Not One Thin Dime

(This is a repost from 2014.  Nothing has changed in regard to the Catholic Campaign for Human Development and no faithful Catholic should contribute to it.  Go here to read a letter to the Bishops from the Lepanto Institute in regard to the CCHD.)

Between Thanksgiving and Christmas my bride and I usually send Christmas donations to groups we support.  This is the time when we also make a substitute donation to Catholic groups we endorse in lieu of contributing anything to the Catholic Campaign for Human Development.  Despite window dressing efforts at reform, the CCHD is still in the business of handing out money, given by good-hearted Catholics who think they are contributing money to help people down on their luck, to left-wing pressure groups, many of whom espouse causes directly contrary to the teachings of the Church.

The Lepanto Institute gives us some details on just what a corrupt organization the CCHD is:

The newly launched Lepanto Institute published a report today, which shows a conflict of interest for Ralph McCloud, the Director of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development.

McCloud, who approves grants distributed to community organizing groups on behalf of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, is a member of the board of directors of Interfaith Worker Justice (IWJ).  Two affiliates of Interfaith Worker Justice received CCHD grants for fiscal year 2014-2015.

The IWJ philosophy is another issue of scandal for an organization that is part of the Catholic Church.

“Ralph McCloud was provided with the facts in 2012, with our showing that the leadership of Interfaith Worker Justice is filled with self-professed pro-abortion, pro-homosexual Marxists,” said Michael Hichborn, president of the Lepanto Institute.  “By joining the board of directors of IWJ, McCloud has created for himself the very definition of a conflict of interest, and accepted the role of overseeing distribution of funds to an organization in conflict with the Catholic Church’s teaching.”

A report on the leadership of Interfaith Worker Justice is available here.

“In 2012, my colleagues and I published a report on one of the two IWJ affiliates that are currently receiving grants from the CCHD which are in violation of CCHD guidelines,” Hichborn said.

For Fiscal Year 2014-2015, two affiliates of Interfaith Worker Justice received grants from the CCHD totaling $85,000: Northwest Arkansas Workers Justice Center and The Micah Center.

“How can an individual serve the Church while sitting on the board of IWJ, and in fact approve grants for affiliates of this organization?  It seems impossible,” Hichborn concluded.  “Our Blessed Lord said that man cannot serve two masters, but in the case of IWJ and the CCHD, that is precisely what McCloud is trying to do.”

And this:

The Lepanto Institute issued a report exposing the activities of an organization which received a $35,000 grant from the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD).  According to the report, the Northwest Bronx Community & Clergy Coalition (NWBCCC) launched its own gay straight alliance in 2014, participated in a homosexuality activism coordination event in 2013, and its director of operations signed a letter supporting same-sex marriage.

“CCHD grant guidelines are very clear.  CCHD says it will not fund organizations which are taking actions in violation of Catholic moral teaching,” said Michael Hichborn, president of the Lepanto Institute.  “This is just one more in the long list of failures in the CCHD’s self-proclaimed rigorous screening process.”

The CCHD’s grant guidelines state, “Organizations that receive CCHD funds must not participate in or promote activities that contradict the moral and social teachings of the Catholic Church.”  The Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraph 2357 specifically states, regarding homosexual acts, “under no circumstances can they be approved.”

“What’s perplexing is that in 2012, The Reform CCHD Now coalition sent a profile on the problems with NWBCCC to the Archdiocese of New York, and the response we received was that they decided not to fund that organization before we even sent them the letter,” said Hichborn.  “So, why are they funding them this year, now that it’s clear that things have gotten worse?”

Go here to read the rest.  None of this should come as a surprise to anyone.  The man the bishops have at the head of the CCHD, Ralph McCloud, was the campaign treasurer for Wendy Davis a/k/a Abortion Barbie, who recently got trounced in her campaign to ride dead fetuses into the Governor’s mansion in Texas, during her first run for the State Senate in Texas.  I posted this in 2011:

In a dog bites man story, and an example of good blog journalism, Creative Minority Report has broken the news that the head of the CCHD, Ralph McCloud, while he was head of the CCHD, was the campaign treasurer for pro-abort Wendy Davis in her successful run in 2008 for the Texas State Senate:

While the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) has come under well deserved scrutiny for supporting groups such as ACORN and groups with ties to promoting abortion, CMR has uncovered that Ralph McCloud, while heading the CCHD in 2008, was simultaneously working as a highly placed campaign official for a pro-choice politician seeking to unseat a pro-life politician.

