Matt Smith takes the debate over the Catholic Campaign for Human Development to a new level: He calculates the amount Catholic parishes paid to organizations supporting abortion and same-sex marriage.
Smith calculates that since CCHD receives from $7 to $9 million each years, and their are 18,280 parishes in the US, “the average parish contribution ranges from $382 – $492 each year.”
He then goes on to talk about the over $2,000,000 we know, thus far, has been given by the CCHD to such offending groups and concludes:
Orthodox. Faithful. Free.
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The basic fact that ANY money is going to groups working against the teachings of the Church should be a source of concern. To date, solid evidence has shown $2,306,500 in grants has gone to groups advocating for issues contrary to the teachings of the Church. This represents the annual contributions of almost 6037 parishes – or nearly 1/3 of Catholic parishes in the United States.
Smith describes the various ways CCHD and its defenders have avoided responding to the evidence and summarizes, once again, what the bishops have been asked to consider:
- Suspend CCHD grants.
- Conduct an independent audit and review of all the organizations that have received CCHD grants during the past ten years to ensure programs, support for public policies, and affiliations are consistent with the teachings of the Church.
- Develop and publicly distribute new policy guidelines to Diocesan offices for the vetting and approval of CCHD grant proposals.
- Review the participation by USCCB staff in outside organizations and develop a conflict of interest policy that prevents such participation from supporting groups that work against the teachings of the Church.
Read the entire article at Catholic Advocate.
It should also be mentioned that the Diocese of Green Bay — Bishop David Ricken — has cancelled its CCHD collection scheduled for March.
The Green Bay diocesan paper explains the collection will take instead “to provide additional funding for the relief efforts in Haiti through Catholic Relief Services.”