CCHD Announces New Reforms Proposal

I participated in a 30-minute media conference call regarding the proposal being put forward by the CCHD to reform their grant making apparatus.

Leading the call were Bishop Roger Morin, chair of the USCCB subcommittee on CCHD; John Carr, head of Justice, Peace, and Human Development at the USCCB; and Ralph McCloud, head of the CCHD.

The proposal entitled, “The Review and Renewal of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development,” will not be finalized until it is approved by the bishops at their annual November meeting.

The list of 2010 grantees will not be made available until the grantees have been thoroughly reviewed under the new guidelines.  The grantees will also be required to sign a contract with the USCCB not to advocate policies like abortion and same-sex marriage.

A new staff level position is being created to guide the review process along with a panel of theologians. 

Whether the proposal contains adequate enforcement provisions remains to be seen, but the tone of the call suggested a substantial effort is underway to respond to the CCHD critics.

Bishop Morin was emphatic in apologizing for the mistakes made by CCHD — “It’s an imperfect world,” he said several times.  He also underscored that only a few grantees had been revoked and did not acknowledge the much larger number about which serious doubts have been raised by the Reform CCHD Coalition.

The annual CCHD collection will be held on Nov. 20-21 in spite of the fact that the grantee list has not been published.