As you likely know, CCHD is the bishops’ anti-poverty program which funds community organizing and economic development projects and has been at the center of a number of controversies. Ralph McCloud was named head of the CCHD in November 2007. In his first year as head of the CCHD, according to public records, McCloud also worked as the Treasurer for Planned Parenthood endorsed Democrat Wendy Davis.

Why would the director of the CCHD, during his tenure as head of an ostensibly Catholic institution act as champion and treasurer of a campaign for a pro-abortion politician seeking to oust a pro-life politician? This is the textbook definition of scandal.

According to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishop’s website, “the CCHD fully upholds the Church’s teaching on the sanctity of human life from conception through natural death.” But acting as Treasurer for a pro-choice politician means that every single yard sign, every press release, every brochure or pamphlet of the Davis campaign had Ralph McCloud’s name on it. So in short, while heading up the CCHD, McCloud was very publicly working against the stated goals of the organization he oversaw.

Isn’t that a bit confusing to Catholics? Isn’t that in itself a scandal to the faithful?

McCloud himself labeled questions about another CCHD employee John Carr’s commitment to the pro-life cause “very disturbing allegations” which he believed were unfounded. CMR believes it to be equally disturbing that McCloud would work for a campaign garnering donations from Annie’s List (a pro-choice PAC), Planned Parenthood and ACORN. So pro-choice was the Davis campaign that in fact, Annie’s List, raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Davis in 2008 while McCloud worked as Treasurer. The group even gave a spirited endorsement of the pro-choice Davis, who succeeded in defeating her pro-life opponent.

Go here to read the rest at Creative Minority Report.

Here is the website of the CCHD showing Ralph McCloud as director.  Here is a bio piece on Ralph McCloud produced by the USCCB when he was named director of the CCHD.

McCloud has coordinated the peace and justice ministry in the Fort Worth Diocese and directed CCHD in the diocese since 1995. He has headed the diocese’s African American ministries since 1990. He also serves as a board member of the Roundtable, the National Association of Diocesan Social Ministry Directors.

Active in the civic community, McCloud was elected to four two-year terms to the Fort Worth City Council, in 1997, 1999, 2001, and 2003. He served as Fort Worth’s mayor pro-tem from 1999 to 2005. He currently chairs the Mayor’s Commission on Homelessness in Fort Worth.

In other civic activities, he was president of the Fort Worth Local Housing Development Council and served four terms on the National League of Cities’ Human Development Steering Committee.

McCloud attended Paul Quinn College in Dallas, Texas, and was co-founder of the African-American Summit for Peace, Justice and Equality. He is a past-president of the National Association of Black Catholic Administrators.

Msgr. David Malloy, USCCB general secretary, noted McCloud’s reputation as a “respected and experienced social ministry leader with strong ties to CCHD.”

“Ralph’s profound commitment to the Catholic Church enables him to communicate the biblical, theological and spiritual dimensions of Catholic social ministry and the principles that guide CCHD’s mission of empowering people trapped in the cycle of poverty,” Msgr. Malloy said.

Bishop Kevin Vann of Fort Worth praised the appointment saying, “Ralph has served the Diocese of Fort Worth for 14 years, assisting faithfully both the late Bishop Joseph Delaney and myself. He will be a great asset at the USCCB.”

Wendy Davis was on the Fort Worth city council with McCloud prior to her run for the state senate.  I find the bio of McCloud interesting for two reasons.  He is obviously a man who has received a lot of training by the Church, and it clearly had zero impact on his ability to comprehend that working to elect a total pro-abort betrays everything the Church stands for .  The second reason is that he is a poster child for the lay “professional Catholic” Church-o-crat, living off Church employment, while working against Church teaching;   a bad waste of donations to the Church, and a phenomenon that Catholics have become all too familiar with since Vatican II.

From all of this we can draw the following lessons:  A pro-life Catholic would have to be an idiot to give a thin dime to the CCHD, and the USCCB is not to be trusted.  Of course we already knew both of these things before, didn’t we?