Ernesto Cortes, southwestern regional IAF director, writes something similar: "[The organizer's] issue gets dealt with last. If you want your issue to be dealt with first, you'll never build anything. So you lead with other people's issues, and you teach them how to act on their issues. Then you model what is to be reciprocal, you model what it is to have a long-term vision." This means that, ultimately, it is the IAF's organizational agenda - which is different from the "agenda" of its individual member organizations - that will be addressed.
Consider this description of the preparation of a "vision paper" that "150 community leaders" were drawing up San Antonio on education: "The only discordant note was quickly smothered by Cortes. A priest rose to speak in behalf of the 'school voucher issue' a means of providing public financing for struggling parochial schools - and one mother seconded his plea. [They publicly were rebuffed by Cortes.] ….Outside in the lobby later, Cortes bluntly warned the priest to back off, lest he provoke an argument that might break up the multi-denominational coalition. 'I told the monsignor it was not in his interest to push the voucher issue,' Cortes said, 'because we would have to fight him on it.' "
An Evaluation Study of Institution-Based Organizing prepared for the Discount Foundation states: "…[W]hile IAF does not present itself as a national network, its affiliates are clustered into regions, only some of which are acting at state-wide and regional levels. However, IAF did act nationally a few years ago when leaders and organizers from numerous regions met with key congressional leaders in Washington, DC. They influenced Congressional leaders to pressure the INS to speed up applications for citizenship, particularly in California."
Conclusion concerning the organizational structure of the IAF: Community organizing by religious institution, rather than by individual, is unjust and robs the dissenting individual of his dignity and right of conscience. As the IAF is an institutional-based organization, the IAF should no longer receive CHD grants.
V. The Relationship of the Industrial Areas Foundation to Call to Action:
1. History of Industrial Areas Foundation's relationship to Call to Action: In October 1976, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, sponsored a three-day Conference in Detroit that brought together delegates from across the United States to ratify eight position papers, prepared in advance of the Conference.
Monsignor Jack Egan of Chicago, "a longtime Alinsky supporter, IAF board member, and activist on Chicago urban issues," served as co-chair of the 1976 Call to Action plenary sessions.
The "working papers" contained specific challenges to the discipline and doctrine of the Church. "…[M]ore than 2,400 delegates at the conference - people deeply involved in the life of the institutional church and appointed by their bishops - approve such progressive resolutions, ones calling for, among other things, the ordination of women and married men, female altar servers, and the right and responsibility of married couples to form their own consciences on the issue of artificial birth control."
The working paper on Neighborhood recommended (and it was approved by the Call to Action delegates) that every parish support a "competent," ecumenical neighborhood action group, with diocesan resources used to train organizational "leaders" for their use. The IAF had also been involved the year before in a pre-Detroit "hearing" on the topic of Nationhood. The Nationhood working papers proposed that the Church establish priorities for public policy, define major election issues, educate the laity on the moral dimensions of public issues, and implement these goals ecumenically - in conjunction with other churches and civic groups.
The following twenty years have seen implementation of these Call to Action recommendations by means of church-supported IAF local affiliates.
2. Present relationship of the Industrial Areas Foundation to Call to Action:
A. The IAF continues to be associated with the Call to Action movement.
· Msgr. Jack Egan, long-time IAF promoter, has maintained close and supportive ties to Call to Action. "Long before Call to Action became an organization some bishops banned, it was actually an event organized by the bishops.... Locally [in the Chicago area] that discernment led to the formation of a national church reform movement with the same name [CTA]....Now, as the 20th anniversary of that historic meeting approaches, nearly 100 Catholics gathered on Sept. 15th at Rosary College in River Forest to hear the recollections of two of Chicago's most prominent Catholics who attended the Detroit meeting, Msgr. John Egan and Patty Crowley."
Msgr. Egan was quoted as reminiscing: "But why did more than 2,400 delegates at the [1976] conference.... people deeply involved with the life of the institutional church and appointed by their bishops.... approve such progressive resolutions, ones calling for, among other things, the ordination of women and married men, female altar servers, and the right and responsibility of married couples to form their own consciences on the issue of artificial birth control?....[Because] they had a chance to talk about that issue in terms of personal experience, and they found that people listened, were touched and in many cases changed their minds"
Msgr. Egan has also been credited for providing the motivating force behind the organization of Chicago's IAF local, United Power for Action and Justice. "...Jack Egan initiated this organizing process with religious and union leaders under the name Chicago Metropolitan Sponsors (the name was changed to UPAJ at the 10/19/97 inaugural assembly). Key support came from Bishop Brazier and Cardinal Bernardin. Contributions came to $2.6 million of which $1 million was provided by the Archdiocese of Chicago."
