Click here for an open letter, written in response to an e-mail dated February 2, 2010, sent to all diocesan pro-life office and state Catholic conference directors by Tom Grenchik, executive director of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Pro-Life Secretariat. We are responding publicly because we do not have access to Mr. Grenchik’s e-mail list, and his email seriously misrepresented our claims, accused us of saying things we did not say, and again ignored the substance of our charges. We don't assume bad will on Mr. Grenchik's part, but we do respectfully ask that he set the record straight.
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The Goal of the Reform CCHD Now Coalition
Our goal has been and continues to be to serve the Church by bringing much-needed, even if inconvenient, truth to the conversation about the CCHD. We have never aimed to embarrass any of our faithful bishops, nor have we tried to shut the CCHD down. We have heard several stories of good work done by CCHD grantees, and we've been contacted by CCHD representatives who support the call for reform, and have even begun to initiate such reforms at the diocesan level. This is all wonderful news.
We remain ready to fully support the CCHD the moment its national leadership implements real reforms, which include revisiting its charter and ensuring that all of its grantees conform with all Catholic teaching, and not an isolated and confused understanding of Catholic Social teaching; publishing on its web sites signed statements from each grantee which guarantee that the grantee will IN NO WAY work against Church teaching; and when the grant discovery process is made fully transparent and published on the CCHD web site. Initiating such reforms, and publicizing them as a good faith effort to gain renewed trust from those who are rightly skeptical of the CCHD, will indeed be a cause for celebration.
CCHD Leadership is in control of this scandal. If they continue to ignore the charges publicly, while scrubbing their web sites of evidence and having their partners do the same, and while attacking us in the media, we will have no choice but to keep up our campaign. This will, unfortunately and painfully for us, be public, as CCHD leadership has refused to meet with us and discuss these issues. The faithful of the Catholic Church in America deserve better. Why the CCHD continues to obfuscate, partner with openly anti-Catholic organizations and expect no one to notice is beyond us.
Please keep this affair in prayer. Let Truth win, not any party in this dispute. And please do not let the National CCHD's problems prevent you from giving to support the poor and marginalized. Please click on the link to the left for organizations that do excellent work, and are worthy of faithful Catholics' support.
