Can’t we Catholics all get along? Or get things straight?
In the October 23, 2009 issue of the Catholic New World, there is an article entitled: “Local CCHD [Catholic Campaign for Human Development] effort address concerns over ACORN,” a statement was made that the leaders of Catholic Citizens of Illinois have said they will not boycott the campaign this year. This is not true.
Catholic Citizens is a conservative group. The New World is published by the archdiocese, giver of money to ACORN, the heavily besmirched organization of community organizations on the Alinsky model. Cath Citizens have opposed this giving, having hosted and heard out the man from the Capital Research Center, which keeps track of who gives what to whom.
Capital Research Center analyzes organizations that promote the growth of government and identifies viable private alternatives to government regulatory and entitlement programs.
Cath Citizens also pay attention to what’s found by Bellarmine Veritas Ministry, “a Catholic grass-roots organizing ministry dedicated to truth and action” that foreswears creation of “faceless political power and revolution,” arguing that “all true power comes from God alone.” They seek instead “to instill the fearless hope that comes from walking in light and truth.”
I spell this out, or let them do so, because it emphasizes the central, in my view, critique of Alinskyism, with its embracing of the power principle and its making success depend on the enemy’s reaction.
Monsignor Robert Fox in Harlem in the 60s also rejected the social ju-jitsu that Alinsky promoted (and sold to assorted Catholic prelates), instead urging parishioners to take back mean streets with candle-light processions. (I wrote about it for my employer, Ave Maria Magazine, in 1968.) “The people, yes” was his implied motto, but as people assert their freedom, not as they force others to comply.
At issue now is whether Catholic Citizens will boycott the Catholic Campaign, as it did last year, over issues related to ACORN. The local campaign director, Rey [sic] Flores, says they will not, according to the New World.
Wrong-o, says Cath Citizens head woman Mary Anne Hackett: “This is not true.”
Meeting with Flores and the archdiocese’s head man for Peace and Justice, Hackett and three Cath Citizens board members (she and two others? not clear)
reiterated [their] position that the name of the CCHD had been irreparably damaged by recent revelations of donations to ACORN, [its] community organizing which in some cases had involved pro-abortion groups, and [its involvement in] voter fraud in over 12 states and that we are unable to support it [CCHD] as it presently operates.
They would cooperate, but “No promise [of support] was made by the members of Catholic Citizens who were present at the meeting.”
Oops. Back to the drawing board for Rey Flores and — who knows? — the New World too. At least the latter has to do something — run a skinback or stand its ground one way or another.
The writer may have been (inadvertently) misled by Flores, but it’s important that she and her newspaper get this straight — online right now and in a week or so when their next hard copy comes out.
Blithe Spirit 
Dear Mr. Bowman,
You’re right. Why can’t we Catholics get along with each other?
How do we expect to fight back all of the secular attacks and adversity facing Christians, specifically Catholics, if we can’t even get along with each other?
Mrs. Mary Anne Hackett and the rest of the folks at the CCI are good people with serious concerns. Do we disagree with what was said at our July 30, 2009 meeting? Yes. It has unfortunately been turned into a classic he said / she said situation.
BACKGROUND:
The reason for the meeting to begin with, was that after ten days in my new position, I reached out to Mary Anne and CCI. Never had either CCI or the CCHD reached out to each other before. Interestingly enough, CCI’s Karl Maurer was the person that referred me to this position. Karl and I know each other because we both attend the Tridentine Mass in Joliet on Sundays.
Today’s CCHD and yesterday’s CCHD
Obviously a lot has changed since the CHD was started in 1970. What I am trying to do in Chicago is to literally re-define what poverty means to Catholics today. CCHD Chicago is in the process of restructuring its funding guidelines to include groups that traditionally would not have qualified for funding through the program. This approach is based on not just the Catholic Church’s view on ‘social justice’ (as the CHD had originally been designed), but also on the Church’s overall view on every single aspect of our faith.
Criticisms vs. Active Participation
As I research CCHD’s history, I have found that it has always been a target of more conservative Catholics. The reasons are many, but the ones that concern me are the criticisms I have gotten since I started in this position a long time ago (3 moths and a week ago).
At our CCI/CCHD meeting in July and at our September with the Catholic Media League (Mary Ann Kreitzer, Stephanie Block), we again, presented our plan to reform the CCHD as best and as soon as we could. The way CCI continues to come after us, we aren’t moving fast enough for them.
I have asked not just CCI, CML and everybody within earshot; don’t just criticize and point your finger at us (new CCHD staff, including myself). Help us make the changes.
We agree with CCI and CML on 98% of their concerns. I have asked them to sit on our new CCHD Grant Allocations Advisory Committee that I am in the process of putting together. Not one of them has volunteered yet. I invited them to our Cardinal’s Event on September 24 to meet some of the people that have benefited by CCHD, but no one from their group showed up. What does that say about them?
