Tag: USCCB

RenewAmerica notes latest cool trend in refugee resettlement: bringing in minors and gays

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Well, gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, transgender and the questioners!

RenewAmerica says about itself:

RenewAmerica is a grassroots organization that supports the self-evident truths found in the Declaration of Independence, and their faithful application through upholding the U.S. Constitution, as written. Its purpose is to thoughtfully and courageously advance the cause of our nation’s Founders.

The organization is for ALL people who consider themselves loyal Americans. It has no philosophy, image, or agenda beyond this one unifying premise: America must return to its founding principles if it is to survive.

RenewAmerica is thus nonpartisan and nondenominational.

Readers should know that there is a huge push worldwide to place under government supervision tens of thousands of so-called “unaccompanied minors.”  Just this summer we learned that the US alone is expected to ‘take-in,’ under the care of the federal resettlement contractors (which includes the US Conference of Catholic Bishops) 20,000 of the youths without parents (I’m not saying all 20,000 have sexual orientation problems!).   When those “youths” turn 18 they are free to leave the care of the contractors.

Here is the post that caught my attention this Sunday morning, entitled:  A gay subculture in the USCCB? Say it ain’t so!

Blogger Matt Abbott begins by citing Catholic World News:

Bridging Refugee Youth and Children’s Services (BRYCS), a project of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Migration and Refugee Services, has updated and expanded its training to workers in federally-funded refugee resettlement programs, in part to ‘address the needs of particularly vulnerable groups of children, including youth who may be gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered’….

Abbott goes on to comment:

The revised Tier One Training Manual – copyrighted by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and published with the assistance of a Department of Health and Human Services grant – notes that ‘it is important to be alert for homophobic remarks among the staff. If any are made, discuss in a non-judgmental way how these kinds of remarks may make a young gay resident feel.’

‘Exploring Complexities’ – the new Tier Two Training Manual, also copyrighted by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and published with the assistance of a Department of Health and Human Services grant – presents a scenario in which two male minors are ‘rubbing each other with their feet on the other’s genital areas.’

The training advises:

After allowing the staff to discuss this, you can suggest that the young men should learn not to engage in sexual contact in the residence, and they should develop a stronger sense of sexual boundaries – to keep sexual activities private, even after leaving the residence…

The BRYCS manual makes no reference to moral law or the practice of virtue.

Abbott reports that he reached out to Father Perozich, a priest of the Diocese of San Diego, who demonstrates the growing schism within the American Catholic Church between conservatives and the Catholic Left which dominates the USCCB.  Remember readers, the USCCB is funded primarily by you.

Father Richard Perozich (emphasis mine):

It appears that a practicing or promoting homosexual subculture may be active in the bureaucracy of this USCCB committee. It needs to be weeded out before a Catholic agency can help in a resettlement process. Youth with [same-sex attraction] need to be guided to the truth of sexuality as man or woman and not be harassed with labeling as LGBTQ.

If an agency cannot promote the Catholic truth, then the Catholic agency is not ready to assist in resettlement work. No one should ever abuse any human being by calling them gay, lesbian, transgendered, or bisexual, whether in false affirmation or in derision. Perhaps the committee will be faithful to Jesus and work with these people even if it is at odds with the perverse government standards.

You pay for almost every dollar of the USCCB’s annual income!

Go to page 11 of the USCCB’s 2012 annual report and note that they spent $70.3 million that year and $69.6 million is from the government (those ‘refugee travel loans’ are your money too!)—from you, the taxpayer!

The USCCB should decide if Catholic teaching trumps Caesar’s money.    It’s no contest and they have obviously already chosen!

We have dozens of posts on the USCCB, click here for more.

US Catholic Bishops begin massive lobbying campaign for amnesty

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is a good article at Breitbart, but like most other news outlets they assume that the Catholic Church’s campaign for amnesty is being driven by its desire to add Hispanics to its dwindling flocks (and to show that they are good Christians), but few ever look at the fact that the Bishops are being funded by massive amounts of taxpayer dollars and the so-called Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill that passed the Senate will give them gobs of more money!

Right now the Bishops are over 98% funded by tax dollars* and they are being paid to get refugees and asylees hooked up with social services.  S. 744 contains a slush fund for the Bishops and others of the religious Left to do that same work for the newly legalized—help them do their paperwork, find jobs, find welfare, sign them up for Obamacare, and supposedly get them English lessons.

I’m a fallen-away Catholic and the main reason is this:  I want no politics mixed with my religious worship, and the Church will have to really make sure they get the Hispanics because hearing a Leftwing political message (as is planned for September 8th) from the pulpit will only serve to drive more conservative-minded people from the Church.

Kevin Appleby, USCCB lobbyist pushing amnesty for money!

