Catholic Replies
Q. In a recent column, you referenced a report from the Lepanto Institute that Catholic Relief Services was involved in the distribution of condoms and sterilization kits in the Congo. But in our diocesan newspaper Today’s Catholic, there is an interview with Carolyn Woo, CEO of CRS, who said that the accusation is false. She said that the Madagascar bishops refuted the report and publicly supported CRS in 2013. The article containing the interview only mentioned storing and distributing condoms and nothing about sterilization kits or abortifacients. I should point out that 2013 was the only year mentioned and Project AXxes was not mentioned. The obvious question is where is the truth? — L.S., Indiana.
A. In our previous column, we said that “while CRS undoubtedly does some good work assisting those in need, it also has violated Catholic social teaching by facilitating the distribution of more than two million units of contraceptives and abortifacients into the Democratic Republic of the Congo between 2006 and 2010. According to a report by the Lepanto Institute, CRS partnered with the U.S.-funded Project AXxes to distribute the abortion-causing drugs Depo Provera and Lo-Femenal, Intrauterine Devices (IUDs), male and female condoms, and sterilization kits.”
We also quoted Steven Mosher of the Population Research Institute, who had previously documented abuses in CRS programs in Madagascar and Kenya, as saying that “the AXxes program reports are deeply troubling. The reports appear to show that CRS was involved with the storage and distribution of abortifacient contraceptives. If it is true that CRS was complicit with the provision of abortifacient contraceptives, it would be a great cause for scandal for the faithful.”
At the U.S. bishops’ semiannual meeting in Baltimore last November, Carolyn Woo asked the bishops not to give any credence to the allegations of Michael Hichborn and the Lepanto Institute. She has since stepped down as head of CRS after five years and has been replaced by Sean Callahan, who has been with CRS for 28 years.
Dr. Woo has signed on with a group called Catholic Women Preach, which will use “modern technology to bring the voices of Catholic women to the proclamation of the Gospel…across the globe,” according to a press release by a group called FutureChurch. This organization has lobbied for Church approval of contraception, ordination of women to the priesthood, and same-sex “marriage.”
While some bishops have defended Catholic Relief Services against its critics, they have also expressed concern about CRS involvement with agencies promoting contraception and abortion. In 2013, for example, Bishop Gerald Kicanas of Tucson, then-chairman of the CRS Board of Directors, said that it was unfortunate that the group had to “partner with organizations that sometimes are not in keeping with our teaching. In order to do humanitarian work, it is necessary to work with other major international organizations. Sadly, most of those organizations do not hold or carry out the teachings of the Church as we understand them.”
Similarly, Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City, the current chairman of the CRS Board, wrote a letter to the nation’s bishops on September 29, 2016, stating that CRS had “participated in specific activities that were consistent with Catholic teaching, while other groups, including the prime sponsor [IMA World Health], undertook other activities, including some that included artificial contraception.” He said that “unfortunately, in reports prepared by the prime sponsor, who did not understand how important clarity on CRS’s role is, it appears CRS participated in distribution of artificial contraception. The prime sponsor has confirmed that the report could be misleading and that CRS was very clear we could not participate in distribution of artificial contraception or anything that violated Catholic teaching.”
In the same letter, Archbishop Coakley said that “the contraceptives in question were delivered to the geographic area where CRS worked, but it was IMA World Health — not CRS — who ‘provided an alternative mechanism for the training, storage, and distribution of contraceptive products’.” The italicized portion of the official CRS response is taken from a statement by Richard Santos, president of IMA World Health, but here is the full context of that quote:
“While CRS was responsible for the overall management of health activities for specific health zones under the AXxes project, IMA provided an alternative mechanism for the training, storage, and distribution of contraceptive products and only required CRS to report on family planning activities in their assigned health zones, as part of the overall government reporting system.”
By leaving out the part where Santos said that “CRS was responsible for the overall management of health activities for specific health zones,” said Michael Hichborn of the Lepanto Institute, “CRS is distancing itself from its responsibility for the contraception distribution, but since CRS was responsible for the overall management of health activities, this means that CRS was directly permitting contraception to be delivered and dispensed in its health centers, even if CRS itself didn’t technically ‘touch’ the contraception.”
He also said that “if IMA World Health is ‘providing an alternative mechanism’ to contraception, not CRS, then doesn’t that mean that CRS is still responsible for the contraception? Santos admits the guilt, which is why CRS had to commit linguistic acrobatics in order to use this quote while leaving out the damning aspect of what he said.”
This was not the first time that CRS engaged in some “linguistic acrobatics” to answer criticisms of its activities. Back in the April 2008 issue of Catholic World Report, moral theologian Germain Grisez discussed a CRS position paper on “The Prevention of Sexual Transmission of HIV.” He said that the paper distinguished between promoting condoms and giving information about them by saying, “Promoting condoms means suggesting, encouraging, or urging people to use a condom during sexual intercourse to prevent HIV transmission; providing full and accurate information means giving the fact [sic] about condom use, including the benefits, risks, and failure rates.”
But, said Grisez, “providing information about condoms’ benefits is likely to lead to their use. Condoms are designed to prevent bodily fluids from mixing when people engage in sexual activity. Giving information about condoms’ benefits to people who wish both to engage in sexual activity and to prevent the bodily fluids from mixing encourages those people both to engage in the sexual activity and to use condoms.”
The theologian noted that the CRS position paper quoted the following two sentences from a 1989 U.S. bishops’ document entitled Called to Compassion and Responsibility: A Response to the AIDS Crisis: “People need education and motivation so that they will choose wisely and well. Providing information that is both accurate and appropriate is a logical and necessary starting point.” But these two sentences were taken out of context, said Grisez, explaining:
“In the relevant passage of their 1989 document, the bishops point out that one of the many problems with the response to AIDS was ‘the refusal to discuss publicly the direct link between sexual activity and intravenous drug use on the one hand and HIV/AIDS on the other.’ Their proposed solution: ‘People must be shown the right thing to do and encouraged to make right choices.’ The bishops insist on ‘lasting changes in the way people act,’ say nothing about condoms, and unblinkingly affirm ‘that to eradicate some diseases, people must desist from the behavior that spreads them.’ In that context, the sentences about ‘providing information’ quoted in CRS’s position paper do not warrant the claim that the bishops support providing information about condoms.”
In conclusion, Professor Grisez said that what has been going on at CRS must be investigated to see if officials of this agency of the U.S. bishops have “betrayed their responsibility and misled the bishops,” not to mention those faithful Catholics who have donated to CRS for AIDS relief. He said that a “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.”
Responding to this article, CRS spokesman Michael Wiest said in April 2008 that “we are taking Dr. Grisez’s critiques very seriously” and “will take appropriate action.” But it doesn’t appear, nine years later, that appropriate action has been taken.
