Everyone knows that the Catholic Church has a long and proud history of immigrant outreach. Everyone knows that the Catholic Church, like virtually every religion in the history of the world, believes marriage should be confined to one man and one woman. It should come as no surprise, then, that Catholics who financially support pro-immigrant organizations expect that their contribution will not fund entities that reject Church teachings on marriage.
The Chicago Archbishop, Francis Cardinal George, made a principled decision not to funnel funds, via the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD), to the Illinois Coalition of Immigrant and Refugee Rights, a pro-gay marriage institution. This has led to an uproar among some in Chicago. Their angst is contrived.
As Cardinal George said in his open letter of July 29, organizations that apply for CCHD funding do so knowing that they are expected to respect Church teachings. No one forces them to apply; they are free to secure funds elsewhere. But when they violate their agreement, and are called out for doing so, they should not pretend to be victims.
Mark Brown, a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, wrote that all along he has said that “it’s a mistake for the church to use the grants to punish organizations that it knows to be doing good work in the community….” So when an organization applies for funding, and is then denied because it violated an agreement that it voluntarily entered into, it is being punished for doing so. Amazing logic. Hope any handyman who enters into an agreement with Brown knows about his moral compass.
If Cardinal George denied funding to a pro-immigrant organization that was aligned with racist or anti-Semitic causes, he would be heralded as a champion of human rights. But because the issue is gay marriage, he is condemned. The politics are so transparent that it’s making a joke of those promoting it.
