Catholic Citizens of Illinois Press Release: Monday, November 17, 2008
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Catholic Citizens of Illinois calls for Boycott of the Catholic
Campaign for Human Development
11/16/2008 7:21:00 PM
When the Catholic Bishops of the United States established the
Campaign for Human Development in 1970, they mandated the Campaign to
fund "such projects as voter registration, community organizations,
community-run schools, minority-owned cooperatives and credit unions,
capital for industrial development and job training programs, and
setting up rural cooperatives." It was subsequently renamed the
Catholic Campaign for Human Development, with prohibitions on funding
of projects that were not in conformity with Catholic moral
teaching.
The CCHD was sold to Catholic parishioners with a slogan of "a hand
up instead of a hand out," but instead, CCHD has heavily invested in
the political organizing techniques of Saul Alinky, a Marxist
organizer from Chicago who founded the nationwide Industrial Areas
Foundation, which in the Chicago area is known as United Power.
United Power has been financed by various mainline Protestant
churches and has made great inroads into the Catholic Church in
Chicago, recruiting parish ministers and receiving funding from
various parishes through dues and contributions. For all practical
purposes, United Power is an extension of the far left wing of the
Democrat Party.
In a November 4 report in The Washington Time, the U.S. Conference
of Catholic Bishops has announced that it has hired forensic
accounting specialists to investigate more than $1 million in church
funding to voter-registration group ACORN, suspecting that the money
may have been spent in criminal acts that would negatively impact the
tax exempt status of the Church.
The CCHD has given more than $7.3 million to ACORN over the past
decade for about 320 projects, including $900,000 in 2006 and
$1,110,000 in 2007. In June or this year, the Catholic Church
allegedly froze a $1.2 million grant for 38 ACORN chapters after the
community-organizing group was accused of voter fraud in 15 states.
Critics of the CCHD have challenged the USCCB to provide evidence of
the freeze and confirm that no payments have been made to ACORN in
2008.
Mary Anne Hackett, President of Catholic Citizens, commented, "It is
well know that ACORN played a major role in the current financial
crisis by intimidating banks through public rallies, invasions of
bank lobbies with large groups of ACORN activists and picketing bank
executives homes. ACORN bullied banks into making loans to people who
could not repay them. To avoid vilification as racist, local banks
were forced to make loans to unqualified borrowers, even allowing
them to use food stamps as collateral for the loans." These practices
have caused the failure of several major financial institutions and
the damage continues to reverberate through the economy.
Mrs. Hackett stated further, "Funding campaigns for socialist
programs and Democrat Party candidates has no place in the mission of
the Catholic Church or in service to the poor." The funds are
collected from the Catholic parishioners with no accountability to
them for the expenditures. Nor does the Campaign for Human
Development fund Catholic Institutions and apostolates that work with
the poor.
"The Catholic Church, through its contributions to ACORN, is
complicit in voter fraud and the failure of our economy. This must
stop," said Mrs. Hackett. Catholic Citizens of Illinois calls on all
Catholics to boycott the annual collection for the Catholic Campaign
for Human Development on the weekend of November 22 and 23.
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Catholic Citizens of Illinois is an independent organization of the
laity, faithful to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church and the
Pope Benedict XVI.
Postal Address:<BR>106 Calendar Court
P.O. Box #122
La Grange, IL 60525-2325
