Friday, March 29, AD 2024 6:39am

Not One Thin Dime

Between Thanksgiving and Christmas my bride and I usually send Christmas donations to groups we support.  This year our major donation will be to a local Catholic school in thanks for a request for the intercession of Saint Jude which was answered.  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?

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Mary De Voe
Friday, November 22, AD 2019 7:14am

The CCHD and ACORN gave us Obama.

Mary De Voe
Friday, November 22, AD 2019 7:16am

Not a penny of my tax money may be used to kill babies.

Jean John
Jean John
Saturday, November 23, AD 2019 10:48pm

This might be a re-post from 2014. Not that anything has changed.

Penguins Fan
Penguins Fan
Sunday, November 24, AD 2019 8:38am

The USCCB is an agent, not of the Catholic Church, but rather one to destroy it.

Mary, Congress will spend your tax dollars any way it wants to. Same with mine and everyone else’s tax money. It may bring damnation upon them but they never consider that.

Greg Mockeridge
Greg Mockeridge
Monday, November 25, AD 2019 4:12pm

You know, Don, I find this post ironic given your recent defense of Archbishop Chaput, who defends CCHD. To add to that you cite the Lepanto Institute, who, along with Church Militant, were on the receiving end of classic Chaput invective after they outed Chaput’s putting pro-abort pols in honorary positions for the World Meeting of Families in 2015. https://www.renewamerica.com/columns/abbott/150827
This is consistent with Archbishop Chaput’s track record of crawling into bed with pro abort politicians to advance leftist political policy.

Now, Don, your response to this has been the usual “There ain’t no good guy ther ain’t no bad guy.There’s only you and me and we just disagree.” (my apologies to Dave Mason) like tripe to justify your trying to deny Chaput and several other “orthodox” bishops are in fact leftists or too gutless to really stand up to leftist thugs.

As bad as the McElroy/Cupich wing of the American episcopate are, the real scandal is when this kind of stuff gets forced on us under the guise of Catholic orthodoxy and the silence of a section of the Catholic media that claims to be orthodox.

Greg Mockeridge
Greg Mockeridge
Monday, November 25, AD 2019 4:55pm

Don, you once again prove my point. You have no substantive response to anything I say. I provide hard evidence to back up every one of my criticisms of Chaput and all you can do is take cheapshots. By the way, he isn’t the only “orthodox” bishops i have gone after and you know it!

Irony strikes again as you mention Fr. James Martin. Chaput has gone after those who attack Martin. If there is anyone who sends the “same message” as Francis Kissling, it’s Fr. LGBT. But Chaput reserves that for people like Nino Scalia for schooling His Excellency on Church teaching regarding capital punishment.

If Chaput is one of the good guys, who needs bad guys?

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Monday, November 25, AD 2019 6:17pm

I started to reply to Greg because I followed his link. But then I realized I’d be contributing to the jacking of the thread, so I guess I won’t. Except to say, there’s not much “there” there.

CAM
CAM
Monday, November 25, AD 2019 10:06pm

In the bulletin on Sunday at my church it was stated that the bishop assures that all monies spent in the diocese are for good programs and lists some of them. But surely the diocese must send some of the contributed money up to the HQ? So we don’t contribute to CCHD.. There is so much about the finances that never filters down such as stipends. Customary Mass donations are $10. Turns out if the priest celebrates 3 Masses on a Sunday he only receives $10 instead of $30. The other $20 heads up to the diocese..

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