A Blog for Dallas Area Catholics

Tacit acceptance of contraception from US branch of CRS? February 27, 2012

I’ve blogged here many times about the manifold problems with the many Catholic charities whose primary source of funding is the government.  Aside from the moral problems with “charity at the point of a gun,” much evidence indicates that Catholic Charities, Catholic Relief Services, and many similar agencies are staffed largely with secular humanists whose practice of the Faith is frequently weak, at best.  A certain Jon Merrill, described as “the founder and director of Militia Caritatis Dei, a traditionally orthodox, catholically Catholic international charity which conspicuously rejects government funding,” has written an op-ed that highlights these structural problems with many Catholic charities, but he also makes an incredible claim.  Having worked for and with CRS in the past, and thus being privy to certain internal documentation that may not be available to the public, he quotes from a document produced by the US-branch of Catholic Relief Services that states the following:

It is advisable to bring to post any medications and over-the-counter drugs used regularly and to make arrangements with a U.S. pharmacy for refills. Pharmacies are available in Port-au-Prince but often stock only European pharmaceuticals. Contraceptives are available—but not all kinds. It is preferable to bring your own.

Uhhh……that’s more than slightly problematic, if true.  I don’t have any independent confirmation of the claims Merrill makes, but…….is anyone surprised?  Does it not fit the apparent culture of Catholic Relief Services and/or Catholic Charities?  Catholic Relief Services was chastised not long ago by the head of the Secretariat in the Roman Curia responsible for such organizations for refusing to evangelize – at all.  In fact, CRS’s culture is such that evangelization is seen as anathema, as counter to their mission, and as somehow “un-Catholic.”  That’s an enormous problem right there.  The many problematic aspects of Catholic Charities, from their complete addiction to government funding and their relentless lobbying for socialist wealth transfer schemes, go beyond the scope of this post.

Is any bishop likely aware of the advice offered by CRS to its employees?  Probably not.  And while that is a problem in and of itself, it’s not the main point.  The main point that I have  made, and that Merrill makes in his article, is that this secular humanist worldview will permeate all Catholic charities as long as they are funded by the government and staffed by individuals with such a worldview (who, in turn, tend to be attracted to such work because it is government funded).  Personnel is policy.  Merrill writes:

But there is only one presidential candidate interested in moving us toward that ethical end [termination of all so-called foreign aid] and he will not be elected. If “foreign aid” continues, and it will, the only way for the bishops and American Catholics to stop their voluntary collusion in the promotion of the global sexual revolution is for their agencies to stop taking government money [Yup.  What I’ve been saying for years] Of course, in that unlikely scenario, we American Catholics will still be paying in-voluntary tribute, through our taxes, to the sexual revolution overseas, thanks to a coercive, religious-freedom-violating system of “soft despotism”…which currently has the enthusiastic endorsement of our bishops.

One wonders how they can endorse it? There are reasons of ideology (a particular ideology which, for all of its well-intentioned “humanitarianism,” is in clear violation of the Church’s own teaching on subsidiarity). One can also follow the money. Perhaps, on that happy day – brought closer by the Rammer Obama? – when the bishops’ own institutions of etiolated “Catholic” “charity” are no longer themselves benefiting directly and monopolistically from that system of soft despotism, the bishops will have the leisure to more disinterestedly and dispassionately reconsider their default coercive ideology.

Unfortunately, the portion of the Church which resides in the United States is the focal point of that condemned heresy (Americanism) which asserts that material charity far, far trumps spiritual works of mercy.  It is the focal point of the view that the most important work the Church can do is to serve the material needs of people.  Such a view was condemned by Pope Leo XIII, Pope St. Pius X, and Pope Pius XI.  But the Church in this country has been a willing accomplice of the steady growth of government intrusion, and has become increasingly addicted to that steady stream of “charity.”  I don’t know what can break it, by human means – it’s going to take prayer, fasting, and something beyond human capabilities to break this cycle of dependence and coertion.

In the interim, these moral calamaties, and the Church’s apparent embrace of them (at least on the lower levels) will continue.

That’s why I cannot and will not give money to CRS or Catholic Charities (or even many other organizations, sadly).