A story from The Catholic World Report available
at Ignatius Insight chronicles a policy paper put out by Catholic
Relief Services the charitable arm of the USCCB. Their
position includes giving information on condom use and the report
chronicles tactics used by CRS against those who conscientiously object
to doing this. Germain Grisez has provides a in depth report
on this that shows how they have taken some older documents from the
bishops out of context and that they are probably presenting one thing
to the donors and the bishops while their actual practice on this issue
has been along secular lines.
The authors believes that there needs to
be an investigation of CRS and concludes.
Since CRS is an agency of the United
States bishops, its officials should act as their agents. If CRS
officials have been pretending to follow the bishops� policy while
disregarding it, they have betrayed their responsibility and misled the
bishops. Any bishop would fire a real estate agent who did that to him.
As the bishops� agency, CRS acts in the person of the Church. CRS
officials should be managing a charitable apostolate of the Catholic
Church in the United States. But they have been distributing material
on which they have prohibited putting the CRS logo. If they are doing
what they cannot make clear that the Church is doing, how can they be
conducting a charitable apostolate in the Church�s name? But if and
insofar as they have not been conducting a charitable apostolate in the
Church�s name, they are betraying the Church herself�not only the
bishops but all the faithful, and even Jesus himself, the Church�s Head.
Moreover, it seems that some partners have been pressed to cooperate
despite their conscientious objections. Negative reactions of bishops
and churches in other countries seem to be regarded as a problem to be
dealt with rather than as expressions of conscientious judgment to be
respected.
Faithful Catholics who have donated to CRS in recent years for AIDS
relief did so because they expected the program to be carried out in a
distinctively Catholic way. Had they not expected this, they could have
donated to a secular organization fighting AIDS. If CRS officials have
used donations otherwise than they have led donors to expect, CRS
officials have misappropriated those funds.
Finally, even by secular standards, people encouraged to use condoms to
prevent the transmission of HIV have been ill-served. Genuine
charitable apostolate in regard to the prevention of HIV transmission
helps save lives but also does something infinitely more important,
namely, offers everyone it reaches help to rise from the life of this
corruption to the life that never dies. However, the opposite was
offered if, as it seems, people who should have received loving service
in the Church�s name were scandalized in the strict sense by being
encouraged to continue engaging�or worse, as early adolescents, to
begin engaging�in sinful sexual activity rather than to live chastely.
What has been going on at CRS must be investigated. The CRS board is
ultimately responsible for its operations. I urge the board to begin by
examining the items described in this article. The questions those
items raise suggest many further questions.
It does remind me of the line George Weigel recently used where he mentioned “salvation-through-latex approach to AIDS prevention.”
14 comments
Where he …
Jeff, please don’t just leave us in suspense!
Grand. Here’s one sucker who gives at least $100 a year to CRS. It’s so hard to find a charity that doesn’t also sponsor fetal stem cell research, Planned Parenthood, or something else objectionable to the Catholic viewpoint. I guess I just need to start limiting my donations to very local charities, where it’s easier to track how the money is spent.
HLI is a good one.
I wrote to the CRS and will no longer be donating to them. Yes, HLI is a better choice.
Once again the USCCB has failed us and this does nothing to restore my trust in them.
This is a huge accusation. Does CRS have an official response to this? If this is true, man, will there be hell to pay. Literally.
Sorry, but it is true. That is why our family stopped donating to them, and increased our donation to American Life League instead.
Thanks so much for this information. I will be looking for another charity on the state employee list this year.
And write them:
http://crs.org/about/contact.cfm
Aid to Church in Need is a great charity.
Gah! I wish this report came out BEFORE Lent ended and the “Operation Rice Bowl” donations were collected.
They’ve already cashed my check!
I certainly did not expect this kind of penance.
-I guess I just need to start limiting my donations to very local charities-
I stopped giving to anyone a couple years ago. I give to my parish and buy groceries for the poor (for Saint Vincent De Paul, etc). I figure, if everyone worked locally, there would be much less suffering. Kind of silly to save kittens in Nairobi when someone down the block is losing their home or can’t find a job.
CRS does do good work, my parish just doubled it’s “Rice Bowl” donations. However, people who work for CRS just shake off the “non-Catholic” aspect of certain things like handing out condoms by saying, “well we’re helping.”
I too wish this came out before the Rice Bowl donations were collected, I would have sent my small donation to ALL or some other place. Though I think CRS had an idea this would be coming because a priest who works for them came to talk to my parish about “global solidarity” and he quickly mentioned something about condoms and people being annoyed that CRS was handing them out, and used the “but we’re helping people” excuse or something along those lines.
The evidence presented is either true or entirely fabricated.
This is not going to go away quietly, especially if Catholic bloggers pick it up.
As for my charitable giving, I like Aid to the Church in need. The money goes right to priests who need it, and it has the added bonus of having a mass offered for your intentions.