"Building The New American Experiment"reprint from The Wanderer September 9, 1989 |
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The radical left scored a significant victory when the U.S. Bishops at their 198H annual meeting elected to designate the Campaign for Human Development a permanent entity of the U.S. Catholic Conference. Since its inception in 1970 ostensibly "to combat domestic poverty," CHD has reached the point where the president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, Archbishop John May, St. Louis, can identify it as "a premier program of the Catholic Church in the United States." Since 1970, according to the CHD 19S2 annual report. "American Catholics have contributed nearly $97 million to support CHD's poverty-fighting work." This annual collection taken on the Sunday before Thanksgiving has increased each year; the anticipated revenue for 1988-1989 exceeds $9 million. Total contributions to dale are far in excess of $100 million. Each diocese sends 75% of its collection to the national office where the combined moneys are allocated to support national projects recommended by an advisory committee and approved by a 13-member Bishops' committee. The allocation of these millions of charitable dollars contributed by Catholics in parishes across the country has been the subject of analysis by several groups including The Wanderer Forum Foundation in its winter, 1987-1988 Forum newsletter in an article tilled "Campaign for Human Development, Networking for Radical Social Change": in the special report "CHD's Hidden Agenda: Political and Economic Change" by Thomas Pauken, and in the news item "CHD Lends Credibility to Proclaimed Communist" which appeared originally in The Wanderer June 9th. 1988. Special credit is due, in particular, to the outstanding work of the Washington DC-based Capital Research Center. This education and research group established in 1984 provides documented information and reliable evaluations of organizations that "with tax-exempt and tax-deductible dollars mix advocacy and direct action to pursue (heir own vision of the public interest." The Campaign for Human Development is in this category. Both the center's 1988 study no. 4, "The Campaign for Human Development, Christian Charity or Political Activism?." and its October, 1989 issue of Organization Trends, "Financing the Social Gospel: The Campaign for Human Development, 1989," have made substantial contributions to the report following. A Far-Left Political Agenda While the average Catholic assumes his contribution is for a charitable cause, CHD's objectives suggest an entirely different set of priorities. Its present executive director, Fr. Alfred P. Lo Pinto, has been quoted as saying, "We're not really involved in charity. We fund self-help projects, and it's considered funding for justice." The Capital Research Center Newsletter (October, 1989) states: "Bluntly put, CHD promotes not charity as many people understand the term, but a political agenda far to the left of mainstream America." As an example, it continues: "CHD gave $20,000 to an organization known as the National Health Care Campaign (it gave the same organization $40,000 in 1986 and $30,000 in 1987). Writer Charlotte Hays, however, discovered that NHCC 'functions as a clearinghouse and adviser to a number of smaller groups, including the pro-choice National Women's Health Network.' Asked whether this meant CHD was funding 'abortion rights,' an NHCC spokesman conceded, 'That is not one of the things that makes it real popular with Catholics'." "Perhaps," CRC concludes, "this is to he expected in an enterprise whose executive director for seven years (Fr. Marvin Mottet), echoing the language of Saul Alinsky, dismissed charity as a 'bottomless pit' and said that what is needed instead is organizing for 'institutional change'." This callused indifference to the trust implicit in appeals for charity constitutes a complete disregard for the Code of Canon Law. Canon Law 1267, p. 3, is itself quite explicit: Offerings given by the faithful for a specific purpose may he used only for that purpose. Furthermore, the violation of this trust is reflected in the nature and motivation of key recipients to which CHD has dispensed Catholic charitable funds. The Saul Alinsky Tradition Prevails Principal among these have been community-organizing projects in the Saul Alinsky radical-left tradition: the Industrial Areas Foundation he founded: the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN); the Youth Project: and the Citizen Action groups. Since Church bureaucracies for the most part are not accountable to parishioners, the distribution of the nationally collected CHD money is not generally known. Nor are churches like other tax-exempt organizations required to file reports to the government on their expenditures. "Nonetheless," the authors Isaac and Isaac in The Coercive Utopians maintain, "there is sufficient evidence to make it obvious that the sums are substantial." The Industrial Areas Foundation has been for years the largest recipient of CHD grants. The second is ACORN, one of the major offshoots of the new left politics in the 1960s and 1970s, founded by a one-time activist in the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society). Its fundamental purpose as