Catholic campaign for human development: Still entranced by leftist activism, despite growing unrest

Human Events, Nov 10, 2000 by Lopez, Kathryn Jean

Familiar with past criticism of CCHD and its leftist ties and inspirations, Mele defends IAF's ties to Alinsky: "Some of the criticism of the IAF which I have heard sounds foolish, like condemning the organization because Saul Alinsky once said he was the devil's disciple. More to the point, he was a Jewish humanist who perhaps did as much to improve the lot of poor workers, many of whom were Catholics, all over the country as any person in our history."

Stuck in the '60s

Mele's views are reflective of CCHD's repeated denial of any political orientation, despite the clear evidence of its annual grants. For instance, Ernest Velasquez, CCHD director in Fresno, Calif., is a died-inthe-wool true believer in the program.

"Is the campaign funding the left wing? I don't think-so," Velasquez says. "I think they are funding projects that are concerned with social justice. I may be out of line, but there are very few organizations on the right side of the spectrum who can actually say they are also for social justice. So using that method, the CCHD is in fact funding those agencies that tend to be left of center just by the very nature of what we are doing."

Former CCHD director the Rev.' Marvin Mottet, now pastor at Sacred Heart Cathedral in Iowa, also defends the program's focus on activism and its refusal to fund direct charity: "CCHD's approach to poverty is very reasonable: Get at the causes of poverty and powerlessness, not just the symptoms," Mottet says. "If you had cancer, you would want a cure, not just pain medicine. . . . That's the way poor people feel about poverty and powerlessness. They could use some painkiller, but they really need a cure."

Mottet claims CCHD doesn't engage in political mobilization, despite many grantees' emphasis on organizing low-income people for political advocacy and labor activism. Instead, he says, CCHD "provides the resources for poor people to learn the skills necessary to be effective in the public arena, to have an impact on those policies and decision-making processes that affect their lives."

"CCHD-funded community organizations, as a matter of principle, do not endorse political parties or candidates," Mottet explains. "They are not involved in organizing electoral campaigns, but rather in learning the skills to negotiate with whomever [sic] is in power or in a position to do something about their problems. They will work with and negotiate with elected officials from either party. Sometimes they are more effective with Republicans than Democrats. It depends on the issue."

But while CCHD officials, past and present, rarely concede a leftist bias, the left considers CCHD to be one of its own. When CCHD's moral guidelines were enacted in 1998, effectively preventing some radical groups from receiving CCHD grants, the political left took notice.

In 1999, a consortium of interest groups -including Catholics for a Free Choice (which the Catholic bishops have declared non-Catholic) and several former CCHD grantees -sponsored a full-page advertisement in The Chronicle of Philanthropy to make the accusation that CCHD "cave[d] in to the religious right."