San Diego Catholic Bulletins . . . Promote Obama’s “Executive Amnesty”

By DEXTER DUGGAN

San Diego-area Catholics were reminded again of their U.S. Church’s push to embed millions of illegal aliens in this nation when a notice appeared in weekly parish bulletins proclaiming “a big victory!” because of Barack Obama’s November announcement of his “executive amnesty.”
Obama’s highly contentious and unconstitutional action — Obama himself repeatedly had said he had no power to confer it — was presented in the official parish bulletins as if it’s not controversial at all, but is an “opportunity.”
One can only think of the impossibility of Catholic Church bulletins carrying, say, an official notice proclaiming pleasure over Republican Party victories in last November’s general election. But left-wing activists, even those opposing basic Church moral teaching, traditionally find a welcome by Catholic bureaucracies that is denied to political conservatives.
The Catholic Campaign for Human Development is one longstanding example of official Church structures collecting money from parishioners across the nation to distribute to left-wing organizations that might also be pro-immorality.
It never seems to matter to bureaucrats that they may be driving Catholics away who see this politicking as evidence that the Church lacks authentic moral authority and is only pushing a liberal Democrat political agenda.
In official weekly church bulletins in December, parishioners in the San Diego Diocese read a notice promoting the use of Obama’s amnesty. At San Diego’s Blessed Sacrament Church, for instance, the notice’s three paragraphs consumed just over one-fourth of a bulletin page. It was headlined, in capital letters, “Immigration Changes and Warning.”
The first paragraph read:
“On November 20, the president announced a new program that will benefit over 4 million undocumented people nationwide and approximately 150,000 in [Southern California’s] San Diego and Imperial Counties. Catholic Charities, in partnership with the San Diego Organizing Project (SDOP), has worked for many years to enhance the life of immigrant families in our communities. On that day, we won a big victory!”
The second paragraph explained there are to be protection from deportation and issuance of work permits for affected individuals.
The message was written as if readers of the bulletin are expected to be illegal aliens.
The third paragraph, explaining that people can’t apply to take advantage of the program for several months, cautioned that “it is very important that you do NOT give money to anyone who says he or she can help you now.” It concluded:
“In the coming weeks, Catholic Charities and SDOP will be holding free information sessions to help you understand this new opportunity, and next year when the government is prepared to accept applications, we will be available to help those eligible to apply for this program with competent, low-cost services.”
The San Diego Organizing Project (www.sdop.net) which works with Catholic Charities is a Saul Alinsky-type left-wing activist group. On the right side of its home page is a link to a national Alinskyite group, PICO — People Improving Communities through Organizing (www.piconetwork.org). SDOP’s website says, “SDOP is a member of the PICO National Network.”
Orthodox San Diego-area Catholics who responded to an inquiry by The Wanderer said that SDOP follows the model of the late socialist organizer Saul Alinsky, who also was the inspiration for lawless Chicago “community organizer” Barack Obama.
Diane Chapman said, “You bet SDOP is a left-wing Alinsky group — and the diocese is partners with them.” She added that “this illegal immigration push is in every diocese in some form or another.”
Catholic Allyson Smith told The Wanderer, “Yes, SDOP is an Alinsky-style organization that’s been deeply embedded in our diocese for years. We want to bring Stephanie Block here to speak and educate people about such groups.”
Block is an orthodox Catholic and national writer and researcher on Alinsky and the application of his method.
In a January 3 email, Block told The Wanderer:
“The salient fact about Alinskyian organizing is that its political activism is almost exclusively oriented toward progressive projects: nationalized (or internationalized) education that coordinates with workforce development and health care — and housing, in some places. The goal is to eventually establish a comprehensive system that also integrates international migrations (‘immigration’).
“I doubt many of the bishops see this,” Block continued. “They are only concerned about the humanitarian problem of getting undocumented workers some stability and practical assistance.
“What they fail to appreciate,” she wrote, “is that a ‘restructured’ U.S. will be a far less prosperous U.S. and therefore far less able to be generous to the poor, either within our borders or external to them — sort of like killing the goose that laid the golden eggs.”
As for the national PICO group that SDOP is part of, Block said, “It’s one of several Alinskyian organizing networks with affiliates in cities around the country. Each affiliate is composed of member institutions, many of which are ‘faith-based.’
“Alinskyian organizations make a particular point of seeking out faith-based institutions because religion provides them a ‘moral garment’ (in Alinsky’s words) for their political activism,” she said.

A Human And Legal Mess

The San Diego area’s Larry Greenbank told The Wanderer that diocesan bulletins running the notice for SDOP “which said we won a great victory doesn’t set well with me. . . . Secondly, I am concerned that we would be supporting illegal immigration, or that the SDOP would take credit.”
In a subsequent email, Greenbank said: “Amnesty is a legal matter for the states or the U.S. Congress. Obama is very likely acting outside the Constitution and therefore illegally. I don’t want to support Obama’s executive action, which is very likely unconstitutional.
“The illegal immigrants are both a humanitarian issue and a legal issue,” he continued. “How entangled should the Catholic diocese become in the human and legal mess that Obama is creating? Who is tracking the illegal immigrants which may spawn criminal or terror activities within the U.S.? The criminal, legal, and political aspect is outside the Church’s charitable mission.
“Catholic Charities is also linked to this” notice, Greenbank said. “I don’t know enough about Catholic Charities to feel comfortable giving to them. What federal money do they have? Why do they help both illegal and legal immigrants?
“I have a personal concern that stranded or temporarily homeless American citizens that I have met on the street in San Diego cannot find aid, but special groups like illegal immigrants can find all kinds of aid. I need to find out more about Catholic Charities, and how to assist people who need a hand,” Greenbank said.