Saturday 3rd June 2023

Home » Frontpage » Currently Reading:

CRS Thinks So . . . Are Lawyers And Lobbyists “Forgotten Suffering Populations”?

March 28, 2020 Frontpage No Comments

By CHRISTOPHER MANION

On March 17, in the midst of the Wuhan Coronavirus crisis, the USCCB’s Executive Committee took time out to issue a statement defending Catholic Relief Services.
“In the name of our Catholic faith, the donors, staff, and volunteers of Catholic Relief Services (CRS) deliver life-saving food, medicine, shelter, and training to the most vulnerable of our sisters and brothers around the world,” they wrote. “CRS stands in firm defense of life. Criticisms to the contrary should not detract from the powerful impact your donations have on the lives of otherwise forgotten suffering populations. . . . We firmly stand with the personnel of Catholic Relief Services in their solidarity to the least among us.”
Three days later the Catholic News Service ran a revealing story.
“[S]lated for March 21-22,” writes Mark Pattison, “the Catholic Relief Services collection helps more than CRS, the U.S. bishops’ overseas relief and development agency. It also provides funding for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Offices of International Justice and Peace, Migration and Refugee Services, and Pastoral Care for Migrants and Refugees, the Vatican’s own relief work and the Catholic Legal Immigration Network.”
We inquired with the USCCB’s press office, which confirmed Pattison’s story and sent along a flyer describing the programs. The office did not respond to our request for particulars on the funding amounts.
So we are left with a pressing question for the faithful. Are our donations to Catholic Relief Services really going to “the most vulnerable of our sisters and brothers around the world”?
Let’s take a closer look at the beneficiaries that Mr. Pattison enumerates.

Our Bureaucrats Are
“Poor” And “Vulnerable”

Consider the USCCB’s Office of International Justice and Peace. This Office “Advocate[s] on behalf of Jesus in the poor and marginalized,” says the flyer.
Really? The office is in fact just one more Washington liberal think tank. While it isn’t influential in policy circles, it does perform a useful service to the Left by conferring the Catholic imprimatur on a vast array of questionable opinions and activities. Its studies, lobbying, and advisories address everything from arms control to politics in the Middle East.
More importantly, every year its officials routinely join left-wing, pro-abortion organizations to lobby at the federal trough for full funding of “foreign aid” bills, even though the legislation routinely includes hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars designated for contraceptive programs abroad.
These “Family Planning” programs are administered by the U.S. Agency for International Development. AID has been the U.S. government’s most zealous pro-abortion advocate for half a century. Under Democrat administrations, this USCCB office lobbies for full funding of abortion as well. The unique character of these immoral “family planning” programs comes from this sad fact: AID dictates that “family planning” is a “required component” of AID grants to poor Third World countries. If the host government does not allow “family planning” programs, AID will not provide programs for clean water or essential health care.
The USCCB confirms: A share of the faithful’s donations to the CRS special collection and its “Rice Bowl” campaign for the poor fund this office.
Next we have the USCCB’s Office of Migration and Refugee Services (MRS), which “Feed[s] Jesus’ hunger in suffering refugees,” the flyer says. But the office is also a bureaucracy which by and large supports the Democrat Party’s agenda on illegal aliens, unprotected borders, and an expanded “refugee” policy. Its purpose is reflected in the official endorsement that our bishops confer on “sanctuary cities” that provide safe harbor for illegal alien criminals. The policy essentially provides a “Get Out of Jail Free Card” to murderers.
Ironically, the MRS office nonetheless alleges that it opposes human trafficking. Hard to believe, given the bishops’ profound silence on the drug, sex, and child traffickers who make untold millions bringing illegal aliens to the U.S. border.
Why the silence? The bishops depend on those traffickers because those illegals who successfully enter the United States are then eligible to be cared for by the MRS Office’s taxpayer-funded “Refugee Services” division. Each year, the USCCB receives tens of millions of dollars for these “services,” which often constitute the largest single source of revenue for many dioceses.
The MRS office also produces studies and works with a network of hundreds of groups throughout the country. It also lobbies for the hundreds of millions in taxpayer funding that the USCCB desperately needs to fund its operations.

