Redirect CCHD Money to Catholic Schools!

I received an email letter today that I've printed below and it gave me an idea. Without a good education, many are condemned to lifelong poverty. So instead of putting money in the collection basket this week for the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, donate instead to a faithful Catholic school serving the poor. If we really want to end poverty (the stated goal of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development), educating the children of the poor is a powerful way to do it.

Not a penny to community organizers - every cent to grants to make Catholic schools affordable for the poor. In inner cities Catholic schools are often the only alternative to failing public schools that put out functional illiterates. The $200 million dished out over the past 40 years by CCHD and funnelled into community organizing groups like ACORN was often spent to undermine Catholic teaching. Think of the impact if that money had instead been used to educate young people to be the future leaders in their communities as well as exposing them to the truths of the Catholic faith. 

And now the letter:

To whom it may concern,



I attended a meeting on Monday evening with about a couple of hundred others including Mayor Amicone, Councilwoman Gronowski, Councilman Murtagh among others. This meeting concerned the designation by the Archdioces of NY of Christ the King,school, Yonkers (along with St. Bartholemew and St. Mary locally) as "At Risk" of closing due to the Archdiocese possibly ending subsidy.


The Catholic Church has a three fold mandate from it's Founder, Jesus Christ, to teach, to govern and to sanctify. Clearly, the idea of closing schools in order to strengthen them is Newspeak and has no foundation in reality. One of the questions that evening was "Where is the money from the Cardinal's Appeal? If it went to the needy-tell them we need it!"


Those funds may be long gone, however this Sunday(Nov 21st) the Church will ask everyone to contribute in a second collection to something called the "Catholic Campaign for Human Development"or CCHD. Ostensibly this money is for the poor. However, it's real purpose is funding Socialist community orginizations which "empower" people to revolution along a path developed by Saul Alinsky who dedicated a book to "that first revolutionary -Lucifer!"


I would ask you to print or publicize this letter in the hopes that those who read it shall refrain from the second collection for the CCHD and instead send the money they would have donated to one of the above mentioned "At Risk" schools. Kindly make it clear that the money you send is marked "for the school".


Thank you in advance,


Denis Giannelli


The Fr. Fahey Institute


Yonkers

When Are you Being Uncharitable?

I recently had a comment on one of my blog posts from someone who said Barack Obama is one generation removed from the jungle. It was an unnecessary and gratuitous slur and because of the term "jungle bunny" has racist undertones. When I admonished the anonymous poster for his lack of charity, he wrote back that after reading my blog and newsletter for a number of years, he didn't think charity was a requirement. Wow! Take that!

Actually, charity is important to me and I try to be charitable in my writing. These days writing about the hard truth isn't easy, because, as Rebecca Teti, a contributor to Faith and Family Magazine recently wrote in Someone’s wrong on the internet, many expect writers to avoid anything that might make anyone feel bad. So writers can't discuss abortion because it makes aborted women feel guilty. They must keep mum about the depravity of homosexual behavior because that's intolerant and lacks compassion. Remarriage after divorce, condemnation of public scandals, praying at abortion mills -- they are all off limits lest writing about them makes somebody feel bad. And so it goes.As Teti says, the only conversation left is the weather. She concludes that, "this privileging of passions endangers rational thinking about the common good." Amen!

I think the individual who commented on my blog about my lack of charity is one of those who believes speaking the hard truth is intrinsically uncharitable. Teti points out that many evaluate content using their emotional responses as SCUD missiles to annhilate conversation about particular issues. Here's her prescription for a cure: "Only by holding ourselves to a standard outside ourselves, only by liberating our ideas from our passions, can we reason clearly, debate productively and form a more perfect union." Indeed. Everything is not about myself, and if I make it so, I'm trapped in a tiny little world that begins and ends with my own skin.

I'd be interested to know if readers think I'm uncharitable. (Underline that word think. This is about reason and evidence.) Please post if you like, but I expect concrete examples from the blog or the website. Don't worry about hurting my feelings, this isn't about feelings remember. It's about the truth spoken in love. And if I'm being uncharitable it would be an act of mercy to tell me so. Because if I'm lacking in charity, as St. Paul says, I'm a clanging gong.

But keep in mind that charity is not synonymous with "being nice." The gospel definition of charity is to love God above all things and our neighbor as ourselves. Fr. John Hardon says it means to love as Christ loves with a selflessness that always looks to the good of the other. 

Remember the corporal and spiritual works of mercy are practical examples of charity and among them are instruct the ignorant, counsel the doubtful, and admonish the sinner. That sometimes requires addressing difficult issues that may make someone "feel" bad. If a person's actions ARE bad, maybe that feeling is just what he needs to spur him to repentance.

By the way, I will not be posting any anonymous comments for this blog entry. I never say anything that I'm not willing to stand behind. So, while I welcome comments, I will not post any from "Anonymous."

Catholic Family Illustrates What it Means to Love Our Neighbor!

This is a video about a Virginia Catholic family who is a real example of what love is! Thanks for the example, Shak and Robin.