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PAGE 11 — The Georgia Bulletin, February 15, 1990
Bishops Dispute Claims CHD Funds Radical Causes
BY LIZ SCHEVTCHUK
WASHINGTON (CNS) — Catholic Church officials have
disputed allegations by a Washington group that the
church’s domestic anti-poverty program supports “radical
left” political causes at odds with America’s “historic
political consensus."
The program, the U.S. Catholic Conference’s 20-year-old
Campaign for Human Development, is funded through a
parish-level nationwide collection and provides “self-help”
grants and loans to groups of low-income and disadvantag
ed people lacking economic and political clout.
“In recent years the campaign has come under attack
from persons whose motivation is unclear to us,” Bishop
Joseph A. Fiorenza of Galveston-Houston said Feb. 5 in a
statement responding to the allegations by the Washington-
based Capital Research Center.
"Throughout the 20 years of the campaign’s assistance,
some persons have objected to this activity of the church,"
Bishop Fiorenza said in the statement.
According to the Capital Research Center, “CHD’s com
mitment is not to Christian charity but to a brand of radical
politics ... alien to our historic political consensus.” It said
CHD supports “‘community organizing’ and other causes
central to the operation of the American radical left.”
The allegations are contained in Capital Research Center
publications, including a 126-page paperback book, “The
Campaign for Human Development: Christian Charity or
Political Activism.” The book is by William T. Poole, the
center’s research director and a former research analyst
for the House Committee on Un-American Activities, and
Thomas W. Pauken, former director of ACTION, the
federal volunteerism agency.
Bishop Fiorenza referred to attacks on CHD as “baseless
and scurrilous accusations.”
He said CHD was founded when the U.S. bishops “felt
that no longer was it enough to give poor people food,
clothing and shelter, the time had come to also assist the
poorest among us to ‘break the hellish cycle of poverty’ and
build a better life for themselves and their children.”
“Now ... the successful experience of the campaign is a
matter of record,” he added.
CHD policies "ensure that no money has (gone) or can go
to groups that engage in activity contrary to the moral
teaching of the church,” he emphasized.
* Bishop Fiorenza commented on behalf of the USCC Com
mittee on the Campaign for Human Development, which he
chairs. The committee makes final funding decisions on
CHD grants and sets CHD policy.
*. Under CHD’s criteria, low-income people must fill at
least half of a recipient group’s board, and the organization
must “directly aim at changing institutions” that
perpetuate poverty.
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One CHD grant criticized by the Capital Research Center
was $20,000 given in 1988 to the National Health Care Cam
paign, based in Washington. The Capital Research Center
suggested that the National Health Care Campaign pro
vides information and assistance to various other groups,
including a women’s health network backing abortion
rights.
“Bluntly put, CHD promotes not charity as most people
understand the term but a political agenda far to the left of
mainstream America,” the center wrote in a fall 1989
report.
Bishop Fiorenza said that an uninformed reader of such a
claim “could be forgiven for thinking this (CHD parish-
level) collection might assist groups that support legalized
abortion on demand. Nothing could be further from the
truth."
He said that the National Health Care Campaign “is a
highly respected organization that works toward health
care for the 37 million Americans who are deprived of it”
and includes among its 160 members the USCC, Catholic
Charities USA and the Catholic Health Association.
“The funds w'ent directly to NHCC (National Health Care
Campaign) for a single project on which all the members of
the coalition could agree, the creation of statewide net
works of poor and low-income people working for accessi
ble and affordable health care services in their com
munities,” Bishop Fiorenza said.
The bishops' anti-poverty campaign also was criticized in
November 1989 in an editorial in the Richmond (Va.)
Times-Dispatch, which suggested that CHD “is concerned
more with political activism than with the Christian
charities parishioners might think they are helping when
they contribute money to it.”
Bishop Walter F. Sullivan of Richmond responded that
“we always thought that participation in the democratic
process was a hallmark of the American way of life” and
that a dislike for “the organizing efforts of some of these
groups is no reason to smear them and CHD with the
disreputable tactic of guilt by association.”
Bishop Fiorenza said the bishops’ committee “does not
wish to judge the intentions of Capital Research Center and
its associates. We simply intend to present the facts.”
WCC-Cotholic Report:
Christian Unity Important For World Peace
BY CINDY WOODEN
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The importance of Christian
unity in building a world of hope and peace has been il
lustrated “in places where spiritual forces have con
tributed to breaking down the forces of tyranny,” according
to a new ecumenical document.
The document, the sixth report of the World Council of
Churches-Roman Catholic Joint Working Group, was com
pleted during an early February meeting in Rome.
It must be approved by the central committee of the
World Council of Churches and by the Pontifical Council for
Promoting Christian Unity before it can be released.
The Vatican issued a statement Feb. 7 about the report,
including quotations from its introduction.
In addition to signs of hope, particularly in Eastern
Europe, the world faces "many grave problems, which
threaten the well-being of humanity and call for the concern
and solidarity of all people of good will,” the introduction
said.
“It is a time when the ecumenical movement is more
than ever necessary if the churches and Christian com
munities are to be a sign and seed of the unity, peace and
hope which the human family needs,” it said.
The Joint Working Group was established in 1965 as a con
sultative body to the Vatican and the World Council of
Churches to encourage collaboration and discuss trends in
the ecumenical movement.
The group’s sixth report, which covers its activities since
1983, includes the results of two studies, on “The Church:
Local and Universal” and on the notion of a "hierarchy of
truths,” the Vatican statement said.
The Vatican also said the working group has begun a con
sultation on “new sources of division,” discussing the ways
that personal and social ethical issues have led to estrange
ment between some Christian denominations.
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EUCHARISTIC LITURGIES:
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Sunday: 7:30 a.m., 9:00 a.m., 10:30 a.m. (Choir),
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