A new report from the Lepanto Institute once again places the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) —the controversial aid program of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops— at the center of a scandal that questions its moral criteria and its very reason for being. The investigation denounces that, under “community land trusts” (CLT) initiatives, more than a million dollars of Catholic funds would have been allocated to entities led by socialist activists and promoters of ideologies contrary to Church doctrine.
A network of organizations with openly socialist roots
According to Michael Hichborn, president of the Lepanto Institute, the very concept of community land trusts was born from socialist circles with the explicit intention of removing properties from the market and fostering forms of collective exploitation. “The Church has repeatedly condemned socialism, and yet the CCHD is generously funding it,” states Hichborn.
The investigation also recalls that the ties between the CCHD and socialist thought are not new. A 1980 report already showed directors of the organization participating in a conference led by Michael Harrington, then president of the National Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee. Harrington went so far as to praise Karl Marx in front of the CCHD officials and openly called for a “union between religion and socialism”.
Million-dollar funds, Marxist leaders, and ideological promotion
The report identifies 13 CLTs that in the last three years received more than a million dollars from the CCHD. Among them stand out: San Francisco Community Land Trust, Baltimore Community Land Trust, Inland Equity Community Land Trust and South Bay Community Land Trust.
The leaders of several of these entities —such as Tom Wetzel, Nicole Fabricant, Anabel Nevarez and Elizabeth González— maintain direct affiliations with socialist and communist movements, including Democratic Socialists of America and the League of Revolutionaries for a New America.
The funded organizations, the report notes, actively promote objectives inherent to Marxism, such as the redistribution of wealth, the transformation of economic structures, and the abolition of private property.
Support for the LGBT agenda with money from Catholic faithful
Hichborn also warns that many of these entities openly promote the LGBT agenda, to the point that one of them called to vote in favor of an initiative aimed at protecting “marriage” between people of the same sex.
“Whoever authorized these organizations to receive money from the Church is either completely incompetent or aligned with their objectives,” states the president of the Lepanto Institute. “There is no excuse for Catholic funds to end up in groups that promote ideologies contrary to the faith”.
The Lepanto Institute calls for closing the CCHD
In light of the gravity of the facts pointed out, the Lepanto Institute reiterates its call to the U.S. bishops to definitively close the CCHD, an organization whose trajectory —according to the report— has been marked for decades by the infiltration of ideas foreign, and even contrary, to Catholic teaching.