Unfortunately, CCHD has had systemic problems with the vetting of groups. Even before the scandal, many of us were calling into question the funding of ACORN and other groups. This is not issue that suddently appeared. It has been going on for years.
The bigger question is: Why are we funding secular groups? Why are we not funding Catholic organizations?
Aroyo is correct. Our Catholic schools are closing left and right, and yet, it is not seen as a social justice issue. In fact, the “social justice” crowd is silent on the shutting down of the DC Opportunity Scholarships, but are more than happy to march and protest about the School of the America’s and post photos on websites or how we need to worry about global warming, so we change the light bulbs and pat ourselves on the back.
Talk about Catholic schools and all you hear are the crickets. Educating children who would be left to rot in some poorly functioning school not important? It is not a social justice issue?
Here in the Archdiocese of Washington, we are now going thru a THIRD series of school closings. And yet, we continue pump money into these secular organizations. $10 million dollars in grant money may not seem like a lot to Bishop Morin but to Catholic schools across the country, it can make the difference between staying open and closing.
Catholic schools not only promote the faith but also ensure that there is participation in the life of the parish.
I have been in parishes that have schools and those w/o schools. I have found that those w/ schools are more vibrant and there is more of a sense of community.
Boy, this article really got me this morning.

The first posting was mine AWashingtonDCCatholic. Apologies if my name did not come thru.

Well, at my parish, an overwhelming number of children in the school are not from the parish — and a significant number aren’t even Catholic. Not only that, but in these difficult economic times it’s getting harder and harder to persuade parents to spend up to $4,000 per year, per student, when the neighboring public schools do a generally good job for free.

This witch hunt against the CCHD is really uncalled for. Instead of blindly sticking to Life Site News or EWTN, I invite any interested person to read the what the CCHD directly from the shepherds of our Church. Go to the USCCB and go to the CCHD page. There you will find out about the many good things the CCHD is doing.
I wouldn’t want to be standing at the pearly gates only to have Jesus tell me, “when I was hungry, you did not feed me”

Raymond Arroyo is the Fox News of the Catholic World. We know what he’s going to say before he says it. I wonder why anyone cares what he thinks. Oh, yes, I know: the Republican bishops care!

As a voter who lives in the state of Ca. I spent many hours and funds trying to get prop. 4 on the ballot and then passed. (parental right to be notified if an underage child was going to have an abortion) I was devastated to learn my church under CCHD had funded a group that sent out mailings urging a no vote on prop. 4.
I too have a desire to feed the hungry. This Thanksgiving I am donating $200. to our local christian help center. I know where those funds will go. Food!!
Also when the Bishop uses the word “specifically” what does that mean?

It does seem that the critics do have those pesky facts on their side; even facts about actions taken after the CCHD said they cleared everything up. The whole idea of the CCHD not giving to Catholic organizations seems absurd. What crack pot committee dreamed this one up? The Bishops should just chuck the whole thing. The Bishops defense does not even come close to refuting the facts; it doesn’t even take them seriously. The CCHD is just another example of the USCCB bureaucracy gone awry!

Sounds like a perfect opportunity for the Bishop to appear on air with Raymond Arroyo to clarify the uses of funding, to address the allegations of misuse, and to discuss philosophical and theological motivations for choosing the particular recipients they have chosen.
Seems like a golden opportunity for a fund raising boost — the more people who see the Bishop explain the charity, the more dollars that will be donated.
(Unless, of course, he is totally unconvincing.)

I suppose that the real problem conservatives have is that the CCHD promotes interfaith/intergroup efforts. If you look at the organizations they fund, they generally tend to be non-sectarian in nature. Naturally, when diverse groups decide to cooperate, their agendas will not entirely overlap. Still, taking care of the needy in my own community is a big job, something that can’t be tackled just by Catholics. With so little of our budgets going to charity (and that of other denominations as well), interfaith efforts are the best way forward.
Its not all just about making sure everyone gets a handout either, advocacy for social change is part of the solution, something that the CCHD should not stop doing. I see this as a modern day version of “On the Water Front”. We used to be on that side once upon a time.
I suppose that we are going to have to purify the CRS and Catholic Charities as well and disavow funding that we receive from the government as well, something that already seems to be happening in DC right now.

Bishops are usually well intentioned shepherds that have the pastoral needs of their community in mind. They are not generally good business persons and are easily outsmarted by dishonest community organizer types. The mistakes they have made can be easily discovered on the internet. They need to learn to delegate responsibility and help us to understand the gospel.

It seems to me that the CCHD is quite consistent with Catholic teaching — isn’t voter fraud what the Church means by the “preferential option for the poor”?

I will contribute as generously as my means allow to the Catholic Campaign for Human Development this weekend. The “facts” that some see as so compelling are slanders. It is slander and calumny to suggest that because the Campaign funds the good works of organizations that may not want to outlaw abortion that the Campaign and the bishops are funding abortion. The Campaign does not fund voter fraud–that too, is an interpretation of ACORN–no longer funded by the Campaign any way–that has no proof. And what’s with the slam against the Church’s well-articulated and gospel-mandated preferential option for the poor?!
I trust the bishops over Raymond Arroyo any day. It’s amazing to me that Catholics who are eager for the pope or some curial cardinal to crack heads, throw people out of the church for being imperfect, fire theology professors and the like all in the name of orthodoxy prefer as their magisterium web pages like LifeSite News and Republican television personalities like Raymond Arroyo instead of the consecrated successors to the apostles who are our bishops.

How can I be in good standing in the Catholic Church if I support those who may do many good things, but facilitate the death of God’s little ones? I do not want to meet Christ and have him ask me why I supported the death of innocents by my complicity.

