Thursday, October 23, 2008
CCHD AND ACORN
More evidence of betrayal of the Catholic laity...
ACORN's Unlikely Allies
Posted by Joseph Lawler on 10.23.08 @ 6:04AM
The Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) recently cut off its over $1.1 million in funding for the left-wing community organizing group ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), citing a million-dollar embezzlement case. Of course, news of the malfeasance first came out four months ago, whereas most have regarded ACORN as radically liberal for years. What explanation could the Catholic outreach program possibly offer for funding until now a group that is defrauding the electorate to help Barack Obama, the most extreme pro-abortion candidate ever?
None -- except for that maybe they thought they'd get away with it, before ACORN became a fixture in the evening news. The CCHD, which is run by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), has funded far-left organizations with missions diametrically opposed to that of the Catholic Church for years, including, in the '90s, the pro-abortion group National Organization for Women and the American Civil Liberties Union.
The CCHD filed its grants for dozens of ACORN outfits under such left-wing euphemisms as "Economic Justice" and "Civil Rights." While some of the funding most likely went toward some kind of economic justice through immigration reform (for which John McCain also collaborated with ACORN) and helping impoverished families claim their Earned Income Tax Credit refunds, there is no doubt a substantial portion of those grants also went to voter turnout initiatives -- not to mention voter registration fraud. It would have been impossible to oversee the actions of these numerous ACORN affiliates.
Ralph McCloud, the director of CCHD, told Catholic News Service that he was aware that some of the money must have been used for voter registration drives in the past. "But by the same token, we didn't find any voter registration irregularities, the allegations we are finding now," he claimed.
Perhaps they didn't, although that's hard to believe considering the memorable stories of registration fraud from past elections, like the one in 2004 when ACORN offered a man crack cocaine to sign a registration form.
Here's the whole article.
