In dioceses across America, bishops send out lists of collections that are to be taken up in individual parishes throughout the year. Some are local, but many are promoted by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. There are, for example, Peter’s Pence, Missionary Sunday, and the Retirement Fund for Religious. One of these, the lesser-known Campaign for Human Development, has been such a cause for concern that in 2008 the American bishops began to question how it works and even suggested phasing it out...
As Lawrence J. Engel relates in “The Influence of Saul Alinsky on the Campaign for Human Development” (Theological Studies, December 1998), to which this article owes a large debt, the CHD began in 1969 as American cities were burning down: Newark, Washington, Detroit, Los Angeles...
With rising anarchy towards the end of the 1960's, Saul Alinsky demanded reparations from churches. It was a shakedown routine that worked well. Many mainline denominations caved. The United Methodist Church, for example, paid out $1.8 million. The United Church of Christ, $1.1 million. What were the Catholic bishops going to ante up? The Campaign for Human Development, that’s what.
All this sounded terrific to newly minted Vatican II Catholics. The Church, under enormous pressure, appeared to be right in the midst of the fight for justice and peace in America. What was not clear to the vast majority of Catholics contributing to the Campaign was that many CHD grants were given to agencies and charities that promoted far-left ideologies and engaged in barely concealed political activism...
Few pastors or parishioners had an inkling about the nature of CHD’s work. Parishes across the country responded enthusiastically to the very simple idea of helping America become a more just nation. The first collection (November 22, 1970) came to $8.4 million. No bishops’ collection had ever been that large...
It needs to be acknowledged that, at the time, many very good Catholics, filled with more enthusiasm than information, supported, and still do, giving grants to organizations that promote “a systematic way out of poverty.” Yet so many hard liners have, since then, worked very hard to make sure that the words “social justice” are synonymous with “community organizing” in the Alinskyite mode and not charity in the traditional sense...
When transparency is in place, the CHD seems anachronistic, strangely out of sync with the times and ready to enter its own sunset. It represents, at best, only one view of social justice, and an increasingly marginalized one at that. These are some of the reasons raised here that bishops might consider making it optional or, better, doing away with it altogether.