stated in the handbook is to grab "hold (if the reins of political power." It has received a minimum of $996,490 in grants according to CHD's annual reports from 1978-1983 and 1985-1987. Grants in 1988 amounting to $65,000 bring the figure of Catholic charitable funds CHD has given to ACORN to over $1 million. Is it any wonder one of the founders describes CHD as a "primary source of external funding for ACORN"! Before he was appointed the executive director of CHD. Fr. Mottet was a member of ACORN - a connection which may have a bearing on the substantial sums of money CHD has granted to ACORN. In fact, CHD dedicated its 1985-1986 annual report to him as exemplifying "the essence of the Campaign for Human Development," crediting his efforts with the "significant increase in Financial support" and in the "new initiatives" he introduced "aimed at enlarging the entire Catholic community's response to poverty and injustice." ACORN'S methods are rooted in the confrontational techniques fashioned by Saul Alinsky. And it should he noted this self-professed agnostic has merited the approval of the dissident priest, Charles Curran, who praised his "community action approach" and "great influence on Catholic social practice." Another group also linked to the radical SDS, schooled in Alinsky-style tactics, and supported by CHD is the Youth Project. Since its inception in 1970, it has been one of the most important channels for funding, for organization building, and for networking on the political left. Under the guidance of Margery Tabankin, appointed director of the Youth Project in 1972, the concept of grassroots organization building was developed. This comprises networking and coalitions to extend ideas and expand resources beyond the capacity of singular community groups. Tabankin, an antiwar activist who visited Hanoi during (he war and a member of the radical SDS, was the First woman student trained at Saul Alinsky's School of Community Organizing in Chicago. The Youth Project lists as contributions from CHD: $194,750 for Fiscal year 1982-1983. $191.302 for 1983-1984; and $193.403 for 1984-1985. A total for four years of $579,455 of Catholic charitable funds bestowed on this radical left project. The Capital Research Center concludes: "CHD's support for the Youth Project translates into support for a broad range of radical activity in the United Slates." The extent of this support includes radical groups engaged in "community organizing, legal action, homosexual rights, radical environmentalism, organizer training, the evils of corporate America, American policy in the Caribbean and Central America, anti-defense campaigns in the name of 'peace,' or any other issue or campaign ripe for exploitation. No element of the present-day activist left is denied." Grantees have included: ACORN: Tom Hayden's Campaign for Economic Democracy: the Christie Institute: North American Congress on Latin America: the Washington Office on Latin America: Political Rights Defense Fund, identified as a front for the Trotskyite Communist Socialist Workers' Party. National Lawyers' Guild, frequently cited as an adjunct of the Communist Party USA: the Metropolitan Council on Housing and Women for Racial and Economic Equality - both have been characterized as fronts for the CPUSA: and support for the Institute for Policy Studies, the "principal think tank of the American radical left whose cofounder, Marcus Raskin, regards Marxism as one of the world's 'positive social philosophies' and has written that 'we are all Marxists' (CRC, October. 1989). Seed Money For Political Power CHD also has dispensed substantial amounts of parishioners' charitable funds to a growing network of political pressure groups, offshoots of the Chicago-based Midwest Academy. a radical training center. Since its beginnings in 1973 it has trained over 6.000 leaders and organizers (including, it should be noted, the National Organization for Women). The founder and original director, one-time SDS member Heather Booth, is considered "the leading social action trainer in the United States." The academy is patterned along Alinsky lines. These qualifications - Alinsky training and SDS membership - appear to have a special appeal to the CHD bureaucracy. These political pressure groups operating under the umbrella of Midwest Academy-Citizens' Action-Citizen/Labor Energy Coalition have as a goal for the 1980s "to build 'a movement that will manifest itself in a noticeable shift in public opinion and emergence of national leaders with 'progressive tendencies'." The progressive publication In These Times reports Citizens' Action "has grown to 17.5 million members in 24 state affiliates and allied organizations, 75 offices, 1,200 staff, and a combined budget of more than $20 million." Nationally, it has opposed contra aid and the appointment of Judge Robert Bork to the Supreme Court. It has a growing acceptance in the Democratic Party attracting the liberal element in Congress. Senators Kennedy, Biden, and Cranston arc examples. Because "in some congressional districts up to 15% of the constituency" is on the rolls of Citizens' Action. Booth stated the "Democratic National Committee has contracted our services for the '88 election." In These Times also reported that "following Reagan's victory, Citizens' Action