On the left side of God: How politics and religion mix in the world of charitable giving

By Joanne Zuhl, Staff Writer

A 4-inch-square, 96-page booklet once was considered the embodiment of social justice and empowerment of the poor, and for years, its publisher attracted financial backing from the Catholic Campaign for Human Development through the Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon.

The local Catholic Campaign — a private nonprofit foundation operated by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops — helped launch the booklet with a $5,000 grant in 2008, making sure information on health care, shelter, employment and supportive services was in the hands of people experiencing homelessness and poverty.

That was until this spring, when a call to the office of Justice and Peace of the Archdiocese of Portland pointed out the offense on page 25. There, under the category of health care, was a listing for Planned Parenthood, which in a half-inch space included a description of the various basic services, including contraception, that the organization provides to low- or no-income customers seeking health care.

The message from CCHD managers at the Portland Archdiocese, although supportive of the booklet’s overall mission, was made clear in terms of funding: If Planned Parenthood remained in the booklet, CCHD, in keeping with Catholic teaching, could no longer fund Street Roots, the publisher of the Rose City Resource guide. Street Roots decided to keep the listing.

But what was behind the call? Why now? What changed after five years of CCHD support for Street Roots? How did a piece of information suddenly morph into a theological offense?

Starting in autumn 2009, other groups began asking the same questions. The Chinese Progressive Association in San Francisco was among the first to get the call: CCHD, which was one of the founding funders for the 38-year-old Association, had to cut ties with the workers’ rights program. Also in California, the Young Workers United was told it was being cut from funding as well, as was the Rebecca Project for Human Rights, which helps homeless and disadvantaged women who have children. L.A. Community Action Network was “defunded” at its own request after CCHD tried to censor its newspaper. Women in Transition in Louisville, Ky., had its grant rescinded, and Preble Resource Center, which serves homeless youths in Portland, Maine, was ordered to return to CCHD funds for its Homeless Voices for Justice program. In Oregon, Children First for Oregon, a child advocacy group for vulnerable children, was culled from the list of grantees earlier this year.

Besides CCHD’s support, and beyond the commonality of their missions, these groups share something else: They were all targeted, investigated and determined unfit by a campaign of Catholic conservative groups that, via the prolific capacity of the Internet, have formed a nationwide coalition calling for the defunding of more than 50 poverty-alleviation organizations, and a radical overhaul — and even disbandment — of CCHD.

To date, 10 U.S. bishops, an unprecedented number by Catholic news reports, have publicly suspended their annual, mandatory collection among parishioners for CCHD because of claims that CCHD funded “anti-Catholic” organizations. The allegations by the group called“Reform CCHD Now” against grantees begin as crimes against the Catholic Church for supporting abortion and gay-rights issues, and extend to direct attacks on community organizing and social empowerment. It could be dismissed as a fringe element, if not for the use of the campaign by politically vested parties to discredit, disrupt and defund the work of community organizing groups long-supported and heralded by U.S. bishops.

This year, Catholic Campaign for Human Development celebrated 40 years of funding community programs that address the root causes of homelessness and poverty. Nationwide, it has distributed more than $400 million in self-help grants to 8,000 agencies across the United States, making it the nation’s largest private funder of self-help groups for the poor.

CCHD is a rarity in the world of charitable investment in that it does not fund direct services like its faith-based counterparts, Catholic Charities or St. Vincent DePaul. Instead, CCHD’s grantees are organizations that work to foster systemic change through partnering with common-cause groups and community organizing. Because of its role in community organizing projects, the Portland Archdiocese is considered a core funder of poverty-alleviation and empowerment projects in Oregon and a voice among faith-based efforts to shape policy around social-service needs in Multnomah County.

The attacks by Reform CCHD Now and its followers are prompting a “review and renewal” process by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which prepares to meet later this month. What the bishops decide could have major consequences for the thousands of cash-strapped nonprofits that CCHD supports, and the millions of poor and disenfranchised people who rely on these programs that today serve as proxy to government initiatives.