Thankfully, I already have hand-picked three new members for that committee that are more interested in doing the necessary work to bring about the needed changes at CCHD, than to just shoot arrows.
Are CCI committed to simply continue to besmirch CCHD because of its past or are they truly interested in making the necessary changes in a pro-active manner…for today and the future?
It puzzles me to no end how Mary Anne Hackett has referred several great pro-life organizations, but wants to boycott and continue to bash us in their newsletters. I am not so worried about the boycott itself, but CCI’s criticisms are now affecting one of the referred organizations to reconsider taking our help. —- It’s not ‘dirty money’. It’s money coming from the pews of the entire Archdiocese that we are looking to pass on to the pro-life groups that Hackett herself recommended. My goodness! What sense does that make?
How am I to steer this ship on the course it needs to be on, if I keep having our critics cannonball us at every corner? Worse yet, the critics shooting the cannonballs have actually put some of their friends on this ship and still continue to try and sink us? I don’t get it.
The Name Game
Some of the CCI crowd have also suggested we change the name of the CCHD to the Catholic Campaign for Life and Families. I personally like that name, but what good will simple name changes do? That would be the easy way out – you know. Like ACORN Chicago changed its name to Action Now. Maybe next year or after that we can play with the name, but for now, there are still plenty of Catholics that tend to be more ‘social justice’ minded and are very supportive of the CCHD. Sadly, many of them need to be educated on many traditional Catholic values that have gone by the wayside in the past 40 years…as long as the CHD has been around! Interesting; huh?
What I believe needs to happen is that we need to redefine what ‘Human Development’ means. Actually, Pope Benedict XVI has already helped us with the following excerpt from his most recent encyclical Caritas en Veritate: Development must include not just material growth but also spiritual growth, since the human person is a “unity of body and soul”, born of God’s creative love and destined for eternal life.
“What now?”
That is the phrase that Aid for Women uses on their billboards to promote their great pro-life services in low-income communities throughout Chicago. The actual text on the ad is; “Pregnant? Now what?” As the Director of the Chicago CCHD, I am seeing to it that that campaign will be receiving funding from CCHD in 2010.
The question I ask you, CCI and any of the random CCHD critics we have is; “What now? – Will you literally seek to ‘abort’ the CCHD or will you participate in giving new ‘life’ to the Chicago CCHD?”
The Value of Life in ALL of Its Stages; Being Pro-Life and Pro-Family – Seeing the Countenance of Christ in All Creatures
Some of our more vocal critics have expressed strong conservative views on immigrants that simply aren’t very charitable. The Catholic Church in no way condones the actual act of ‘illegal immigration’, but once a human being in need is knocking on our door on this side of the border; what are we to do? What would Jesus Christ Himself do?
There seems to be a significant prejudice against immigrants themselves by Catholics who consider themselves more ‘conservative’. I understand that this country is in desperate need of some form of immigration reform, but when some of the organizations we have funded have sought to keep immigrant families from being separated or the workers themselves have organized themselves to fight not just for a fair wage, but their human dignity; what is wrong with that? It is a sin to deny a man his fair wages, but somehow, these immigrants are less deserving of our ‘Catholic’ charity because they are ‘illegal’?
There is a natural law and that is God’s law that supercedes any man-made law that demonizes a whole group of people. Just because a government and their laws exist, it doesn’t always mean that they are right or just. After all, look at Roe v. Wade. That’s a law. Is it a right or just law?
We are all made in the image and likeness of God. A so-called ‘illegal’ immigrant is no less deserving of that God-given life and dignity.
Spiritual + Moral Poverty = Earthly Poverty.
That equation almost never fails. Here at Chicago’s CCHD, we are working towards addressing the true roots of poverty in today’s society. As Catholics, we must re-program ourselves to think and act like Catholics first and foremost and be nothing more or nothing less than that in today’s sociopolitical and socioeconomic climate.
Please keep our efforts and me in your prayers. I welcome you to meet with me in person to further discuss this very urgent matter. You can reach me anytime at 773-213-1081.
AMDG,
Rey Flores
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I was one of those who attended the meeting with Rey in Chicago. The problem with what Rey says here is that CCHD continues to fund organizations diametrically opposed to Catholic teachings. CCI members from Chicago (I live in Virginia) are better able to address problems with local grantees, but the fact is that pulling in a few pro-life groups to give cover for the rest is insufficient. The “name change” proposal was much more than that. It was a call to revamp the guidelines for who would qualify for grants. To date the bulk of money is going to Alinskyite groups that are social change agents. Their concern for the poor is mainly window dressing for a liberation theology style of “social justice” that brings power to the organizers.
Rey means well, but unless there is substantive change to the CCHD, no Catholic should support it. A drop of potent poison in a glass of water can kill. CCHD is filled with poisonous groups that have robbed people in the pews for two generations under the guise of “helping the poor.” Catholics are finally calling for an end to it. And that is a responsible position to take.
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