Repurposing the Catholic Campaign for Human Development

From the beginning, CCHD, which was funded by an annual collection taken up in all U.S. parishes, made community organizing on the Alinsky model a focus of its grant-making. No doubt that CCHD funding has done some good over the past half-century. But CCHD has also been a jobs program for community organizers paid by CCHD-funded organizations, some of which have a tenuous connection (if that) to the Catholic Church and her convictions. And insofar as CCHD funds have supported community organizers whose chief accomplishment has been to radicalize the Democratic Party to the point where the once-traditional home of American Catholics has become a poisonous environment for Catholics who take seriously Catholic teaching on life issues and related matters, CCHD has paid, if indirectly, for anti-Catholic political activity.