…..where you will be made to feel guilty if you aren’t interested in the message about helping the (foreign) stranger when you see poverty and homelessness all around you!
I don’t really want to write about this again, but awhile back I said that every time I saw a Catholic publication promoting propaganda about their charitable work for refugees and immigrants without mentioning that they are paid MILLIONS of taxpayer dollars for their ‘religious’ good works, I would write about it.
***Update*** Worse than we even thought! Reader finds 2016 funding. Read all about it here.
This is from a South Jersey Catholic publication. Not a word about the fact that the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (as one of nine federally funded resettlement contractors***) is paid millions annually from the US Treasury.
For nearly 50 years, the Catholic Church has celebrated National Migration Week, which kicks off this weekend, Jan. 7. This year’s purpose takes on a special significance in light of Pope Francis launching the two-year Share the Journey campaign in September 2017.
Share the Journey is a worldwide effort to build understanding and support within local communities for immigrants and refugees who have come to new lands to rebuild their lives. The campaign is sponsored globally by Caritas Internationalis and in the United States by Catholic Charities USA, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Catholic Relief Services.
[….]
“National Migration Week, and the Share the Journey campaign in particular, are invitations to people of all ages to engage with migrants in a meaningful way, and to be warm and welcoming of these newcomers,” noted Patrick Barry, director of Refugee and Immigration Services at Catholic Charities, whose mother was a Cambodian refugee who fled the Khmer Rouge regime in the 1980s.
“It’s been amazing to see how many groups, nonprofits and institutions have engaged in this campaign and demonstrated their support,” he said.
[….]
“As Catholics, we believe in the human dignity of all people. And so we are called to stand with refugees and immigrants as our brothers and sisters,” said Kevin Hickey, executive director of Catholic Charities, Diocese of Camden, and Catholic Charities USA Trustee.
And so, why not stand for the human dignity of your fellow Americans (first!) who are struggling with hunger and homelessness?
The answer: there is no money in it!
The USCCB’s Migration Fund is 97% funded by you, the taxpayer.
See my most recent write-up on funding for contractors where I report on the USCCB’s 2014 annual report. After I found this one and first reported on it a few years ago, I have never found a more up-to-date financial statement for their migration fund. I wonder why!
I look forward to the day when a Catholic publication reports on the above facts!
Catholic parishioners might be perfectly fine with taking that much federal money, so why are the Bishops afraid of telling them?
*** The contractors. The USCCB resettles the most refugees of the nine that monopolize all resettlement in the US.
- Church World Service (CWS)
- Ethiopian Community Development Council (ECDC) (secular)
- Episcopal Migration Ministries (EMM)
- Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS)
- International Rescue Committee (IRC) (secular)
- US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) (secular)
- Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services (LIRS)
- United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB)
- World Relief Corporation (WR)