NKCC

Source: www.usccb.org

For decades, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) has worked to empower people in low-income communities.  Despite CCHD’s successes, the Catholic Right is now trying to discredit the program and take away its funding.  Just last week, a coalition of anti-social justice groups launched a petition campaign calling on the U.S. Catholic Bishops to suspend all national CCHD grants.

These conservative groups say that CCHD money is being used to support abortion and same-sex marriage.  This is not true.  The attacks are all about politics.

The fact is that out of 250 grants that were awarded, three organizations, some time after the grants were awarded, took positions for abortion or same-sex mar­riage.  The Church stopped its funding of these organiza­tions immediately.  Also remember that the Church’s contributions to these organizations were very small.  Retracting the contribution did not mean that the organi­zations would fold.  The majority of their funding would have come from elsewhere.

Just how political are these attacks?  One anti-social change group, the “Catholic Media Coalition” claims that CCHD should be de-funded because its grantees support a strong role for the federal government, and “working for socialism by electing liberal politicians.”  Using talking points from the anti-government “Tea Party” movement, the Catholic Media Coalition even goes as far as to suggest that it is wrong for CCHD to fund community organizing activities.

The Catholic Right believes that CCHD should only be in the business of charitable works like soup kitchens and homeless shelters.  These are important activities.  But as Pope Benedict XVI writes, “justice is inseparable from charity.”  We need groups that serve the poor directly.  And we also need groups like CCHD that address the social and economic forces that keep people in poverty.

By attacking a Catholic Church-sponsored organiza­tion dedicated to creating a more just society, the Catho­lic Right has demonstrated that it will stoop to any level if doing so serves its narrow political agenda.  Many of us at St. Michael’s have heard John Carr speak about our mission in the Church to work to change the systems that cause the poor to be trapped in poverty.  As the Director of Peace, Justice and Human Development for the Bishops’ Conference, John is now the object of widespread character assassination.