‘Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom’

REUTERS/DARBIN ZAMMIT LUPI

In the summer of 2009, the Texas-based Bellarmine Veritas Ministry, an opaque “Catholic grass-roots organizing ministry” traceable to one man, Rob Gasper, released an investigation into CCHD grantees. This June, the Virginia-based American Life League released a report echoing Bellarmine’s conclusions: that CCHD was funding what it called “anti-Catholic organizations” based upon the grantees’ actions and the actions of their partners and affiliates. These groups called on parishioners to boycott their donations to CCHD until the bishops revise the granting oversight. The groups specifically target 50 organizations they are demanding the CCHD stops funding.

These reports surfaced during the thick of the health care reform debate, a flagship in President Obama’s agenda, which the bishops opposed over abortion issues. In fact, the reformers singled out the bill and demanded that any grantees that supported the health care reform legislation “must state clearly and publicly that they will not promote any piece of legislation which gives federal support to abortion or family planning.”

Bellarmine, American Life League and Human Life International, also based in Virginia, are the three primary organizations behind Reform CCHD Now, although Reform CCHD Now claims more than 20 organizations working on behalf of the nationwide campaign. These three groups have driven the reform movement to viral levels online with blogs and video and through the multitude of online Catholic and pro-life news services, including LifeNews.com and LifeSiteNews.com.

“We started forming the coalition when we found very anti-Catholic things being funded by Catholics,” says Stephen Phelan, communications manager with Human Life International.  “Michael Hitchborn (with American Life League) wanted to meet and they refused, and Bellarmine also tried and didn’t a get a response. So everybody went public with it.”

“Because of the Internet, we’ve been able to get the information out to much more people in a much shorter period of time,” says Michael Hitchborn, a researcher with the pro-life organization American Life League. “Which is why the CCHD is finding it much harder to hide with their tactics they’ve been using.”

Those tactics, according to Hitchborn, are to fund groups that do not conform to Catholic teaching, deny that they are “anti-Catholic” groups, and then continue funding with the complications essentially swept under the rug. Many of the organizations already defunded this past year were longtime recipients of CCHD funding, and praised for their work in building cross-community partnerships and networks to fight the causes of poverty. However, it’s those partnerships that factor into nearly all of the groups singled out by the reform movement. In fact, more than 30 groups reformers want defunded are listed because they are members of the Center for Community Change, a D.C.-based cross-community organizing movement that stopped receiving CCHD funding in 2001.

“That’s a problem because there’s no accountability,” Hitchborn says. “The groups that are receiving CCHD money are getting trained by (Center for Community Change), which means they are being trained in cross-issues advocacy. And that’s a problem. So what we called for is an immediate disassociation from (Center for Community Change) for any group receiving CCHD money.”

Hitchborn says he will continue investigating organizations to weed out the grantees and says he’s working on a new report for release soon, as the bishops conference and the annual CCHD collection approaches.

“Because of the long history of CCHD funding errant organizations, there’s no way that we could let up,” Hitchborn says. “Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom. And if we are going to make sure that an organization that claims to be Catholic remains Catholic, they need to adhere to Catholic teaching.”

‘We didn’t even do anything wrong’

For nearly four decades, the San Francisco-based Chinese Progressive Association organized the Chinese and Asian immigrant community, including thousands of restaurant workers who received less than minimum wage or were living in the margins. With the support of CCHD, the organization engaged workers to successfully raise San Francisco’s minimum wage from $6.75 to $8.50, and in 2006, helped lead the charge for all workers in the city to receive paid sick leave. This work, along with its housing program, youths and environmental justice work, and its workers center, was funded by CCHD for years. But by September, the local CCHD said the relationship was over. It was pulling the plug on $30,000 it had granted to the organization’s worker center.

“They called me and they said they needed to talk, says Alex T. Tom, the Chinese Progressive Association’s executive director, “that people were getting ready for the bishops meeting in the fall and they were fanning the flames and pushing CCHD to resolve the issue.”

