CCHD

It’s that time of year when the Roman Catholic church in the United States conducts its Thanksgiving collection to help the poor.

Unfortunately, the money collected doesn’t go to help the poor.  The money goes to the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD), a corrupt Marxist charity that funds Saul Alinsky-inspired activist groups.

CCHD was founded in the late 1960s around the same time as its ideological soulmate, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN).

If you love this country, you shouldn’t be giving money to CCHD which funds America’s domestic enemies.

Here’s a profile I did of CCHD that ran in the September 2009 edition of Foundation Watch. (PDF)

Thanksgiving is approaching and that means that the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) will be trying once again to con well-intentioned parishioners out of their hard earned money.

The radical ACORN-like CCHD, whose lineage can be traced back to Saul Alinsky, collects money ostensibly for the poor. The problem is that most if not all of the money never actually makes it to the poor. It finds it way to radical left-wing groups that promote values and ideas that Americans overwhelmingly reject. 

As I wrote in the Washington Times last year,

Growing up, I always thought Jesus’ admonition in the Book of Matthew, “The poor you will always have with you,” wasn’t meant to be taken literally as a directive to ignore the poor, but that’s exactly what a prominent Roman Catholic charity believes.

As this Sunday’s “second collection” approaches, most Catholics planning to donate to the Catholic Campaign for Human Development probably think their money will be used to help the poor by funding soup kitchens and homeless shelters. Well, the joke’s on them. CCHD has never provided direct relief to the poor. That’s not its purpose.

It is an extreme left-wing political organization created to feed and foster radical groups like ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now). Most Catholics are blissfully unaware of its true mission, though it says right on its Web site that it aims to support “organized groups of white and minority poor to develop economic strength and political power.”

Since I wrote that op-ed last year, CCHD hasn’t changed. It’s still a racket and a haven for extremists who reject the America we know and love.

To help fight CCHD, parishioners of the Catholic Diocese of Arlington, Virginia, are circulating a petition to urge Bishop Paul S. Loverde to withdraw support for the 2010 National Catholic Campaign for Human Development.

Even after the million-dollar ACORN embezzlement scandal in 2008 forced the radical leftist group, Catholic Campaign for Human Development, to stop funding ACORN, CCHD keeps on funding radical left-wing organizations.

CCHD is the grant-making arm of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which acts on behalf of the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops. CCHD and ACORN share a left-wing ideology that puts a premium on Saul Alinsky-style aggressive community organizing.

While CCHD poses as a mainstream Christian charity trying to help the poor, it uses left-wing euphemisms in its mission statement. It seeks to address “the root causes of poverty in America through promotion and support of community-controlled, self-help organizations and through transformative education.” “Root causes of poverty” is Marxist-speak meaning “capitalism is bad.”

The American Life League reports (PDF) that CCHD has been funneling money to:

• Chicago Workers Collaborative (Illinois) $30,000, associated with the International Socialist Organization
• LA Community Action Network (California) $40,000 — which supports same-sex marriage in violation of Catholic social teachings
• Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (Illinois) $40,000
• Massachusetts Community Labor United $30,000

Plus, 31 grantees of CCHD are affiliated with the Center for Community Change, an ACORN-wannabe organization headed by former ACORN official Deepak Bhargava.

CCC’s board includes Heather Booth, co-founder and president of the Midwest Academy, which teaches tactics of direct action, confrontation, and intimidation. Booth (pictured above) heads a far-left front group called Americans for Financial Reform which promoted the recent “Showdown on K Street” — an attempt to intimidate bank lobbyists into supporting so-called financial reform legislation.

Anthony Stevens-Arroyo has an item at washingtonpost.com in which he bends over backwards to exonerate the radical left-wingers who run the execrable Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD).

Stevens-Arroyo is a leftist academic so it’s no surprise he’s willing to shill for CCHD.

He’s also defending ACORN which is proof he is a useful idiot. Or maybe he’s not a useful idiot — maybe he knows CCHD and ACORN embrace morally reprehensible anti-American goals and wants to be a part of the transmogrification of America.

I’ll be on the “G. Gordon Liddy Show” today at 12:45 Eastern to talk about how the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) is conning conservatives.

CCHD is the Marxist charitable arm of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

I have an op-ed in today’s Washington Times.

It begins:

Growing up, I always thought Jesus’ admonition in the Book of Matthew, “The poor you will always have with you,” wasn’t meant to be taken literally as a directive to ignore the poor, but that’s exactly what a prominent Roman Catholic charity believes.

As this Sunday’s “second collection” approaches, most Catholics planning to donate to the Catholic Campaign for Human Development probably think their money will be used to help the poor by funding soup kitchens and homeless shelters. Well, the joke’s on them. CCHD has never provided direct relief to the poor. That’s not its purpose.

It is an extreme left-wing political organization created to feed and foster radical groups like ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now). Most Catholics are blissfully unaware of its true mission, though it says right on its Web site that it aims to support “organized groups of white and minority poor to develop economic strength and political power.” [...]

Both ACORN and CCHD were inspired by radical agitator Saul Alinsky, the Marxist Machiavelli who dedicated his activism opus, “Rules for Radicals,” to Lucifer, whom he called “the first radical.” The late Mr. Alinsky developed the concept of “community organizing” in order to mobilize poor neighborhoods to make demands, long and loud, on public officials and the private sector.