· The 1996 Call to Action calendar lists Ernesto Cortes, Southwest Regional Director of the IAF, as a guest speaker for a Wisconsin workshop.
B. A number of IAF member institutions are also Call to Action members:
· Our Lady Queen of Angels Communities, a member of the Texas IAF Valley Interfaith, is listed as a Call to Action participating community. The 1996 listing includes a description of Our Lady Queen of Angels Communities: "We…are actively involved in working to change our social reality through Valley Interfaith of the Industrial Areas Foundation."
· The Southwest Austin Christian Community of St. Ignatius Martyr Church is listed as a Call to Action participating community
. The Southwest Austin Christian Community, through St. Ignatius Martyr Church, is a member of Austin Interfaith.
· The Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico is listed as a Call to Action participating community. It is a member of the IAF local, Albuquerque Interfaith.
· St. Odilia Catholic Church in Tucson, Arizona is an institutional member of IAF local affiliate PIMA County Interfaith. In March 1998, St. Odilia hosted a Future of Priestly Ministry Dialogue, a joint project of Call to Action and FutureChurch.
· Holy Family in Inverness, Illinois is a member of the IAF local affiliate, United Power for Action and Justice. The pastor of Holy Family, Reverend Patrick Brennan, is a popular Call to Action speaker.
C. The IAF has used its power to involve itself in the internal life of the Church:
· Peter Skerry reports that the IAF was involved in the election of a Texas bishop: "Fundamental to the success of COPS [San Antonio IAF local] has been the support of Archbishop Flores, himself the beneficiary of a COPS letterwriting campaign when the hierarchy was considering his appointment."
· The IAF in New Mexico has become involved in the Archdiocesan RENEW program. Organizer Tim McCluskey of the IAF local Albuquerque Interfaith held a Leadership Development Workshop at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church on June 15, 1996. There he was recorded, saying: "…[I]f you give me 50 names of other people in this congregation who you think I should talk to…I'll go talk to them in that period of time, and see what kind of story we're getting: how do we feed that into the RENEW."
It has also been reported that Albuquerque Interfaith organizers have offered to train the pastoral council members of other Albuquerque parishes. This is a potential mixing of the internal life of the parish with the community organizers' methodologies, ideologies, and secular agenda.
Conclusion concerning the relationship of the CHD to Call to Action: Many points in the Call to Action agenda contradict Catholic teaching. The long-standing, pervasive, and compatible relationship between the IAF and Call to Action creates an example of material cooperation between a CHD-funded organization and an organization which is not in accord with Catholic teaching. Continued funding the IAF, therefore, violates the 1998 Draft of Moral Guidelines for Funding by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development which states that "CCHD funds will not be used to support any project which is sponsored or promoted by an organization whose primary or substantial thrust is contrary to Catholic teaching, even if the project itself is in accord with Catholic teaching."
VI. Nation-wide Activities of the IAF: The IAF has a number of activities that it is pursuing on a nation-wide basis, but two are of immediate concern: those in the areas of education reform and welfare.
1. The IAF is promoting systemic change in education: The 1997 Wanderer Forum Foundation Commentary on the Campaign for Human Development established that the IAF is pursuing a national agenda of education restructuring through its local affiliates. Documentation in that commentary showed that the IAF is laboring to create public consensus for a national system of education. The commentary also demonstrated that the national educational system being implemented by the IAF goes well beyond provision of academic training, including health care and social services.
A. The term "systemic change" is used frequently in documents by or about the IAF in regard to the IAF's intentions for public education. A job description for the IAF local affiliate South Bronx Churches, for example, states that the organizer is "to build a city-wide network of parents to deal with systemic as well as local issues in NYC public schools…"
B. The systemic change sought by the IAF replaces parental control over a child's education and local school board determination over its schools with an "IAF model for education reform." An IAF concept paper states: "The entire community must be meaningfully involved in the public education system and held accountable for its results."
C. The systemic change sought by the IAF imposes its educational philosophy on parents and students: "Through these [IAF training] sessions, parents and community members gain an understanding of where they 'fit' within the system."
D. The systemic change sought by the IAF alters not only the traditional relationship of parent to child, but of state to student.
· This systemic change alters traditional parental prerogatives: "Schools must be prepared to teach parents how to play a supportive role. In some cases this might mean making provision for parenting education," states one IAF paper on education.