The issue was the Association’s publication of a voter pamphlet that opposed California’s Propositions 8 and 4, which banned same-sex marriages and required parental notification for some abortions. It was an effort that had nothing to do with the CCHD’s funding, which was specifically allocated for the organization’s Worker Center.

“It was right when the economic crisis happened,” Tom says. “It was really poor form, poor taste and very bad timing when they decided to revoke the funding.”

“In general, worker centers don’t have the easiest time. Anti-poverty work is not something that is heavily supported,” Tom says. “That was why CCHD was important. It helped us build a movement. And now we have to find a consistent revenue stream that doesn’t rely on support that we used to receive from CCHD.”

Preble Street in Portland, Maine, received CCHD grants for 13 years for its work in empowering the homeless, most recently a $30,000 grant in 2009. However, it was defunded at the end of 2009 and asked to return unspent grant money to CCHD because the organization joined the campaign against a measure to overturn the state’s same-sex marriage law. For Preble Street, it was an extension of their advocacy for rights and opportunities for the homeless youths within the GBLT the organization cares for and supports. The CCHD grant, however, actually was awarded to Preble Street’s project called Homeless Voices for Justice, which works for social change on behalf of — and with the leadership of — people in poverty and homelessness. Homeless Voices did not participate in the campaign on the law. However, as Homeless Voices’ fiscal agent, Preble Street was called to return funding, and did so with a $2,400 check. In a letter to CCHD Director Ralph McCloud, Preble Street Executive Director Mark Swann defended his group’s position: “Throughout our history, when Preble Street and Homeless Voices for Justice have taken differing positions, there has never been any effort to force or stifle the opinion of the other. Indeed, regardless of Preble Street’s point of view, we have chosen to facilitate the expressions of opposing positions such as those of (Homeless Voices) by the support we offer them — embodying the principles of CCHD social justice teachings.

“Punishing Homeless Voices by demanding the return of much-needed funds because of Preble Street’s advocacy around issues of social justice is deeply troubling,” Swann wrote. “It is unfortunate that the CCHD and the local Diocese is choosing not to be part of these important efforts.”

Women in Transition in Louisville, Ky., is but a shadow of its former self after CCHD rescinded a $25,000 grant at the end of 2009. Women in Transition runs skill-building programs for at-risk women and organizes on issues of affordable housing and health care. CCHD was a sponsor of the organization since 2005, until this past year when it received a letter from someone pointing out Women in Transition’s relationship with Wench Self-Care Collective, a local women’s health organization. Wench is pro-choice, and has helped escort women to and from the city’s abortion clinic, but it also focuses on women’s nutrition and education around healthy eating habits, which is where Women in Transition and Wench crossed paths. Women in Transition says it never worked with Wench on reproductive rights, just healthy eating, cooking classes and health fairs.

Women in Transition’s executive director, Khalilah Collins, says her organization had received CCHD grants for $20,000 and $25,000 each year since 2005. The 2009 fall grant for $25,000 had been approved and the check in the hands of their fiscal sponsor, Catholic Charities, but it was never delivered. Collins says she was told by Catholic Charities that unless she signed a letter saying that her organization regretted the situation and would not work with the Wench group or any other group whose mission contradicted Catholic teaching, the money was in jeopardy. It was more than a third of the organization’s budget, and money they had counted on.

“The more I thought about it, the more upset I got,” Collins says. “We didn’t even do anything wrong.”

(Collins says there were also questions about their 501(c)3 status, but that had not disrupted funding before.)

Collins didn’t write the letter. “I felt that our integrity was questioned as an organization, and all we have is our integrity and our voice, and you’re questioning that,” she says. “We can’t be a part of that.”

Collins says she never knew who wrote the letter about Wench, and that the relationship is not even traceable through Women in Transition’s website. However, by November, just before the 2009 collection for CCHD, Women in Transition and others were singled out in a press release by the American Life League and others within Reform CCHD Now for ties to Planned Parenthood, which led a workshop at an event the organization-co-sponsored with Spalding University.

“It’s not about WIT and Wenches,” Collins says. “We’ve never done any work on choice at all. We steer clear of that number one thing because we know we could lose our funding.”