CCHD gives generously to the Industrial Areas Foundation, which Mr. Alinsky himself founded, and to similar leftist groups including the Gamaliel Foundation, People Improving Communities Through Organizing (PICO), and Direct Action and Research Training Institute (DART). [...]

Ralph McCloud, director of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD)

* * * * *

Earlier today Ralph McCloud, director of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD), offered an eloquent but unconvincing defense of the radical charity he works for. He provided the commentary at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) Fall General Assembly in Baltimore. Listen to the platitude-heavy discussion about the charity that finally cut off ACORN last year here.

An amusing exchange from the USCCB streaming video from the event today that sounded strangely like a PBS telethon:

PRIEST: You know that old axiom: Give a man a fish, he eats for a day; teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime. As I read more and more about CCHD it’s about teaching fishing and it seems like that’s part of where these monies go, that our own generosity helps others to sustain themselves and also to contribute to the life of society as well, right?

MCCLOUD: Sure. I would take it even a step further in that it’s kind of like teaching an individual to fish but in addition teaching an entire community to fish where they can be supportive of one another.

That’s not quite the way I see CCHD. The charity only reluctantly cut off ACORN last year and continues to fund the equally radical community organizing group Industrial Areas Foundation that was founded by Saul Alinsky himself. It also funds PICO, DART, and the Gamaliel Foundation.

CCHD funds groups that teach a man to steal another man’s fish so that he will survive at the expense of the other man for life.

That’s “social justice.” That’s what CCHD believes in.

The Roman Catholic bishop who oversees the radical left-wing Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) defiantly lashed out at critics earlier today. (audio file here)

“This year some of the allegations and the claims [about CCHD] have simply been outrageous,” said Biloxi, Miss., Bishop Roger P. Morin. Morin chairs the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) subcommittee on CCHD.

Since its creation in 1969 –the year before ACORN was founded— CCHD says it has given more than $290 million to fund what it calls over 8,000 “low-income-led, community-based projects that strengthen families, create jobs, build affordable housing, fight crime, and improve schools and neighborhoods.” Some observers say the grand total is closer to $450 million.

The charitable arm of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, CCHD has never provided direct relief to the poor. That’s not its purpose.

CCHD is an extreme left-wing political organization that was created to feed and foster radical groups, but most Catholics are blissfully unaware of its true mission. CCHD says right on its website that it aims to support “organized groups of white and minority poor to develop economic strength and political power.”

The speech came days before this Sunday’s “second collection” from parishioners that funds CCHD. Prominent conservative Catholics including Richard Viguerie are urging Catholics to boycott the collection that traditionally takes place every year on the weekend before Thanksgiving.

Morin made the speech at the USCCB’s Fall General Assembly in Baltimore.

From the bishop’s speech:

Some others it seems to me may not understand or accept the church’s social teachings on justice, having a priority for the poor, or being focused on the root causes of poverty and eradicating them or highlighting a need for institutional change. There are a few who have their own ideological or political agendas. They repeat and spread outrageous claims.

[...]

We do not ever grant funds to any group that is specifically involved in any activity contrary to church teaching. No group that acts against the Catholic social or moral teachings is eligible for CCHD funding and if and when such problems are discovered, and as soon as they are reported, all funding is cut off.

As you recall CCHD was the first national organization to cut off all funding to ACORN when the national problems of fiscal accountability, organizational direction, and political partisanship became apparent. Long before the federal government and other groups severed relationships with them we were the first and this will be the third consecutive year of CCHD collections where no ACORN group at any level is even considered for CCHD funding for any purposes. If any CCHD-funded group violates the conditions of a grant and acts in conflict with Catholic teaching the funding is terminated in consultation with the local dioceses.

New Zeal blogger Trevor Loudon and I appeared on the “G. Gordon Liddy Show” on Oct. 26, 2009 to discuss the left in America.

Loudon discussed Communist infiltration of the U.S. labor movement and Barack Obama’s radical background. Vadum discussed ACORN, Rep. Jerrold Nadler‘s (D-N.Y.) ties to it, and the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD).

The audio file may be found here.

Human Events has posted my article, “Left-Wing Radicalism in the Church: CCHD and ACORN.”

The piece, which is based on the September Foundation Watch, begins:

It must have been a sad day at the offices of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) in Washington, D.C., last year when the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) announced that its temporary suspension of funding for the embattled radical group ACORN was being made permanent. Each November around Thanksgiving, every Roman Catholic parish takes up a collection for the non-profit campaign.

CCHD is the grant-making arm of USCCB, which acts on behalf of the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops, a group widely assumed to be conservative defenders of traditional morality. However, CCHD and ACORN share a left-wing ideology that puts a premium on aggressive community organizing.

It is an error to think of CCHD as an ordinary charity. In fact, it is an extreme left-wing political organization whose ties stretch back to the “father” of community organizing himself, Saul Alinsky, and to Barack Obama in his community-organizing days in Chicago.

And unbeknownst to most Catholics, almost no CCHD grants actually provide direct relief to the poor.

CCHD cut off ACORN after channeling $7.3 million of parishioners’ money to the group over the last decade. Bishops came under intense pressure from conservative Catholics outraged by reports of gross legal and ethical improprieties involving ACORN. [...]