· This systemic change alters the traditional relationship of the state to the student. The above mentioned IAF paper on education describes the comprehensive nature of the IAF model for education reform: "Increasingly, schools will find it important to employ social workers who can coordinate necessary services and to intervene on behalf of a child in need. Healthcare and dental services could be offered on-site. Schools will need to help working families make provision for after-school childcare, and day care for pre-schoolers."
Conclusion concerning the national activities of the IAF in educational restructuring: Catholic teaching has consistently affirmed the parental right and obligation "to make absolutely sure that the education of their children remain under their own control in keeping with their Christian duty." Further, the IAF model of education reform creates excessive intervention by the state into the personal lives of its citizens. This, too, is contrary to Catholic teaching. CCHD grants to IAF projects in education, therefore, are funding projects that do not conform to Catholic teaching.
2. The Industrial Areas Foundation is promoting systemic change in welfare reform: The 1997 Wanderer Forum Foundation Commentary on the Campaign for Human Development established that the IAF promotes welfare reform that tends to focus on the preservation and increase of federal welfare funding. It promotes the passage of federal funds into the hands of "mediating institutions" such as the parish church. Distribution of these funds then becomes the responsibility of the IAF-organized "mediating institution," such as the parish church, to distribute this federal money. The commentary described one such federally-funded program, an IAF-developed job-training project that is designed to be run out of the churches and is under consideration as a model for national replication.
Conclusion concerning the national activities of the IAF in welfare reform: While there is no question that the Church has a mission to social action, which is realized in both Her enunciation of the principles of social justice and in Her active benevolences, "it is not the role of Pastors of the Church to intervene directly in the political structuring and organization of social life." By extension, it seems inappropriate to engage the parish in activity that intervenes directly in the organizing of social life. This misuse of the parish undermines its primary works, which are to live its liturgical life and to practice the charity of the Lord. CCHD grants to IAF projects in welfare reform, therefore, are funding projects that do not conform to Catholic teaching.
VII. The CHD-funded IAF Engages in Partisan Political Activities: The 1997 Wander Forum Foundation Commentary on the Campaign for Human Development established that the IAF interfered in the Orange County, California elections of 1996, supported a pro-abortion candidate, and was implicated in the voter registration of a significant number non-citizens. This political activity is found in many IAF locals:
1. Arnold Graf, an IAF organizer, stated: "In places like San Antonio and Baltimore, we are as close to being a political party as anybody is. We go around organizing people, getting them to agree on an agenda, registering them to vote, interviewing candidates on whether the support our agenda. We're not a political party, but that's what political parties do."
2. Attorney Daniel J. Rylander has written the Pima county supervisor about the Arizona IAF local, Pima County Interfaith Council (PCIC): "…[T]he PCIC Articles of Incorporation as amended clearly indicate that PCIC is a Political Action Committee. The PCIC 1998 calendar indicates that from April to November of 1998, the members are to 'take charge of the 1998 elections.' These activities clearly disqualify them from public funding or even participating in a publicly funded program…..the mission of PCIC is, quite simply, the collection and exercise of political power and influence."
3. Omaha Internal Revenue Service agent, Carl R. Patterson, who specializes in tax-exempt organizations, has questioned the contributions of time and money to the Nebraska IAF local Omaha Together One Community (OTOC). "Some Omaha churches could lose their exemption from federal income taxes because of their participation on Omaha Together One Community, an Internal Revenue Service agent says….Patterson said that some church donations to OTOC, which range from $300 to $5000 this year,are large enough to question. And he said that money is not the only issue. An IRS investigation would also consider the other ways churches support OTOC, he said. 'We'd look at the number of notices in the church bulletin, the fliers, the free use of church meeting rooms, office space, equipment and supplies,' Patterson said. 'We'd look at the value of the time and the services of the pastors, too.'"
4. An Evaluation Study of Institution-Based Organizing prepared for the Discount Foundation provides several examples of partisan IAF political activity:
· "One of IAF's priorities and directions in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic regions includes developing new constituencies such as voters, through launching a regional voter mobilization strategy. Other targeted constituencies include parents, workers, and immigrants. One strategy behind this expansion is to engage larger numbers of people from diverse constituencies beyond congregations, and build sufficient power to impact more issues at a systemic level."
· "EHPC [NY IAF local, East Harlem Partnership for Change] used a local state assembly election to unseat a political family dynasty…EHPC turned out nearly 4,000 voters in the election…. According to New York Daily News reporter Jim Dwyer, the Del Toro campaign credentialed EHPC as a power player in East Harlem."
· "BUILD [Baltimore IAF local] leveraged competition between Baltimore City Council President and the Mayor in a hotly contested mayoral race…."