But the funding is gone. “We have no money right now. None. I didn’t get paid last week, the rent hasn’t been paid, because we’re out of money,” Collins says.

‘It’s taking away care from those who need it’

“These are politically motivated attacks,” says Chris Korzen, executive director of D.C.-based Catholics United, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization doing online advocacy and education programs around the Catholic Social Tradition. “And they fit into this broader narrative that we’re unfortunately seeing in our system now, where social change is limited to charity and not actually fixing social structures that cause poverty and other problems.”

The intent of these attacks, Korzen says, is to demonize community organizing behind the arguments against abortion and same-sex marriage. That’s the end result of what this campaign is doing,” Korzen says. “It’s taking away care from those who need it.”

A Catholic himself, Korzen says Catholic social teaching is being hijacked by political agendas.

“This hyper-individualism that some are pushing in a political context does not have a lot of support in Catholic social teaching,” Korzen says. “So, essentially what we’re seeing is groups who are using Catholic teaching to promote what really is a secular agenda.”

It’s not a new thing, Korzen says. Indeed, CCHD for decades has had its critics. But today it gets the added boost of leveraging political gains with a galvanized voting block, further inflamed by the personalities parading through our ever-expanding media options.

“For sure, we’ve seen a movement to the right in Catholic institutional settings, and I’d even go as far to say there are some elements of the Catholic institutions and some parts of the (U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops) that have essentially been taken over by the Republican Party. That sounds like a strong statement, but it’s the truth. Over the years, the conservative movement has worked very hard to cultivate support in the Catholic churches.”

Case in point, Korzen says, is the U.S. bishops’ opposition to the health care reform bill, which was singled out as a defundable offense by the reformers, “even though the Catholic Church believes that health care is a human right,” Korzen says. “That never would have happened in the 1980s.”

In response to the reformers’ investigations and allegations, bishops across the country have issued statements in defense of CCHD’s operations, including Archbishop John Vlazny of the Portland Diocese. Vlazny wrote on the issue in the Catholic Sentinal in late 2009, prior to Street Roots being defunded.

“Once again this year objections have been raised to the Campaign because some CCHD-funded groups have taken actions in conflict with CCHD guidelines after they were funded,” Vlazny writes. “… When the facts were confirmed, the groups were defunded. Other allegations were raised, but the charges proved to be inaccurate or a misunderstanding had occurred. Mistakes are made, they are quickly corrected. But the negative voices drone on, and I suspect their problems are more political than religious.”

Ralph McCloud, the executive director of CCHD based in Washington D.C., says CCHD isn’t beholding to the partisan arguments behind the attacks. “We go to where poor people are, where nobody else wants to go, to let them speak boldly. I think we’re somewhere boldly embedded between the right and the left, and neither one of them can have a claim on it,” McCloud says.

McCloud says he cannot go into details on the upcoming review and renewal of CCHD, which will be conducted by the bishops, but that it will look at ways CCHD’s funding process can be more “responsive to the needs of the contemporary current realities,” McCloud says.

“I think where it gets murky sometimes is when people are in coalitions with a group where their main focus is somewhere else,” McCloud says. “That’s one of the things hoping to come out of the review and renewal process. We’re securing assistance from folks who are theologians and ethicists to find where the line is so we’re not arbitrary in our decisions.”

Just as the reform campaign proliferated on the blogosphere last summer, Matt Cato was hired to head the Portland Archdiocese Office of Justice and Peace, which administers the local CCHD funding process. With his appointment in August, 2009, the office merged with the Archdiocese’s Respect Life Activities Office. By early December, CCHD informed Children First for Oregon that it would not be considered for future grants because of its 2006 opposition of a measure to require parental notification for minors seeking abortion. Cato said Children First has the support of the Archdiocese, but that the group could not receive CCHD funds.

Children’s First advocates on behalf of children in foster care, living in poverty, those who need health care and those suffering from abuse or neglect.

Children First declined to talk on the record about the situation, but Cato said it could not longer be funded by CCHD because of its opposition to the measure, even in cases of incest or abuse.