groups moved beyond lobbying and protest to include work in elections, occasionally for candidates they had groomed." CHD reports indicate that in the course of the years through 1983 it has allocated almost $1 million of parishioners' charitable contributions to Citizens' Action entities functioning under "Fair Share," "Public Interest," and similar names. Citizens' Action is intent on creating a political power base in order to "change the system of power." Capital Research Center states the problem very clearly: "For an organization operating as a permanent arm of the U.S. Catholic Conference, with millions of tax-exempt dollars derived from the charitable instincts of Catholics across the country, to provide even a small percentage of the money these groups need to survive is, at least to those who share a commitment to our historic political and economic institutions, inappropriate and even alarming." Building The New American Experiment Catholics responding to the annual Thanksgiving fund appeal are not aware that CHD, using their charitable contributions, has embarked on the project of "Building the New American Experiment." If the ramifications of this title CHD chose for its 1987 Annual Report were generally known, they would prompt so many questions that CHD funding would be in jeopardy. Annual reports, however, are not readily available. "The New American Experiment" stems from the title of chapter IV of the Bishops' 19S6 Pastoral Letter Economic Justice for All: Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy. It is linked in turn to the radical left think tank Institute for Policy Studies, in the person of Gar Alperovitz, a one-time associate and cofounder of its spin-off, the National Center for Economic Alternatives. Both espouse socialism. (Documented in the 1987-1988, vol. III. no. 4 issue of The Wanderer Forum Foundation's Forum newsletter in an article titled, "Campaign for Human Development. Networking for Radical Social Change"). On two separate occasions. Alperovitz addressed the ad hoc committee preparing the economic Pastoral and was among a small group selected to present papers at a symposium convened specifically for the Bishops in charge of the Pastoral. In addition to the book he co-authored, Rebuilding America, A Blueprint for the New Economy which is a footnoted reference in the Pastoral, lie co-authored with the well-known antiwar activist of the 1960s, Staughton Lynd, Strategy and Program: Two Essays Toward a New American Socialism, Beacon Press. 1973. In this book, Capital Research Center no. 4 reports that "he argued for 'a new combination of politics and institution building' through such means as 'neighborhood confrontation,' 'direct action and political organization,' and 'actions . . . to constrain corporate investment abroad.' and 'other anti-corporate direct-action campaigns' as part of an attempt to 'review and affirm the socialist vision'." At the Notre Dame symposium for the Bishops' Committee. Alperovitz presented a paper "Planning for Sustained Community," a definite call for government planning of the economy. An article about this meeting published in the June 11th-17th, 1984 issue of In These Times, a socialist-leaning newspaper described as an "independent project" of IPS, carried the caption, "The Inside Story: Conservatives Fear Socialist Manifesto From U.S. Bishops." It reported that "the preponderance of views seemed to be in the direction of social planning as against laissez-faire economics." And it noted that the Bishops "appeared somewhat more sympathetic to Gar Alperovitz of the National Center for Economic Alternatives, as he insisted that a planned economy is absolutely essential." In the Pastoral Economic Justice for All the Bishops bestow a munificent blessing on the Campaign for Human Development, saying it "confirms our judgment about the validity of self-help and empowerment of the poor. The campaign which has received the positive support of American Catholics since it was launched in 1970 provides a model that we think sets a high standard for similar efforts." The facts of the campaign's allocation of millions of Catholic charitable dollars to organizations with a radical left political agenda, such as ACORN, Youth Project, and Citizen Action, plus the great sums given to the Alinsky Industrial Areas Foundation belie the praise. Nor do these facts lend credibility to the quotation attributed to Bishop Francis Quinn, of Sacramento, that "the Christ-like character of the Campaign for Human Development should he a great source of satisfaction for all who work in this field." This, interestingly enough, appeared in material CHD distributed about "facts" - Facts About Poverty and [lie Campaign for Human Development, July, 1987. The overriding consideration, however, that touches at the center of this entire operation and is of pressing importance now that the Campaign for Human Development is a permanent USCC vehicle, is the flagrant and obvious disregard of Canon Law and of the trust Catholic laity implicitly hold that offerings obtained for a specific purpose arc to be used only for that purpose. Catholics should demand from their Bishop' a public explanation of why the money they have given to CHD has been spent to advance the agenda of atheistic social revolutionaries. |