Ad Attacking Group: Petty and Irrational

To the Editor:

My jaw dropped in astonishment when I opened your September 9 issue. I find it incredible that The Chronicle would carry a bizarre and petty ad chastising the Catholic Campaign for Human Development simply because C.C.H.D. refuses to underwrite abortion and homosexual political action.

I’m the head of a charitable organization which serves abused and neglected children. I spend my days seeking money from sources which I feel are sympathetic to our mission. It would be downright stupid of me to solicit a foundation, individual, religious group, etc. that I knew from the outset was fundamentally opposed to our philosophy of care, or opposed to some method we used to provide that care. And it would seem beyond the pale of rational behavior for me to then publicly lash out at such institutions simply because they find the purpose of my organization to be incompatible with their beliefs, interests, or agendas.

Nobody forces the organizations which sponsored that ad to solicit the Catholic Campaign for Human Development for support. The attack they launched against the Catholic Campaign for Human Development is positively hubristic in its arrogance, for these groups assume that by virtue of their existence, they deserve Catholic support.

Please know that there is one member of the philanthropic community (and, coincidentally, a Catholic) who believes that the Catholic Campaign for Human Development has every right to fund only organizations which promote values germane to Catholic moral and social teaching.

J. Steven Covington
Director
Sunburst Foundation
Sunburst Youth Homes
Neillsville, Wis.

***

To the Editor:

The Catholic Church, like any other religious entity or membership-based organization, has a right to decide who among its adherents is awarded monies from the national offertory collections of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development. To compare the work of the sainted Cesar Chavez, who labored tirelessly for the cause of social justice on behalf of farm workers everywhere, with gay and lesbian advocacy groups, abortion proponents, et al. is ludicrous. The inherent dignity of all human beings is one thing; the Church’s inability to validate the lifestyle choices of individuals who profess Catholicism while contradicting Catholic moral teaching is something else.

I ask myself if these groups would consider funding a home for women that provides alternatives to abortion, a counseling program that stresses chastity until marriage, a program of evangelization that is Scripturally based in theory and practice, or a theology-formation program that draws from the 2000-year-old history of Catholic Christianity, and I regretfully answer myself that the probability of that happening is not at all likely. Yet these same groups complain about the Catholic Church’s rigidity.

In my work of fund raising, I learned very early on that Catholic funding agencies have a vested interest in supporting the work of legitimate Catholic organizations. The same can be said of Protestant and Jewish foundations with regard to Protestant and Jewish organizations and programs.

It seems that these self-described victims of “McCarthyism” need to wake up to a strong dose of reality and focus their resources in direct program costs rather than in national advertisements that will not sway Catholic moral teaching. I am surprised that they do not consider receiving Catholic funding and support as an affront to their dignity and purpose.

Jesse Salinas
Director of Development
Catholic Diocese of Brownsville
Brownsville, Tex.