“The bishops do not recognize any exception to abortion,” Cato says.

Those are doctrinal objections for the Catholic Church. Cato says he has no contact with the groups attacking CCHD, but that he is familiar with the more political ideologies behind their motivation.

“I’m not speaking for these organizations, but I do know that plenty of people are uncomfortable when a group of low-income or poor persons have power,” Cato says. “So you have the power of money, which corporations have, and you have the power of people, which is what community organizing is. The power of people which needs to balance the power of money, and that’s what community organizing is about, and a lot of people are uncomfortable with the poor having the voice.”

‘I’m not attacking social justice’

Stephen Phelan, communications manager with Human Life International, denies any political agenda to the reform movement.

“It’s easy to confuse what we’re saying with a political message,” Phelan says “We’re not out to get anybody. We want to see real Catholic teaching take hold.”

Phelan says that what has changed, from groups receiving years of funding from CCHD to being considered inappropriate and defunded, is the political backdrop.

“I think when (CCHD) first started, it made more sense for Catholics to align with the more liberal (groups),” Phelan says. “The Democratic side of the coin was doing good work back then. It wasn’t all these other things — anti-marriage, abortion, and Marxism. So what’s happened in the last 40 years is the same groups that were once pretty cool to work with have gotten more radically political, and the CCHD has continued to work with them, and been opposed to the church on a lot of these issues. After a couple of decades, it’s like, really? What are you guys thinking?”

Regardless of Phelan’s intentions or viewpoint, the criticism and condemnation of CCHD has for decades been framed by politics. In the 1980s and ’90s, former political appointees from the Nixon and Reagan administrations painted CCHD as a political arm of the liberal agenda. One appointee distributed a paper saying CCHD used Catholic money to prop up “leftist political activists plotting to destroy our economic system” and told Catholics to instead give their money to direct services. Others have said CCHD promotes a “political agenda far to the left of mainstream America,” Repeated attacks conclude that people should not give money to CCHD because its mission is not charity, but rather social justice.

“I have gotten a lot of feedback from people who are both excited and angry about the research that I’ve done,” American Life League’s Hitchborn says. “It’s interesting. The people who write me that are angry say I can’t believe that you are arguing against the bishops. They don’t address the concerns, they say, ‘Why are you doing this? Why are you attacking social justice?’ I’m not attacking social justice.”

A more recent voice to the opposition to CCHD has been Deal W. Hudson, the former director of Catholic outreach for George W. Bush’s 2000 and 2004 campaigns, and now the director of InsideCatholic.com. He has advanced the Reform CCHD Now, citing its defunding campaign in his writings online, and added among those to be defunded the attendees to the U.S. Social Forum 2010 that included workshops on reproductive and gay rights.

“One criticism leveled at the CCHD Reform Now research is that it was alleging ‘guilt by association.’ But that misses the point completely,” Hudson writes. “The presence of 21 CCHD grantees at U.S. Social Forum isn’t problematic because grantees are keeping company with the wrong people, but because they’re actively participating in a forum designed ‘to set a national action agenda.’ Looking at the program, it’s safe to assume that the agenda includes the right to abortion and gay marriage, as well as a larger ideological commitment to various forms of Marxism — an ideology condemned by the Catholic Church.”

The Catholic Media Coalition, another Catholic news source, for years has pushed to revamp CCHD, and calls for Catholics to boycott giving money to the charity because “The good groups funded by CCHD are not sufficient to balance the many evil groups supported, groups working for socialism by electing liberal politicians. CCHD helped to give us the radical, left-wing Congress we have today.”

Compare that to celebrity pundit Glenn Beck, who told followers earlier this year that that if they find the words “social justice” or “economic justice” on their church website, to “run as fast as you can.

“Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes! … If you have a priest that is pushing social justice, go find another parish,” Beck said.

