One wonders: Is the USCCB objecting to the President’s budget solely on the basis of “moral criteria” or are other agendas at work?
Robert Cardinal Sarah, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, has stated: “The Church is gravely mistaken as to the nature of the real crisis if she thinks that her essential mission is to offer solutions to all the political problems relating to justice, peace, poverty, the reception of migrants, etc., while neglecting evangelization.”
And, while I have clear reservations about Cardinal Sarah’s priorities and policies with regard to the celebration of the Sacred Liturgy, in this particular instance, His Eminence is spot on.
Because, when it comes to evangelization, the CRS admits that it cannot “proselytize,” but is still proud that it is a “Catholic agency.”
While CRS hires many non-Catholics, all employees are “required to uphold Catholic teaching in their work.” Yet, such an expectation is fantasy.
Bearing in mind that AID has always been one of the most anti-Catholic government bureaucracies, can CRS maintain good relations with its benefactors there and still be proudly Catholic?
Let’s remember the Rick Estridge incicdent. He was the CRS’s Vice-president for Overseas Finance, and was for years a key player in the CRS-AID funding relationship.
In 2013, when the Lepanto Institute reported that Estridge was “married” to his male partner, it caused a crisis. Washington’s radical homosexual groups raged at the “hurtful” revelation, and CRS removed Estridge’s name from its website but kept him on while the agency tried to play damage control.
When Estridge finally “stepped down” six weeks later, CRS plaintively blamed the fiasco on the hiring policy of the USCCB — the same Bishops who supposedly govern the agency. Ever since, the agency has been roiled by questions about how genuinely “Catholic” it really is.
Catholic Charities USA faces the same identity crisis.
In April 2009, three months after Obama was sworn in, Catholic Charities USA hired Washington’s leading homosexual PR firm to lobby for increased federal funding from the new pro-LGBT administration and Congress. Catholic Charities paid the Sheridan Group $476,750 for its services.
Federal Law prohibits the use of federal funding for lobbying, even by nonprofits. Lobbying funds must be raised from the private sector.
About two-thirds of Catholic Charities USA’s budget comes from the federal government. But all funds for the pro-homosexual lobbyist, the Sheridan Group, must come from private donations, including the annual Catholic Charities “national collection” taken up in every parish in the country, sponsored by the USCCB
So, voluntary donations from Catholics in the pews paid the premier homosexual PR firm in Washington almost half a million dollars. The federal government did not.
Did Catholic Charities USA, or the Bishops on its Board of Directors, or the USCCB itself, or local Pastors (who themselves are willfully unaware) tell the faithful about the Sheridan Group contract?
No.
In fact, it was not until the Washington Blade, a LGBT newspaper, boasted about it two years later.
According to the Blade’s report, “Sister Jeannine Gramick, a Catholic nun and one of the founders of New Ways Ministry, which ‘provides support’ for LGBT Catholics, said Catholic Charities USA and some local Catholic Charities agencies have provided behind-the-scenes support for the LGBT Catholic community.”
“ Catholic Charities in general have been the most progressive wing of the Church other than the Nuns," she said. "In some cases, Catholic Charities USA has supported our events. I feel they personally are pro-gay but they can’t admit this publicly.”
According to its 2016 IRS Form 990, CCUSA’s voluntary contributions and grants dropped 40% from their 2015 total.
No wonder the USCCB finds Trump’s budget “profoundly troubling.”
Personally, I am “profoundly troubled” by the USCCB’s all too cozy arrangement with the government for the radical social agendas it advocates. I am sure that the majority of Catholic faithful would be equally troubled, if they were provided with the facts.
Catholics, who make generous and sacrificial offerings to Catholic Charities USA and Catholic Relief Services, should keep in mind the admonition of the “longshoreman philosopher,” Eric Hoffer: “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”
In the recent letter the USCCB sent to Congress, we must ask: just what is it that the Bishops are trying to preserve — a Catholic ministry? A business? Or a racket?
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