USCCB Opposed
Medical Screening At
The Border For Years

The MRS office’s “Justice for Immigrants” bureau has also used deliberate deception in its efforts to champion open borders. It refuses to include in its materials the Catechism’s par. 2241.2, which acknowledges that “political authorities” can regulate immigration “subject to various juridical conditions,” especially with regard to “the immigrants’ duties toward their country of adoption.” USCCB leaders like El Paso Bishop Mark Seitz are notorious for the contempt they have shown for the principles expressed in this passage from the Catechism.
The Wuhan Virus crisis has exposed the lethal essence of the USCCB’s defiance of the rule of law. The bishops’ immigration policies have blown up in their face and damaged, perhaps irreparably, any moral authority they might have had left. For years they have advocated massive illegal immigration and strenuously opposed border testing for dangerous diseases like tuberculosis, polio, and the Wuhan Coronavirus.
The next office receiving CRS funding is the Catholic Legal Immigration Network. The flyer says that this office “Offers legal assistance to Jesus in struggling immigrants.”
Struggling? According to Charity Navigator, with its 2018 revenue of $9,723,431 the network employs roughly 1,200 attorneys and accredited paralegals in 400 field offices in 46 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.”
Ah . . . behold the plight of the struggling lawyers!

No Time For Accountability?

After the cover-up scandals, the USCCB’s credibility was “shredded,” in the immortal words of Joliet Bishop Daniel Conlon. Every year since the bishops have made promised transparency and reform. Unfortunately, for most of those years then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick was the USCCB’s point man in this farce. McCarrick was uniquely instrumental in the operations of the U.S. hierarchy. Dozens of bishops, many of whom are still in office today, owe him their jobs. We will never know their name and number; too many high-ranking clerics in the U.S. and Rome want those facts to be buried with Mr. McCarrick.
And so will the facts on Catholic Relief Services. As the intrepid Lepanto Institute reports, McCarrick sat on the CRS board of directors for eighteen years (terms are normally limited to six years, but his colleagues made an exception for him). He also served as the chairman of CRS’s Foundation board from 2006 until his sordid past was finally revealed in 2018.
So now CRS joins the growing gaggle of scandalous USCCB operations that suffer from mismanagement, misrepresentation, and possible malfeasance. A class action case has been brought in federal court against the USCCB “for its role in the fraudulent promotion of Peter’s Pence as a charity to assist individuals throughout the world who have been affected by ‘war, oppression, natural disaster or disease.’ Recent reports have shown as little as 10 percent of the contributions made to Peter’s Pence are actually used for these stated purposes,” the filing reads.
Too many questions, too few answers. It’s time for the USCCB to live up to its promises.
Open the books.

Share Button

2019 The Wanderer Printing Co.

Twitter Feed

Unable to load Tweets

Vatican and USCCB leave transgender policy texts unpublished

While U.S. bishops have made headlines for releasing policies addressing gender identity and pastoral ministry, guidelines on the subject have been drafted but not published by both the U.S. bishops’ conference and the Vatican’s doctrinal office, leaving diocesan bishops to…Continue Reading

Biden says Pope Francis told him to continue receiving communion, amid scrutiny over pro-abortion policies

President Biden said that Pope Francis, during their meeting Friday in Vatican City, told him that he should continue to receive communion, amid heightened scrutiny of the Catholic president’s pro-abortion policies.  The president, following the approximately 90-minute-long meeting, a key…Continue Reading

Federal judge rules in favor of Gov. DeSantis’ mask mandate ban

MIAMI (LifeSiteNews) – A federal judge this week handed Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis another legal victory on his mask mandate ban for schools. On Wednesday, Judge K. Michael Moore of the Southern District of Florida denied a petition from…Continue Reading

The Eucharist should not be received unworthily, says Nigerian cardinal

Priests have a duty to remind Catholics not to receive the Eucharist in a state of serious sin and to make confession easily available, a Nigerian cardinal said at the International Eucharistic Congress on Thursday. “It is still the doctrine…Continue Reading

Donald Trump takes a swipe at Catholics and Jews who did not vote for him

Donald Trump complained about Catholics and Jews who did not vote for him in 2020. The former president made the comments in a conference call featuring religious leaders. The move could be seen to shore up his religious conservative base…Continue Reading

Y Gov. Kathy Hochul Admits Andrew Cuomo Covered Up COVID Deaths, 12,000 More Died Than Reported

When it comes to protecting people from COVID, Andrew Cuomo is already the worst governor in America. New York has the second highest death rate per capita, in part because he signed an executive order putting COVID patients in nursing…Continue Reading

Prayers For Cardinal Burke . . . U.S. Cardinal Burke says he has tested positive for COVID-19

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — U.S. Cardinal Raymond L. Burke said he has tested positive for the virus that causes COVID-19. In an Aug. 10 tweet, he wrote: “Praised be Jesus Christ! I wish to inform you that I have recently…Continue Reading

Democrats Block Amendment Banning Late-Term Abortions, Stopping Abortions Up to Birth