· The evaluation asks what the strengths and future potential of institution-based organizing are and answers that question. "Utilizing electoral processes to leverage issue wins: The ability to utilize the electoral process to leverage issues is also a strength and bodes well for future impact, as indicated in the section on altering power relations."
Conclusion concerning IAF efforts to promote a partisan political agenda: The Evaluation Study of Institution-Based Organizing prepared for the Discount Foundation makes this point: "The organizational culture harnesses and leverages congregations' social capital for social change. By fusing faith and politics, and acting on progressive issues, they build an organizational culture that engenders long-term involvement of leaders in a religious context."[emphasis added] The use of churches by outside organizations, such as the IAF, to promote their own "progressive issues" is inimical to the dignity of the individual within the church who opposes that progressive agenda, and is inimical to his rights of conscience.
VIII. The Industrial Areas Foundation Introduces Theological Distortions to Catholic Parishes.
1. Alinskyian organizing, like liberation theology, rejects objective or fixed truth. Charles Curran writes: "There are many similarities between Alinsky's community organization approach and liberation theology….An important similarity concerns the basic understanding of sociology and epistemology. Liberation theology rightly reacts against a value-free sociology with its claim of arriving at totally objective truth and it's emphasis on quantitative analysis. A value-free approach by its very nature tends to identify with and reinforce the status quo. Knowledge is not as objective and independent of human involvement as a classical understanding once thought. The sociology of knowledge reminds us that all knowledge is situated and subject to prejudice. One must approach existing realities and thought patterns with ideological suspicion….There is no dispassionate objectivity. Rationalization is an important human reality with which any organizer must come to grips."
2. Alinskyian organizing, like liberation theology, is grounded on a Marxist class analysis. "The option for the poor has become very central in both the praxis and theory of liberation theology. This same option for the poor, especially understood in terms of the powerless, characterizes the Alinsky method of organization. Alinsky definitely sides with the powerless - the have-nots - in their struggle."
3. Alinskyian organizing, like liberation theology, uses the technique of "popular education" (conscientization) to change values. Curran writes: Liberation theology gives great importance to Paulo Friar's pedagogy of the oppressed. In the process called 'conscientization,' through an unalienating and liberating cultural action, the oppressed person perceives and modifies one's relationship to the world….Although Alinsky does not use the word 'conscientization,' there is no doubt that such a process is the cornerstone of his method….The people must learn that through their power they can bring about change. Raising consciousness is a part of Alinsky's overarching commitment to popular education."
4. The technique of "popular education" (conscientization" or values clarification) change the values of its target and replace them with the values of the organizer. A New Republic article states: "…[The] IAF seeks to teach groups like Mexican/Americans of San Antonio to build on and then transcend natural ties of family and ethnicity" Another writer says: "Cortes [head organizer for IAF, SW region] knew that Mexican parents willingly sacrificed for their children - and often for their church. By talking about family values, could you motivate and organize people to act politically in their own genuine self-interest?...the new organization had to reach into the heart...The idea of protecting and enhancing families might make that possible."
The implication of these passages is that the religious and family values of Catholics are used to spark a conversation between them and the IAF. The IAF then uses the relationship built from those values to introduce another set of values - those of the IAF. Harry Boyte writes: "In St. Timothy's Church [in San Antonio], for instance, new catechisms connected biblical and Mexican historical and cultural themes with the current issues COPS [the IAF local] was working on….From such experiences, the [the IAF] developed an ongoing process of community and parish renewal."
5. Alinskyian organizing encourages small base communities. Harold McDougall writes about the Baltimore IAF, BUILD (Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development). Participating pastors in the Baltimore IAF , he reports, are networked together in a "peer group, sharing experiences….They are trying to raise consensus-oriented decision-making models for BUILD as a whole on the foundation of their peer relationships. Some are beginning to see the need to share power within their own churches…"
McDougall also describes the small base communities which, at the time of his writing (1993 and earlier), BUILD was planning. "…[T]hey will also need something more: participation in small, intimate 'base communities,' peer groups of a dozen or two dozen people which can evaluate the day's struggles….This kind of personal, intimate contact with trusted others is a necessary building block for Harry Boyte's 'third way' of citizen engagement….Families are not large or diverse enough to perform such a function. Churches are too large. The contact must take place in a new, smaller form of association in some ways similar to the social units liberation theologians in Latin America have called comunidades eclesiales de base, which translates as 'ecclesiastical base communities,' or simply 'Christian base communities.'"
