WFF 1997 Report to the USCCB on the CHD

1. Claretian Medical Center: The CHD fact sheet, “For the Record…The Truth about CHD Funding,” states that CHD critics allege that “In the late 1970’s, the Campaign for Human Development funded the Claretian Medical Center in Chicago, which provided contraceptive services and abortion counseling.” [emphasis added]

The CHD fact sheet states that “the national office of the campaign for Human Development has never granted money to the Claretian Medical Center. Some funds were granted to the Center from the Chicago Archdiocesan office of the CHD.” The bottom line is that CHD funds did go to the Claretian Medical Center.

The fact sheet then defends the Center by asserting that “…the Center has not ever provided and does not now provide abortion counseling to its clients.” [emphasis added] However, on the issue of contraceptive services, on April 1st and April 16th, 1997 Mr. And Mrs. Paul Likoudis “called the three Claretian Medical Centers in Chicago, at 2938 E. 91st St., 9119 S. Exchange Ave., and 556 E. 115th St., and asked about their family planning services. The receptionist at the E. 91st Street center referred The Wanderer to the Exchange Avenue center. The receptionist there said that they do provide contraceptives, ‘but we don’t do abortions here. We can send you to doctors who do provide those services.’ The receptionist at the 115th Street center said that its staff can provide contraceptives, ‘but none of our doctors do terminations here.'”

This point would seem to merit further inquiry by the Catholic Bishops of the United States.

2. Grassroots Leadership: The CHD fact sheet, “For the Record…The Truth about CHD Funding,” states that CHD critics allege that: “The Campaign for Human Development funded Grassroots Leadership of North Carolina, a group whose mission is to promote radical causes, so-called ‘freedom of choice,’ gay and lesbian rights and environmental issues.” The fact sheet states that CHD gave $119,000 from 1982-1984 “to assist the regional Grassroots Leadership organization in its early years,” and then again “…the Bishop of Charleston endorsed CHD support for the Grassroots Leadership Community Organizing Internship Program in Orangeburg, SC, and the CHD provided $35,000 in funding during the period 1994-1995.”

The fact sheet is a response to the national exposure that CHD grants to Grassroots Leadership received in the 1995 Capital Research Center’s Organization Trends. Author Scott Weinberg reported that the mission of Grassroots Leadership is “to promote radical causes, women’s freedom of choice, gay and lesbian rights, and environmental issues.”

To defend Grassroots Leadership against this assertion, the CHD fact sheet says: “The organization’s by-laws contain its goal statement: ‘To build the infrastructure for a Southern movement, including the leaders, organizers, organizations, networks and coalitions that will make long-term, progressive change inevitable.’ The by-laws do not include support for abortion or gay and lesbian rights.”

However, a 1995 Grassroots Leadership News stated that Pete Tepley of Columbia, South Carolina is on the Grassroots Leadership Board of Directors as a civil rights advocate for the gay, lesbian, and bisexual community. It also contains a paragraph about the work of one staff member, Naomi Swinton, who writes in the newsletter that: “Grassroots Leadership is giving me the training and support I need to be able to work with many communities on ending and creating alternatives to all linked issues of oppression. Queer politics, anti-racism, feminism, and labor history – all have a particular Southern context and potential.”

3. Criticism of CHD by Capital Research Center: CHD Director, Timothy Collins, speaking over Baltimore radio in December 1996 said: “Let’s start by acknowledging that any story that relies on Organization Trends, okay — a publication of the Capital Research Center — has been discredited because of their methodology and the conclusions they arrive at. So we’ll proceed from the conclusion that the reporting of Carey Winters — and she cites Organization Trends as her source — is flawed and has no statistical validity.”

In a letter to an inquiring Catholic, Collins wrote: “In fact, others are beginning to learn what CHD has known for some time: research from the Capital Research Center needs to be taken with a large grain of salt. In the current edition of FOUNDATION NEWS & COMMENTARY, Peter Frumkin writes: ‘CRC’s analysis rests on a subjective classification system of recipient organizations; this system has not been independently validated, and it predetermines the conclusions made in the reports.” These ad hominem types of criticism from the CHD, however, ought not to substitute for an objective analysis of the data and conclusions advanced by the Capital Research Center.

Collins continues: “Moreover, [still quoting Frumkin] ‘CRC reports make generalizations…based on a sample of grants that is far too small and unrepresentative to have statistical validity.'” However, if CHD funds even one organization which significantly supports activities or groups that promote legalized abortion, it has funded one too many.

An objective analysis of the Capital Research Center reports would lead to the conclusion that the Center has accurately raised serious questions about the CHD, which questions have been evaded to date by apologists for the CHD.

VII. The Catholic Bishops of the United States ought to reconsider the structure, funding, and activities of the Campaign for Human Development.

This commentary does not oppose CHD funding of genuine, grassroots community organizations, run and supported by individual members of a parish or diocese. There is potential value and virtue in the collective voice. However, when the CHD funds Alinsky-style, church-based community organizations as in the best interest of the poor and supports organizations which advance other agendas, it divests the poor of their right to an authentic voice. This process tends to treat the poor as exploited units of human capital, rather than as human beings created in the dignity of God’s image.

Nor is there any basis for the CHD to imply by its actions that there are no alternative organizations that it can fund to promote valuable institutional change, uninfluenced by a politicized agenda. There is no necessity for CHD funds to go to organizations which contribute to or participate in any way in the political support of abortion. There is no necessity for CHD to fund Alinsky-style, church-based community organizations. There are alternative, self-determined organizations of the poor, which are supportive of life. Those alternative, grassroots community organizations do not merely serve their constituency but rather they are their constituency. They do not use community organizing to further an additional agenda.

It would be reasonable for the bishops to consider:

The immediate cessation of all CHD funding to Alinsky-style, church-based community organizations.

The immediate cessation of all CHD funding to any organization that directly or indirectly promotes an agenda contrary to the social justice teachings of the Church.

The immediate cessation of all CHD funding to any organization that directly or indirectly aids and abets the culture of death.

The immediate cessation of CHD funding to any organization which requires institutional membership, including, for example, membership by parish. Community organizations which organize by institution, as opposed to individual membership, are inimical to the dignity of the individual and to his rights of conscience. No Catholic should ever be required to choose between membership in his parish and involuntary membership in a church-based community organization.

Requiring the CHD to prepare annual reports available that reflect the complete expenditure of CHD funds, both national and local, with detailed descriptions of all recipient organizations and a complete disclosure of their activities.

The creation of a committee of Catholic bishops to formulate new and more stringent guidelines for the CHD, and to set forth a higher standard for CHD grants. We further ask that this committee not only oversee future funding and future grantees, but remain open and attentive to the research of the laity, examining closely evidence of imprudent CHD funding.

VIII. Conclusion:

This commentary is offered for the consideration of the bishops in a spirit of objective inquiry. As noted in Section I above, it is not intended to disparage any person or group or to question the good faith or legality of any positions taken by any persons or groups involved in these matters. Rather, we respectfully submit that it is time for a searching reconsideration by the bishops of the structure, funding, and activities of the CHD.

A bound, footnoted copy of this text can be obtained from the Wanderer Forum Foundation, Forum Focus, P.O. Box 542, Hudson, WI 54016-0542 or telephone 651-276-1429. Please enclose $5.00.

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