USCCB Investigates $1 Million Church Funding to ACORN

Just to update a prior post — The Washington Times reports that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has hired forensic accounting specialists to investigate more than $1 million in church funding to voter-registration group ACORN:

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has hired forensic accounting specialists to investigate more than $1 million in church funding to voter-registration group ACORN, fearing the money may have been spent in partisan or fraudulent ways that could jeopardize the church’s tax-exempt status.

The investigation is “thorough, serious and ongoing,” according to a July 11 letter to more than 200 bishops from New Orleans Bishop Robert Morin, chairman of the committee that oversees the Catholic Campaign for Human Development.

The CCHD sent $1,037,000 to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) in 2007, including a $40,000 grant to an ACORN affiliate in Las Vegas that was raided last month by the Nevada attorney general’s office in a voter-fraud probe.

The Catholic aid agency has given more than $7.3 million to ACORN over the past decade for about 320 projects, according to the Catholic News Service.

In June, the Catholic Church froze a $1.2 million grant for 38 ACORN chapters after the community-organizing group was accused of voter fraud in 15 states.

As we reported earlier, ACORN, having played in influential role in Obama’s rise to the top of the political ladder, was handsomely rewarded by the Obama campaign via cash funneled to its front organization, Citizens Services, Inc. in 2008.