CCHD, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, has been under attack lately--unfairly. David Gibson sets the record straight in an online piece for America here.
Gibson: "....In a denunciation that America blogger Austen Ivereigh declared “manifestly unjust,” Father Richard John Neuhaus, editor of First Things, said that the CCHD, “misbegotten in concept and corrupt in practice, should, at long last, be terminated.” Father Neuhaus noted that the word “Catholic” had been dropped from the organization’s name, rightly in his view, since it “has nothing to do with Catholicism,” and he announced that CCHD funds support “pro-abortion activities and politicians.”
In reality, the CCHD has been and remains the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, and CCHD officials point out that the organization does not back any initiatives that contradict church teaching—only those that help the poor move out of poverty. All grants go to projects “with objectives and actions that are fully in accord with the moral teachings of the Catholic Church,” the CCHD says. Partisan activity is prohibited, and the local bishop approves every grant...."
James Martin, SJ
