Religion & Law

Still a Catholic Charity



[From America, Dec. 8, 2008:]

Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska got some of her biggest (intentional) laughs of the presidential campaign during her acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, when she lambasted Senator Barack Obama's work as a community organizer. "I guess a small-town mayor is like a community organizer," she said, "except that you have actual responsibilities." It is hard to understand such mocking of those who help the poor organize in order to obtain justice and fair treatment.

The disdain spread into the Catholic world, making a target of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, the church's leading organization for fighting poverty in this country. The campaign has provided $7.3 million in grant money, spread out over 10 years, to local branches of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, known as Acorn. On its blog, the periodical First Things called C.C.H.D. "misbegotten in concept and corrupt in practice," argued for its abolition, charging that it supported "pro-abortion activities and politicians" and, for good measure, claimed that C.C.H.D. had dropped the word "Catholic" from its name.

Wrong on all counts. It remains the Catholic Campaign for Human Development; its grants are given to projects in accord with Catholic teaching; and it is a model of efficient management, providing an array of services for the poor. Sadly, that magazine's false accusations were echoed during the meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in November. Just as sad, the charges came before C.CH.D.'s annual fundraising campaign.

Let's set the record straight: C.C.H.D. does the Gospel work of feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and sheltering the homeless. (After charges of improprieties emerged about Acorn, C.C.H.D. stopped its grants to the group.) The importance of the kind of work done by C.C.H.D. was underlined repeatedly by another community organizer - not one from 1990s Chicago but another fellow, from first-century Palestine.