Washington, DC (The Lepanto Institute) — The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) once again took up a national collection for its anti-poverty program called the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) without publishing the list of organizations receiving CCHD grants.
The CCHD formally states on the USCCB website that it “is committed to transparency and continues to publish a list of recent grantees online each year.” Despite this commitment, the CCHD has refused to publish its grants list for over two years. The Lepanto Institute has tried for over a year to contact CCHD officials, requesting the publication of all grant lists from 2022 to the present, without any response.
“Imagine telling faithful Catholics that your operation is fully transparent, that you publish a list of grantees every year, and that critics of CCHD grants are all wrong — while refusing to publish the list of grantees you are asking faithful Catholics to subsidize,” said Michael Hichborn, president of the Lepanto Institute. “I can think of no better way to telegraph guilt than by doing exactly this.”
In a new article, the Lepanto Institute examined the history of expressed concerns from faithful Catholics regarding CCHD grants, dating back to the early 1980s. Concerned Catholics and various other organizations have uncovered CCHD grantees’ involvement in the promotion of abortion, contraception, homosexual activism, and Marxism for decades. In 1982, a retired Army Lt. Col. wrote an Op-Ed sounding the alarm regarding a CCHD grantee called EPISO, which he claimed was openly Marxist. In 1989, the Capital Research Center identified several CCHD grantees who were directly involved in the promotion of abortion and homosexual activism. In 1996, the Baltimore Sun revealed that CCHD grantees JEDI Women, 9 to 5 Working Women, and the National Health Care Campaign were all promoting abortion and contraception. In light of the long-standing expression of concern for CCHD grants, the Lepanto Institute wonders if the failure to publish the grants list is intended to avoid such scrutiny for the sake of improved national collections.
“Even an internal CCHD memo from 2012 acknowledges the moral duty to publish the annual list of CCHD grants,” said Hichborn.
Dylan Corbett, the USCCB’s Manager for Mission and Outreach, wrote the memo titled, “Recent allegations concerning CCHD funded groups,” to all diocesan CCHD directors saying, “As a mark good stewardship, each year CCHD publishes a list of groups which have received a CCHD grant.” The last published list of CCHD grants is from 2021-2022, making the list two and a half years old.
“If the CCHD can’t even uphold its promise to be transparent and publish its most up-to-date grants list, then what other promises is it breaking?” asked Hichborn. “The Lepanto Institute is renewing its call for the complete abolition of the CCHD.”
The article with all the details is available at LepantoIn.org.