Senate Democrats have blocked an amendment that would ban abortions on babies older than 20 weeks. During consideration of the multi-trillion spending package, pro-life Louisiana Senator John Kennedy filed an amendment to ban late-term abortions, but Democrats steadfastly support killing…Continue Reading

Transgender student wins as U.S. Supreme Court rebuffs bathroom appeal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday handed a victory to a transgender former public high school student who waged a six-year legal battle against a Virginia county school board that had barred him from using the bathroom corresponding…Continue Reading

New York priest accused by security guard of assault confirms charges have now been dropped

NEW YORK, June 17, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — A New York priest has made his first public statement regarding the dismissal of charges against him.  Today Father George W. Rutler reached out to LifeSiteNews and other media today with the following…Continue Reading

21,000 sign petition protesting US Catholic bishops vote on Biden, abortion

More than 21,000 people have signed a letter calling for U.S. Catholic bishops to cancel a planned vote on whether President Biden should receive communion.  Biden, a Catholic, supports abortion rights and has long come under attack from some Catholics over that…Continue Reading

Bishop Gorman seeks candidates to fill two full time AP level teaching positions for the 2021-2022 school year in the subject areas of Calculus/Statistics and Physics

Bishop Thomas K. Gorman Regional Catholic School is a college preparatory school located in Tyler, Texas. It is an educational ministry of the Catholic Diocese of Tyler led by Bishop Joseph Strickland. The sixth through twelfth grade school provides a…Continue Reading

Untitled 5 Untitled 2

Attention Readers:

  Welcome to our website. Readers who are familiar with The Wanderer know we have been providing Catholic news and orthodox commentary for 150 years in our weekly print edition.


  Our daily version offers only some of what we publish weekly in print. To take advantage of everything The Wanderer publishes, we encourage you to su
bscribe to our flagship weekly print edition, which is mailed every Friday or, if you want to view it in its entirety online, you can subscribe to the E-edition, which is a replica of the print edition.
 
  Our daily edition includes: a selection of material from recent issues of our print edition, news stories updated daily from renowned news sources, access to archives from The Wanderer from the past 10 years, available at a minimum charge (this will be expanded as time goes on). Also: regularly updated features where we go back in time and highlight various columns and news items covered in The Wanderer over the past 150 years. And: a comments section in which your remarks are encouraged, both good and bad, including suggestions.
 
  We encourage you to become a daily visitor to our site. If you appreciate our site, tell your friends. As Catholics we must band together to rediscover our faith and share it with the world if we are to effectively counter a society whose moral culture seems to have no boundaries and a government whose rapidly extending reach threatens to extinguish the rights of people of faith to practice their religion (witness the HHS mandate). Now more than ever, vehicles like The Wanderer are needed for clarification and guidance on the issues of the day.

Catholic, conservative, orthodox, and loyal to the Magisterium have been this journal’s hallmarks for five generations. God willing, our message will continue well into this century and beyond.

Joseph Matt
President, The Wanderer Printing Co.

Untitled 1

Catechism

Today . . .

Pontifical Academy for Life president calls medically assisted suicide ‘feasible’

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Apr 23, 2023 / 15:02 pm Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, has spoken in support of legalized medically assisted suicide, calling it “feasible” despite the clear teachings of the Catholic Church against it. “Personally, I would not practice suicide assistance, but I understand that legal mediation may be the greatest common good concretely possible under the conditions

Supreme Court Temporarily Blocks Lower Court Ruling Banning Mail-Order Abortions

The Supreme Court has temporarily blocked a lower court ruling banning mail-order abortions and putting safety measures in place to protect women who are currently being injured at high rates by the abortion pill. The high court made the decision to allow but sides in the legal battle the chance to provide additional information and to allow it to more fully consider the case next week. Also, another federa judge issued a contrasting ruling that…Continue Reading

A Call to Action for Parents . . . Minnesotans Wake UP! The Insanity in This State Continues!

">Cardinals Burke . . . SAME-SEX UNION BLESSINGS?

