OAKLAND CA.: CATHOLIC DIOCESE AND COMMUNITY ORGANIZING FUNDS

                               RE-ACTIVATING OAKLAND DIOCESE WATCH

November 28, 2012

After an interval of 4 years during which a certain peace had descended upon the Oakland Diocese, it is felt that it is once again time to file reports on activities within the Oakland Diocese and within the USCCB in general.

The Catholic Campaign for Human Development and Community Organizers.
For the last year or so there has been much discussion nationally regarding the distribution of CCHD - parishioner dollars - to groups such as ACORN and other non-religious based Community Organizations.  The reason for the sometimes heated discussion involves the inappropriateness of putting hard earned dollars in the collection plate during Mass time at the urgings of the Pastors and given by Catholics who are of the opinion that the money is going to aid Catholic organizations performing the corporal works of mercy.

 Much of the time the money is donated to groups which espouse the antithesis of Christianity and in fact, encourage at attitude of hostility to all things Catholic.

The realization that this is happening has caused an apparent drop in CCHD donations nationwide.  The Bishops, realizing that there has been a drop in CCHD donations have gone out of their way to assure parishioners that this situation has been rectified.

 A visiting priest at my parish on the day of the latest CCHD drive, Nov. 17-18, addressed the congregation at the beginning of Mass by reading a letter from an East Coast Bishop declaring that it is now “safe” to give money to the CCHD with the knowledge that it is no longer going to suspect non-profits.

Before being transferred to a new Diocese our own Bishop reassured parishioners that CCHD was cleared of suspicion, so to speak.

In the November 5, 2012 edition of the Diocesan newspaper, The Catholic Voice, vol. 50, No 19, The latest donations of local CCHD funds was published. It listed 4 organizations - three of them community organizing type groups tied to a nationwide Alinskyite agenda and one Communitarian “green” collective as receiving a total of $140,000.00. A Kmhmu-Laotian Pastoral Center  of Richmond received a mere $5,000.00 grant.

The Community Organizing groups operating within the Diocese are members cells within a West Coast collective entitled Pacific Institute for Community Organizing - PICO.   PICO, was founded by now deceased, Fr. John Baumann, S.J., in 1972. Baumann was an Alinsky trained community organizer.  It became apparent to both Alinsky and Baumann that if a change in Christianity were to be affected it would have to come through the churches, not just the secular community. Christians would have to be convinced that helping one’s neighbor to a better life required the assistance of the state and required the church to join with the state to bring this about.

In the 30 years that I have been analyzing California legislation public policy issues and legislation the name of PICO has often been present side by side with the ACLU and Planned Parenthood in establishing an expanded welfare and health care system including abortion, family planning and end-of-life decisions.

The article notes that the Pleasant HIll parish of Christ the King, Fr. Brian Joyce Pastor, is noted for being amongst the most generous donors with a total amount of $10,000 donated.

The parishioners are indeed to be commended for their generosity but one wonders just how much they understand of where their money is going?

The three Community organizing groups who received funding are:Oakland Community Organizing - OCO, their Executive Director, Ron Snyder, received  a lifetime achievement award during the fund granting dinner. Other groups are; Congregations for Organizing for Renewal - COR - of Hayward and a Berkeley Organizing Congregation for Action - BOCA.

A recent addition to this stable of secular non-profits is a group called WAGES - Women’s Action for Gaining Economic Security which received $40,000.00.  This is a secular employee owned democratically run collective, reminiscent of the Socialist Latin American collectives, offering training and income to immigrant and/or indigent Oakland area women in house cleaning opportunities. This is a part of a Network of Bay Area Worker Collectives, NoBAWC, referred to lovingly by its members as “no boss.” 

This group prides itself on everyone being equal, no bosses, no one making more than anyone else, everybody sharing and, of course, obtaining government funding as well for implementing the goals of the federal green jobs program.  Even though WAGES supposedly is an equal opportunity collective  agency it does have a salaried Director and an agenda outside of and unrelated to the cleaning of peoples homes and offices.

On April 30, 2012, the day before May Day activities, fm-97.1 radio station KALW, interviewed the Director of NoBAWC and author, John Curl who stated that “Capitalism funnels money into the hands of a few; cooperatives bring marginalized people into the wealth system just as certain European counties such as Spain, Italy,and Latin American counties.”  They consider themselves above the groveling wage earning masses by exercising cooperation not  competition.

Some of the groups also partnering with NoBAWC are the Mandela foods in the West Oakland Mandela Village, which some have described as having more employees than customers. Or, the Lusty Lady in San Francisco which describes itself online as spending their day working at their desks in the nude.
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On November 18, 2012, EWTN’S Raymond Arroyo, Moderator of  The World Over Live Program, produced a segment on the recent 2012 Fall USCCB Conference, showing Archbishop Dolan at the podium addressing the gathering of Bishops.

Archbishop Dolan came in for criticism recently when he invited both Presidential Candidates Barack Obama and Mitt Romney to address the Al Smith Dinner participants.

It was felt that the Archbishop evidenced a little too much political opportunism giving voice to Obama who is a decided opponent of all things Catholic while appearing to juggle good with the bad.

During this EWTN report the Archbishop was heard to suggest to his compatriots that a greater attempt at humility and temperance would be good for all Catholics.  He suggested a return to meatless Fridays as one way to show our Catholic faith.

Well, this struck me as humorous. Recently the Obama Department of Health and Human services came out with a pitch towards better health by instituting meatless Mondays. So can we again say compromise?  We have on the one hand a secular meatless monday and a Catholic meatless Friday.  That’s two days a week abstaining from protein of the beefy kind. This could only create joy amongst the environmentalists and Peta.

The same EWTN World Over Live Program produced a segment on a sad incident in Ireland. On October 28 a young East Indian pregnant wife was rushed to an Irish Hospital with a dire illness. She subsequently died from the complications of septicemia  apparently caused by a misdiagnosed miscarriage which had begun prior to admittance into the hospital.

The young woman’s name was Savita Halappanavar. She was 17 weeks pregnant. According to the news report published by LifeSiteNews, the woman and her husband requested an abortion which was refused because it was an inappropriate procedure to perform on a patient so desperately ill from blood poisoning. It would not have save the woman’s life nor that of her preborn baby.

Pro abortion activists in both Ireland and India are using this unfortunate situation to once again pressure the Catholic church in Ireland to concede to allowing abortions.

There is still a great deal that is not known about this situation and many questions as yet unanswered by both the reportedly grieving husband and his family all of whom have returned to India.

Stay tuned to this situation, more will be coming up about it.