Integral to these small communities would be prayer and Bible study, in which the scripture "text" is "discussed in the 'context' of community." The BUILD small faith communities would engage in facilitated discussions "of what community is for, the people involved, and what obstacles to community they think exist, always using the text of the Bible as a central resonating point for the discussion."
IAF groups in Texas also use the model of the South American base communities. In the Diocese of Brownsville there are 500 small faith communities operating both in the IAF network and in the Call to Action network.
Conclusion concerning theological distortions introduced by the IAF into the Catholic Church: The relationship between the IAF and certain factions within the United States Catholic Church goes beyond CCHD funding of individual projects. Withdrawal of CCHD funding of the IAF would help rectify the damage done by the theological distortions introduced by the IAF into various Catholic communities by clearly marking the IAF's theology as different from Catholic theology, and therefore inappropriate for such funding.
IX. The Catholic Bishops of the United States Ought to Reconsider Their Funding of the Industrial Areas Foundation through Catholic Campaign for Human Development Grants.
This commentary does not oppose CCHD funding of genuine, grassroots community organizations, run and supported by individual members of a parish or diocese and grounded on the principles of Catholic Action. There is potential value and virtue in the collective voice. However, when the CCHD funds Alinsky-style, church-based community organizations as in the best interest of the poor and supports organizations which advance agendas inimical to Catholic social justice principles, it divests the poor of their right to an authentic voice. This process tends to treat the poor as exploited units of human capital, rather than as human beings created in the dignity of God's image.
Nor is there any basis for the CCHD to imply by its actions that there are no alternative organizations that it can fund to promote valuable institutional change, uninfluenced by a politicized agenda. There is no necessity for CCHD funds to go to organizations which contribute to or participate in any way - either directly or indirectly - in the political support of abortion or the complicitous support of contraception. There is no necessity for the CCHD to fund the Industrial Areas Foundation. There are other organizations of the poor, that are self-determined and supportive of life, which would welcome and benefit from CCHD assistance. Those alternative, grassroots community organizations do not merely serve their constituency but rather they are their constituency. They do not use community organizing to further an additional agenda.
It would be reasonable for the bishops to consider the immediate cessation of all CHD funding to the Industrial Areas Foundation:
1. The IAF proceeds upon the principles of Saul Alinsky, which are inherently unethical and render any organization so grounded unfit for receipt of Catholic charitable money. As the IAF proceeds upon the principles of Saul Alinsky, the IAF should no longer receive CCHD grants.
2. The IAF is an institutional-based organization. Community organizing by religious institution, rather than by individual, is unjust and robs the dissenting individual of his dignity and right of conscience. As the IAF is an institutional-based organization, the IAF should no longer receive CCHD grants.
3. The IAF has a long-standing relationship with the dissident organization Call to Action. Many points in the Call to Action agenda contradict Catholic teaching. This pervasive and compatible relationship between the IAF and Call to Action creates an example of material cooperation between a CCHD-funded organization and an organization which is not in accord with Catholic teaching. Continued funding of the IAF, therefore, violates the 1998 Draft of Moral Guidelines for Funding by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development which states that "CCHD funds will not be used to support any project which is sponsored or promoted by an organization whose primary or substantial thrust is contrary to Catholic teaching, even if the project itself is in accord with Catholic teaching." Therefore, the IAF should no longer receive CCHD grants.
4. IAF activities in the area of education reform contradict Catholic teaching. IAF activities in the area of welfare reform also contradict Catholic teaching and subvert the work of its member parishes. Again, continued funding of the IAF violates the 1998 Draft of Moral Guidelines for Funding by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development which states that "CCHD funds will be used to support only projects that conform to Catholic teaching." Therefore, the IAF should no longer receive CCHD grants.
5. The IAF is engaged in partisan political activities. The use of churches by outside organizations, such as the IAF, to promote their own "progressive issues" is inimical to the dignity of the individual within the church who opposes that progressive agenda, and is inimical to his rights of conscience. Therefore, continued CCHD funding to the IAF is inappropriate.
6. The IAF has introduced theological distortions into a number of Catholic communities. Cessation of CCHD grants to the IAF would clarify that the IAF's theology is different from Catholic theology, is inappropriate for promulgation in Catholic communities, and disqualifies the IAF for such funding.
X. Conclusion: This commentary is offered for the consideration of the bishops in a spirit of objective inquiry. As noted in Section I above, it is not intended to disparage any person or group or to question the good faith or legality of any positions taken by any persons or groups involved in these matters. Rather, we respectfully submit this Commentary to assist the bishops in their deliberations about the future funding and activities of the CCHD.
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