Longtime teacher fired after discussing God in classroom, challenging ‘evil’ LGBT school policy

(LifeSiteNews) — A longtime public school teacher in Idaho was let go earlier this month for being unafraid to mention God in the classroom and voicing his objections to a pro-LGBT policy designed to promote “transgender” ideologies among young people.  Ian O’Connell, a Catholic teacher who served as a substitute in the public institutions of Caldwell School District for over 20 years, spoke on February 13 about a proposed “gender identity and sexual orientation” policy that…Continue Reading

Feminist Professor Who Vandalized Pro-Life Table . . . Gets Fired After Holding Machete To Reporter’s Neck

By MICAIAH BILGER WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeNews) — A New York City art professor accused of vandalizing a pro-life student display and later threatening two journalists with a machete has been fired from her job.Shellyne Rodriguez, of the Bronx, was an adjunct assistant professor of art at Hunter College, a public, taxpayer-funded school under the City…Continue Reading

A Symptom Of Urban Crime’s Toll On College Students

By ARMSTRONG WILLIAMS In recent years, there has been a surge in violent crime in our nation’s capital, and unfortunately, our college students have not been spared. This issue has become symptomatic of a larger problem that plagues urban cities across the nation, where college students are being robbed and carjacked, all at gunpoint. As…Continue Reading

San Quentin Prison And School Choice

By TERENCE P. JEFFREY When I was a boy, I spent some time inside San Quentin State Prison and got to know a few of the inmates there.The San Rafael Little League played its games in that prison and a group of inmates known as “trustees” umpired them.The grounds of San Quentin were considerably larger…Continue Reading

Stumbling Toward Heaven?… Will Biden Repent Of His Evils Before A Serious Fall Could Harm Him?

By DEXTER DUGGAN Does Joe Biden understand the generosity that God continues to extend to him and his allies who keep trying to drag nations into degeneracy and death?Even though Catholics have come to expect the promotion of awful immorality by some of the U.S.’s most powerful reputedly Catholic politicians — all of them left-wing…Continue Reading

As His Cause Moves Forward… Joseph Dutton’s 180th Birthday Celebrated

By PEGGY MOEN Bishop Larry Silva of Honolulu was invited to Stowe, Vt., to help celebrate the 180th birthday of Joseph Dutton, according to a report in The Hawaii Catholic Herald by Patrick Downes, editor. If canonized, Dutton will be the third saint honored for service at the Hansen’s disease settlement in Kalaupapa, Molokai, the…Continue Reading

Advertisement

Our Catholic Faith (Section B of print edition)

Catholic Replies

Q. Jesus said, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you do not have life within you.” When will Catholics be able to drink from the cup again? — D.L.H., Iowa.A. The practice of receiving Jesus under both the species of bread and wine was halted during…Continue Reading

In The End, Faith Alone Counts

By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK Appearances can be deceiving. This overworn adage is so because, human nature being what it is, we must be often reminded of the foolishness, and sometimes the danger, of judging reality purely by what is palpable to our sense of sight. To our eyes, the seeming solidity of the Earth upon which we tread and…Continue Reading

Pondering A Forgotten Virtue: Vengeance

By MSGR. CHARLES POPE (Editor’s Note: Msgr. Pope posted this commentary May 22 on his website, and it is reprinted here with permission.) + + Most of us think that vengeance is merely a vice. And, given improper intentions, or excess or misguided application, it can indeed be a sin and a vice. However, as we read in Scripture, “Vengeance…Continue Reading

Minnesota Legislature Repeals . . . Protection For Born-Alive Infants, Support For Pregnant Women

ST. PAUL — The Minnesota legislature on May 22 approved an Omnibus health bill that repeals a bipartisan measure protecting newborns and a bipartisan program supporting pregnant women who want to carry their babies to term. It also rescinds a number of longstanding laws surrounding abortion. As of this writing, Gov. Tim Walz was expected to sign the wide-ranging bill,…Continue Reading

A Mystery To Ponder For All Eternity

By FR. ROBERT ALTIER Solemnity Of The Most Holy Trinity (YR A) Readings: Exodus 34:4b-6, 8-92 Cor. 13:11-13John 3:16-18 In the readings today, we hear about several attributes of God: grace, mercy, kind, faithful, slow to anger, fellowship, love, and peace. It is also important to note that whenever God is spoken of, it is clear that there is only…Continue Reading

The Devil And The Democrats

By FR. DENIS WILDE, OSA States such as Minnesota, California, Maryland, and others, in all cases with Democrat-controlled legislatures, are on a fast track to not only allow unborn babies to be murdered on demand as a woman’s “constitutional right” but also to allow infanticide.Our nation has gotten so used to the moral evil of killing in the womb that…Continue Reading

Crushed But Unbroken . . . The Martyrdom Of St. Margaret Clitherow

By RAY CAVANAUGH The late-1500s were a tough time for Catholics in England, where the Reformation was in full gear. A 1581 law prohibited Catholic religious ceremonies. And a 1584 Act of Parliament mandated that all Catholic priests leave the country or else face execution. Some chose to remain, however, so they could continue serving the faithful.Also taking huge risks…Continue Reading

Advertisement(2)