An organization called Women’s Way will not fund an organization such as:
Organizations that consider themselves to be pro-life
Organizations and projects that do not support a woman’s full range of reproductive choices
Organizations and projects promoting abstinence-only sex education
Organizations and projects opposing same sex relationships or marriage
They do fund an organiztion that CCHD also currently funds. This is not slander or calumny, but the truth. This why we tore up our envelope for the third straight year, and put to money to God’s use.

David writes, “I trust the bishops over Raymond Arroyo any day.”
I have only watched his show on EWTN over the past month, so I am not an expert on Raymond Arroyo, however, what I have watched does not demand an either/or decision of trust.
He seems like a very bright and engaging interviewer who allows Bishops, Archbishops, and other guests to express themselves. On the shows I have watched, the question has never been an issue of choosing a guest or Raymond but rather learning about the views expressed and my feelings about those views.
Frankly, the guests who hammered CCHD were not over-the-top convincing. They raised issues that one might consider investigating, but they did not hit the ball out of the park. That is why I suggest the Bishop appear on the show — he may carry more weight than his critics in a frank interview.

I ran the CCHD as a keyword through Google News and it appears that this attack is being coordinated by a man named Richard A. Viguerie. Perhaps we should be vetting this man’s associations to see what he and EWTN are up to. It is unclear to me if he is really a Catholic but he has been affiliated with some right-wing Protestant evangelical groups and the Moonies in his past. He has a web site that espouses political views to the right of Fox News. Who are these people?

I just looked on the USCCB website on CCHD to look at who they are supporting and the link is dead. Now, what does that tell you? The USCCB are trying to hide the facts: that they are supporting socialist organizations that are run by people affiliated with the late Saul Alinsky. There is a fine line between social responsibility and socialism. The Catholic Church sometimes will support an organization like ACORN because it is the responsible thing to do irreguardless of their links to unsavory individuals. This “do good” “feelie touchy” mentality will eventually hurt the church when smart catholics stop giving to the USCCB. I will not give this year thank you.

funny, I found a link to the grants list for this past year with little difficulty. no cover up. also has links for the last few years: http://www.usccb.org/cchd/grants/
I would imagine that part of the problem is that they don’t have enough people working for them to vet every organization that asks for money. Frankly, for some people there is no such thing as anti__________ enough.
As to the question above, “why are we funding secular groups?” — I heard a wonderful speaker from Catholic Relief Services who said, “We don’t help them because they’re Catholic; we help them because we’re Catholic”.

Arroyo is not over the top and he has a plethora of other topics to cover than CCHD, especially with the current administration. He has guests who have rightly pointed out by name the organizations being funded by the USCCB. Then these guests listed the anti-life activities being promoted by the funded organizations. Instead of attacking Arroyo, why not investigate the claims? It is an easy enough process I would think. If false, let Arroyo know. If true, fix it and let Arroyo know that too. Why the personal attacks on Arroyo?
I have no problem with funding non-Catholic groups, but all of should demand an immediate response with funding anti-life organizations.

Why is it that no one who is defending the CCHD bothers to refute the ‘facts’ that have been reported? If there was just one group, or even two it would seem that the Bishops missed something, but so many communist, pro-death, pro-condom, pro-voter fraud groups. It appears they were caught red handed. Bashing Raymond Arroyo for being a far right winger does nothing but make one look ridiculous. He is a learned man of the Church, not an SSPXer. Let’s deal with the facts. We need to stop funding these groups. Then we can begin discussing whether money should be diverted when the Church’s own organizations are struggling to keep the critical care for the poor that they offer going.

Okay…Raymond Arroyo annoys me no end so I’m not even goin’ there. It’s just a personal taste thing, can’t stand him.
communist? really? examples please. I am confounded at the tossing around of communist, socialist, Marxist, and Maoist. It’s like people are trying to scare me to their point of view by invoking “scary” ideologies.
Sure, the church shouldn’t fund groups that don’t hold with our pro-life views fine…but gracious there has got to be a better way to discuss topics. Meh. Don’t mind me I was on a Catholic forum site earlier and was really kind of ashamed of being a Catholic for half a second.

Mhari Dubh:
No, that is the answer to why do we help non-Catholics. That is not the answer to why we fund non-Catholic organizations.
I heard that comment made many years ago.

Uhm…so funding non-Catholic organizations isn’t helping? Okay.

Once the information that these funds are being made available to anti Catholic causes one would expect a major mea culpa coming from those that vetted said organizations, funding cut and redirected to worthy organizations, and a full investigation of all organizations currently receiving funding. We have received NONE of these things.
It is simply not enough to say these groups do or did SOME good. That would be like saying since George Tiller (Kansas late term abortion provider killed earlier this year) attended church and bought girl scout cookies from the little girls after church he did some good and is worthy of receiving some of our money….???? He was worthy of nothing I had to offer him other than my prayers for his conversion.
There are good, no great organizations in our own communities that provide services to the poor directly, this idea that a national group will some how be better at it or more efficient is simply a lie. If need be we should redirect our funds to these groups, we can depend on no one to do our work for us if we cannot depend on the bishops. Check the groups out and redirect your CCHD funds to those groups.
Remember two things: Archbishop Fulton Sheen told us our priest and bishops will not save the church, we the lay will be the ones that save the church. Also remember what the Lord said about our laziness in our faith.
I am the one called Amen! I am the faithful and true witness and the source of God’s creation. Listen to what I say. I know everything you have done, and you are not cold or hot. I wish you were either one or the other. But since you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spit you out of my mouth. You claim to be rich and successful and to have everything you need. But you don’t know how bad off you are. You are pitiful, poor, blind, and naked.