Is the bishops’ work to empower the poor Catholic enough? An alliance of pro-life groups says it’s not.

It was the brainchild of a Chicago priest, Michael Dempsey, in the 1960s, and it has blossomed over the past 40 years into one of the most effective, sustained anti-poverty efforts ever attempted in the United States. In 2010 the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) is funding some 250 groups in the United States, wrestling with issues such as education, jobs, health care, violence, economic development, and access to public services.

Unlike traditional direct help to the poor through Catholic Charities offices and St. Vincent DePaul societies, the Campaign is aimed at the systemic roots of poverty by helping the poor help themselves. At least half the board members of every CCHD-funded organization must be low-income residents of the community where the work is going on.

"Across our nation, CCHD is needed now more than ever in these difficult economic times when so many families are suffering and poverty is growing," says Bishop Roger Morin, chairman of the U.S. bishops' subcommittee on the CCHD.

But since last fall the Campaign has been under continuous public criticism.

An alliance of some 20 pro-life organizations called Reform CCHD Now (RCN) launched a barrage of specific charges and called for Catholics to boycott the Campaign's 2009 November collection. CCHD has funded and continues to fund "groups that openly oppose the church's teachings," declared RCN, "including support for abortion rights, legalized prostitution, and gay marriage."

The effort continues through publications, online articles and blogs, mailings to priests and bishops, and frequent appearances of spokespersons on radio, TV, and YouTube.

The persistence had an effect: Six U.S. bishops refused to allow the 2009 CCHD collection to be taken up in their dioceses. John Carr, executive director of Justice, Peace, and Human Development for the bishops' conference, says he expects to see at least a 5 percent reduction in 2009 contributions, though he attributes it to a combination of the lingering effects of the recession as well as RCN activity. Still, the question of the long-range impact of the campaign against the Campaign remains.

The bishops' charity

Dempsey, a Chicago pastor, had no idea such a controversy would ever arise when he conceived the idea for the Campaign. He had gone door to door in his poverty-stricken parish and asked the people how the church could best serve them. Many indicated that more than charity, they needed the skills, encouragement, and support to address the societal injustices they faced on a daily basis.

When he became an auxiliary bishop of Chicago in 1968, Dempsey brought his experience and his vision with him to the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. He called for a new national thrust to empower local self-help organizations to be funded by an annual nationwide collection. In the wake of the Second Vatican Council, with its call for the church to open its doors to "the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties" of the people of the world, "especially the poor," Dempsey's plan was adopted wholeheartedly by the bishops, and he was named the first director of the Campaign in 1970.

Though Dempsey died in 1974 at the age of 55, the Campaign from the start encountered a cheerful response from Catholic parishes. Today the yearly collection draws some of the largest contributions given to any Catholic collection, averaging more than $11 million a year, despite the recession. Seventy-five percent of the collection goes to the national office, which grants funds to applicants all over the county. The remaining 25 percent is given to dioceses to be distributed locally. All grants are screened at both the national and local level.

Many CCHD-funded organizations are in large metropolitan regions. For example, the Chinese Staff and Worker Association in New York City began receiving grants in the 1970s to assist badly paid immigrants laboring in Chinatown garment factories. Over the years the association has helped workers reclaim some $50 million in denied wages, created an independent restaurant workers union, and gained wage increases for all the state's tipped employees.

Other Campaign recipients are in rural areas. Since the Statewide Organizing for Community eMpowerment (SOCM) in East Jackson, Tennessee received its first grant in 1974, the organization has won important battles to halt the spread of toxic waste from coal mining in the Cumberland Mountains.

On the offensive

The major members of the RCN alliance include the American Life League (ALL), an anti-abortion group founded in 1979, and Human Life International, created in 1981, both based in Virginia.

A newer voice is Texas-based Bellarmine Veritas Ministries, which calls itself a "Catholic grass-roots organizing ministry." Its founder, Rob Gaspar, was largely responsible for compiling the battery of accusations against CCHD in 2009, which other groups are disseminating, adding their own grievances as well.

Besides accusing some Campaign recipients of themselves flouting church guidelines by promoting abortion, same-sex marriage, or birth control or openly taking partisan political positions, many more are charged with being "partners with" or "associated with" or being "members of" other organizations holding positions contrary to the Catholic faith.

Frequently mentioned amid the charges is ACORN, the large community action network and longtime Campaign recipient. It became notorious in 2008 when it faced charges of embezzlement and voter fraud. Though cleared of wrongdoing, ACORN was investigated by CCHD at the time and cut off from funding that year and since.

Following Reform CCHD Now accusations, Carr and his staff investigated all the Campaign-supported organizations charged, and at least five have been defunded. For example, the Preble Resource Center in Portland, Maine, which serves the homeless, was ordered to return a $17,400 Campaign grant because it urged voters to vote no on a ballot measure to overturn the state's same-sex marriage law. Other organizations were exonerated of charges and a few are still undergoing scrutiny.

"We're trying to lift up a Catholic expression of Jesus' message to the world," Carr says. "But this kind of institutional funding is a complex enterprise. And when we've made mistakes in the past, we correct them."

These strong steps were welcomed by RCN, but they insist the guilty organizations represent only the tip of the iceberg. They identify 31 Campaign recipients that are publicly listed as members of the Center for Community Change, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that concentrates on poverty issues and provides training for community organizers. Though not funded by the Campaign, it was reported that the center had spoken favorably about reproduction rights and board members on its Generation Change project include advocates of gay rights or "radical" feminism.

Of special interest was the fact that Carr, the bishops' top Campaign overseer, was formerly the board chairman of the Center for Community Change. Carr responded that he has had no relationship with the center since 2005 and that during his chairmanship, the center never took any advocacy positions contrary to church teaching. Nevertheless, critics saw in these links an indication of how far the church is straying into enemy territory.

Deal Hudson, director of outreach to Catholics for George W. Bush's presidential campaigns, urged Belllarmine Veritas Ministries to call for the elimination of CCHD. "No amount of housecleaning is going to make this arm of the USCCB worthy of our donations," he wrote on his blog.