Catholic TV Host Challenges Bishops
Karen
http://www.rightsidenews.com/200911187363/editorial/catholic-tv-host-challenges-bishops.html
The host of a national Catholic TV talk show says that Catholic Bishops have
to come clean on their funding of groups that undermine traditional values
and promote radical social change.
Raymond Arroyo, host of Catholic television network EWTN's "The World Over"
program, says that the evidence indicates that groups funded by the Bishops
through the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) are actually
"subverting" Catholic teaching on matters such as homosexual rights and
abortion. He regrets that money being spent on such causes is coming at the
expense of Catholic schools and hospitals facing funding shortfalls and
possible closure.
Arroyo, whose November 13 show featured two major critics of the CCHD, is a
graduate of the National Journalism Center (which also produced ACORN
whistleblower Hannah Giles). He is a conservative who has a worldwide
Catholic audience and can shake up the Bishops and the Vatican itself.
A regular guest on the Laura Ingraham radio show, where he comments on moral
and religious issues, Arroyo has risked the wrath of the Catholic Bishops by
devoting his EWTN program to exposing alleged corruption in the church. The
Bishops are meeting in Baltimore this week.
An on-air caller to the EWTN show read a statement from a local Catholic
Bishop claiming that EWTN is "not a good source of Catholic information" and
disputing some of the allegations against the CCHD. But Arroyo shot back,
quoting from an October 2 memorandum from Bishop Roger P. Morin, chairman of
the CCHD, admitting that CCHD had funded groups in support of abortion
rights and same-sex marriage, contrary to church teaching.
The timing of Arroyo's show was important. The annual CCHD collection is
being held in churches this coming weekend-November 21 and 22. The theme of
this year's collection is "Families are struggling. Faith is calling."
But Arroyo wanted Catholics to know that the CCHD has been plagued by
charges of mismanagement and scandal. A group called Reform CCHD Now is
urging Catholics to put coupons in collection plates, rather than money,
informing the Bishops that the CCHD must be thoroughly overhauled.
In a video, the American Life League (ALL) has labeled the CCHD the
"Catholic Campaign for Anti-Catholic Activities."
Arroyo noted that the evidence shows that while the bishops have been
defending traditional marriage in states where it has been under attack, the
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is funding pro-homosexual organizations
through the CCHD.
EWTN's coverage of this controversy has to be extremely worrisome to the
Bishops. If there is one thing they do not want, it is another sex-related
scandal. The sex abuse scandal involving pedophilia by Catholic Priests
reportedly cost the church more than $1 billion.
But in another shocking development that adds to the current controversy, a
blogger at the Free Republic has uncovered a convicted child pornographer on
the staff of a Baltimore group, Alternative Directions, Inc. (ADI), which
has received funding from the Baltimore CCHD. The group has received
additional funding from the national CCHD for an ADI project called Out for
Justice.
"I really don't want money from my church collection paying a child
pornographer's salary," the blogger said.
Michelle Kelly of ADI said, "I don't know," when asked if the staffer in
question had been convicted as a child pornographer. The Free Republic
blogger says the staffer is a registered sex offender in Maryland because of
the child pornography conviction.
Kelly tried to differentiate between ADI and Out for Justice, even though
the latter is described as a project of the former in the Fall 2008 ADI
newsletter. She said Out for Justice is applying for its own separate legal
status. Under further questioning, she hung up the telephone.
On the website of the Baltimore CCHD, the groups are listed together as one
entity and in receipt of $30,000. It declares, "A second year CCHD
organizing grant will enable this project to continue to address and empower
largely unrepresented persons inside and outside the prison system, with
special attention on reentry into society."
Out for Justice is listed as being located at the same offices as ADI.
Out for Justice is listed as the recipient of $30,000 from the national
CCHD. The organization is described as former prisoners, "a largely
unrepresented group in the political and social arenas." One of their
legislative goals is a bill to have the state of Maryland adopt a policy to
encourage the employment of ex-convicts. Another is to deny private
landlords the right to ask about the criminal background of an individual
and deny housing based on that background.
Responding to this legislative priority, the Free Republic blogger, a
Catholic, said he didn't want his money going to change the law so sex
offenders "can live near me or my children."
Both Alternative Directions, Inc. and Out for Justice collaborated with the
Open Society Institute, a George Soros-funded organization, on a report,
Bearing Witness, from the Justice Policy Institute. The recommendations
include stopping the practice of sending drug criminals to prison and
developing "alternatives to incarceration."
Another one of the contributing organizations to the report was listed as
"Mayor Sheila Dixon's Office of Criminal Justice."
Dixon is currently on trial on charges of stealing gift cards intended for
Baltimore's needy families.
While federal funding of the corrupt organization ACORN has been the subject
of much press attention, money being provided to ACORN and other
controversial groups through the Catholic Church has been mostly hushed-up
by major media organizations.
But the Catholic Bishops themselves have suspended funding to ACORN, after
disclosing that $7.3 million was given to the organization and its
affiliates by the CCHD from 1998-2008.
It turns out that ACORN, however, is just one of several controversial
"community organizing" groups that have been funded by the CCHD. Another is
the Gamaliel Foundation, which originally sponsored Barack Obama's work as a
community organizer in Chicago and recently held a conference in Washington
that featured Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett as a speaker. Gamaliel still
gets CCHD money.
It is into this controversy that Arroyo, whose website features photographs
with top Catholic officials and politicians, has stepped.
Arroyo's guests on the program were Michael Hichborn of the American Life
League (ALL) and Rob Gasper, founder of Bellarmine Veritas Ministry, which
has been responsible for some of the eye-opening expos�s of the CCHD.
Together, they are members of the ReformCCHD now coalition.
The CCHD is said to be dedicated to fighting poverty, but Arroyo noted that
it doesn't fund any groups involved in providing direct services to the poor
such as soup kitchens. Instead, the CCHD mission is said to be "to address
the root causes of poverty in America through promotion and support of
community-controlled, self-help organizations and through transformative
education," its website says.
Arroyo wondered how his guests had unearthed the shocking information about
church funding of anti-Catholic causes. They replied that they simply went
to the websites of the CCHD and the organizations being funded and put the
information together.
Hichborn of ALL says either the CCHD is incompetent in how it awards grants
and is therefore unworthy of funds or "is being run by pro-homosexual,
pro-abortion socialists who got caught" and doesn't deserve the money in
that case. Either way, he concludes, "this funding must end."
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<ratprick-the-slug-"married"-older-retardo-dog-an...@old.heritage.beavercreek.com>
wrote:
Hmm . . .
This group seems more whacked out then Catholics in general and the
various groups they are railing against. Looks to me like they, in
spite of all their denial, are just positioning themselves for more
power.
"The Right Side News?" Blatantly "Conservative" and Evangelical in
nature.
Did you vet this before posting?
--
duke
>On Sat, 21 Nov 2009 11:59:02 -0500, "Karen"
><ratprick-the-slug-"married"-older-retardo-dog-an...@old.heritage.beavercreek.com>
>wrote:
>Did you vet this before posting?
Haahaahaahaahaa.
The Dukester, American-American
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"The Mass is the most perfect form of Prayer."
Pope Paul VI
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