“One of the effects of this, too, is essentially these folks are saying to a new generation of Catholics who still believe in social justice that you’re not welcome here anymore,” Korzen says. “It’s going to shift demographics, where folks who still believe in social justice are just not considering themselves Catholic anymore. I saw that growing up as an altar boy in Rhode Island. From the perspective of the Catholic community, which should be a diverse community across racial and cultural lines; I don’t want to be a part of a church that builds itself as an exclusive club. It’s damaging to the church, as is any attempts to use Catholic teaching as a political battering ram. And we just see more of that every day.”

‘There’s a point where you’ve got to draw a line’

Matt Cato with the Portland Archdiocese office of Justice and Peace and Respect for Life, says that the reform movement’s attacks on CCHD have not changed how they consider grantees. However, Cato says he has added a line to the local CCHD grant application.

“We still look at the same criteria. It’s always been on the application do you act in accordance of the teachings of the Catholic Church. I just added to that, can you tell me the ballot measures that you or your executive director has supported in the last five years. That was an easy one to have missed. It’s usually not on someone’s Web site.”

The decision came after learning of Children First For Oregon’s position on Measuren 43.

Still, Cato maintains that there are differences between material and proximate relationships between organizations that would determine if a group is eligible for funding.

“There’s a point where you’ve got to draw a line. Just because the organization does this here or is associated with another organization, it doesn’t mean this organization is tainted,” Cato says.

Planned Parenthood, however, is the exception.

Since 2005, Street Roots has received $40,000 from CCHD for the newspaper, the Rose City Resource guide and for the eastside expansion to open a remote office for vendors. In all those years, Planned Parenthood has been a part of its listings (prior to 2008, the Rose City Resource was included as a part of the newspaper). Likewise, Street Roots has always included information on organizations helping at-risk gay, lesbian, transgender and bisexual youths and adults. Planned Parenthood is a “nuclear” red flag in the Catholic Church, Cato says. It is simply too hot to handle.

“I’m not going to tell you how to run your business, you guys do great work,” Cato told this interview. “You make the decision in future resource guides to include that information or not, and if you include (Planned Parenthood), we can’t give you a CCHD grant.” Cato says.

Cato says there is room for working together, regardless of whether CCHD is funding a program.

“Jesus had dinner with the tax collectors, prostitutes and sinners,” Cato says. “You just can’t completely separate your self with those you completely disagree with. As Catholics, we’re called to evangelize, not preach to the choir.”

(Street Roots has not been asked to return any funding from CCHD)

“It’s disturbing that a small group of right-wing fringe elements within the Catholic Church are being successful at undermining the Catholic Campaign for Human Development’s work to address the root causes of poverty through promotion and support of community-controlled, self-help organizations and through transformative education,” says Street Roots Executive Director Israel Bayer.

“At the end of the day, a witch hunt is a witch hunt, and that’s exactly what Street Roots and dozens of community organizations working to fight poverty in the United States are facing, a witch hunt born out of fear and intolerance. And let’s be clear, this is far from over. Every group that currently receives funds from CCHD is being asked to not take part in activities, or align themselves with the very groups it will take to dismantle poverty in this country. In our case, the very tool is the Rose City Resource guide. The guide gives people experiencing homelessness and poverty a chance to become their own advocates through education, and now it’s being used against us because we have chosen to deliver to people, without judgment, the resources that are available to them in our community.

“Saying that, we’re not defeated,” Bayer says. “Maybe it was a blessing in disguise that one of the groups defunded in this fiasco was a community newspaper like Street Roots that takes its journalism seriously enough to tell the whole story, and get it out to the broader public for a larger debate.”

Sidebar:

The Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) was founded in 1970 by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. It is the anti-poverty, social justice arm of the Catholic Church, with a mission to address the causes of poverty through community-controlled, self-help organizations and education. Each year, CCHD distributes about $12 million to between 250 and 300 social justice organizations in the United States.

For years, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development supported the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, ACORN. However allegations against various ACORN franchises in 2008 and 2009 turned the nationwide community organizing group into a pariah, and CCHD cut off all funding for ACORN organizations, locally and nationally. ACORN was recently acquitted in New York of any wrongdoing surrounding the pimp/prostitution videotape scandal, the most salacious accusations against an ACORN franchise.