The anti-Catholic Catholic group: antireligious feminists are using Catholics for a Free Choice to oppose the Vatican and church hierarchy and to raise millions of dollars for a left-liberal agenda

Insight on the News, August 5, 2002 by Joel Mowbray

In the midst of the immense controversy surrounding the Catholic Church concerning sexual abuse by priests, one group that has taken a very hard line against the church is Catholics for a Free Choice (CFFC). The group has called the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' proposed policy response to the scandal "so weak and inadequate that [it] makes no sense." This group's current embrace of strict morality seems odd, practicing Catholics tell INSIGHT, in view of its history promoting premarital sex, contraception and abortion. What it fits, they say, is CFFC's pattern of repeated and consistent bashing of the church in the public square, all the while posing as a Catholic group.

Confused? CFFC is a nonprofit organization whose stated mission is "to ensure public recognition of the existence, in substantial numbers, of pro-choice Catholics." It has waged open warfare against both the Catholic hierarchy and its teaching since its inception nearly 30 years ago. The CFFC, quite literally, is Catholic in name only.

CFFC intentionally has positioned itself as a group with views that it calls a "Catholic alternative" to those espoused by the Vatican and Catholic bishops. It carefully and openly has cultivated this reputation with the secular media, which routinely cite its opinion as the lay Catholic viewpoint in opposition to the church hierarchy. This media exposure has enabled the group to present its views as representative of a sizable minority, if not outright majority, of American Catholics.

This seems odd, given that one of CFFC's most public ventures is its open and aggressive effort to eliminate the Permanent Observer status of the Holy See at the United Nations. And the merest effort by the mass media, say critics, would have revealed that CFFC is run by radical feminists who have forsaken religion for politics and that it is funded by a small number of foundations and wealthy individuals with little or no other perceivable interest in Catholic causes.

Founded by three National Organization for Women (NOW) members in the immediate wake of Roe v. Wade--the Supreme Court decision that found a constitutional right to abortion--CFFC has been completely transformed from a noisy shell organization with no employees to a multimillion-dollar international enterprise.

The group's Form 990s--the IRS tax forms for nonprofits that must be opened to the public--reveal that CFFC has entered the top tier of Washington special-interest groups, with a staggering $15 million raised between 1996 and 2000, the last year for which information is available. CFFC and its international subsidiaries, Catholics for a Free Choice Latin America and Catholics for a Free Decision, have raked in more than 50 foundation grants during that period totaling more than $10 million.

The filed documents show that despite the use of the word "Catholic" in CFFC's name, almost every foundation that has contributed to it shuns all other religious nonprofits. In fact, CFFC and Catholic Charities, the largest independent Catholic nonprofit, have had only one foundation donor in common during the last five years--the Open Society Institute backed by billionaire George Soros, whose devotion to the causes of the left goes back to Soviet days.

CFFC has been fortunate enough to find a handful of sugar daddies to underwrite most of its activities. The largess of five funders accounted for more than $10 million in donations between 1996 and 2000.

Famed Wall Street financier Warren Buffett's shingle, the Buffett Foundation, has contributed $375,000. The MacArthur Foundation, which critics say earmarks most of its $180 million in annual grants for lefty-liberal causes that protect the environment and "reproductive rights," as well as those that advance "peace," has provided $1.6 million. Charitable institutions established by the estates of the Hewlett and Packard families, founders of computer manufacturer Hewlett-Packard, have been extremely generous to CFFC, with the Hewlett Foundation providing $600,000 and the Packard Foundation an eye-popping $3.8 million.

But the largest benefactor has been the consistently left-wing Ford Foundation, with grants totaling $4.4 million during the five-year span.

While all of CFFC's five principal backers have supported Planned Parenthood, the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League or NOW, not one is known to have contributed to officially recognized Catholic nonprofits.

Not only does CFFC choose to associate financially with institutions that ignore other Catholic groups, but it also has accepted $150,000 from the Turner Foundation, endowed by Ted Turner. Last year Turner scandalized Catholics when he singled out a low-level staffer at a large CNN company meeting, ridiculing her as a "Jesus freak" for wearing ashes on her forehead on Ash Wednesday. The mercurial Turner has a history of religious bigotry, reportedly having called the pope an idiot and dubbing Christianity a religion for losers.

Surprisingly, CFFC says it sets standards concerning those from whom it will accept money. Some say it's not a terribly high threshold since public records show it accepts money from the Playboy Foundation. But CFFC President Frances Kissling says she draws the line at accepting support from Larry Flynt or Hustler, because "there are boundaries of good taste." Those boundaries didn't prevent CFFC this March from cosponsoring the National Day of Appreciation for Abortion Providers, a holiday that lauds abortionists as courageous heroes--an oxymoron to many Catholics.