Breitbart (hat tip: Cathy):

If you attend Mass on September 8th, it is likely the priest’s homily will be less about spiritual matters and more about the political imperative of passing an amnesty law for the nation’s 11 million illegal immigrants. Last week, the Catholic Church announced a massive, coordinated effort to press Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform, including a pathway to citizenship. Catholics make up the largest single religious group in Congress.

“We want to try to pull out all the stops,” Kevin Appleby, the director of migration policy at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, told the New York Times. Appleby said the immigration issue was at a now-or-never moment. “They have to hear the message that we want this done, and if you’re not successful during the summer, you’re not going to win by the end of the year.”

The Church is planning advertising, phone calls and marches targeting 60 Catholic House Republicans. Over 130 members of the House are Catholic, including Speaker John Boehner.

The Bishops are working harder on amnesty then on Obamacare’s contraceptive mandate and abortion!

The Church’s effort in support of amnesty seems broader and more coordinated than its actions against an ObamaCare mandate requiring coverage of contraception. In recent years, the Church has been more vocal in its criticism of abortion, but even that seems muted in comparison with current plans on immigration reform.

The Bishop’s lobbyist Appleby (Director of Migration Policy) will be pimping for amnesty and giving out marching orders in Minneapolis on September 4th.  If you live in the area you might want to drop in on this meeting.   After all, you help pay Appleby’s salary.

*The USCCB and YOUR money

Now check out the USCCB’s migration fund 2012 annual report (pdf here) and note on page 11 their income and expenses (I’ve rounded the numbers for easier reading).

Out of a revenue stream of $71 million, federal grants and contracts (that is you the taxpayer!) gave them $66 million.  They also received $3.6 million from refugee travel loans.  Your tax dollars pay for refugees to fly to America and then they are supposed to reimburse the government, but in fact a big chunk of whatever the refugee contractor extracts from the poor refugees, the contractor gets to keep—in the Bishops case, in 2012, that is $3.6 million that does not go back to the US Treasury.

Taking Caesar’s money!  98% of their budget is paid by the US taxpayer!

So, the USCCB only received $1.4 million from private sources of money (parishioners), but they paid salaries of $8 million!

The USCCB would wither on the vine and not be able to lobby if you, the taxpayer, weren’t funding them!

So, come on Breitbart!  Let’s go a little deeper with your reporting!

Update:  Here is an old story, but related.  Catholic Charities in Memphis, TN dropped its refugee program in favor of spending more time and money on Hispanics.   They will be well-placed for the newly amnestied!

US deporting minors by the thousands? Don’t believe it

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The Huffington Post had a story a few days ago that I didn’t get around to posting because it seemed really too incredible to be true.   Upon reflection, I think it’s a complete fabrication.

We learned from the ‘horses’ mouth’ in June that the Office of Refugee Resettlement was expected to be in charge of over 20,000 “unaccompanied minors” this fiscal year (it was over 14,000 in 2012).  So, unless the ORR was seriously shopping in camps abroad for kids*, it’s hard to believe we sent a large portion (“the majority”) of the 13,454 cited in this story back to Mexico.

This is the Lutheran’s logo for its unaccompanied kids program. Most of the “kids” are teens, not cute little tykes like this one.

HuffPo (with a hat tip to a source called Latino Rebels, which says it all!):

U.S. immigration authorities apprehended 13,454 unaccompanied Mexican minors last year, the majority of whom were swiftly deported to their home country, news site Animal Político reported last week.

The figures, provided by Mexican consulates in U.S. border cities and submitted to the country’s lower house of Congress last month, highlight the increasingly common problem in the United States of unaccompanied minors crossing the border illegally.

Unaccompanied minors are normally repatriated within three days of being detained by Border Patrol, or taken in by the Office Refugee Resettlement. ORR often releases the minors to family members in the United States while they go through deportation proceedings.

The kids (LOL! the Dreamers!) aren’t deported.  The US taxpayer pays refugee contractors like the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services to find places for the kids.  The illegal alien youths are released into America when they reach their late teens/early 20’s.

Update (sort of!):  Be sure to see this history of the unaccompanied minors scam, at VDARE in 2006.

*Sheesh, I sure hope we are not shopping for boys at Zaatari with the excuse of keeping them from becoming child soldiers!

Catholic Church in Chicago to sponsor two refugee families

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

O.K. So what is so interesting about that?

They are talking about raising $1600 privately to sponsor a family for the first three months, and that is about what Catholic Charities or the Bishops get per family from the US taxpayer.  So does this mean that since the local church will sponsor for three months, the local Catholic Charities contractor gets to pocket what they got from the feds for the same family?

I’ve been an advocate for private sponsorship from the earliest days of writing this blog, HOWEVER, my plan would leave the contractor-middleman (in this case some bureaucracy of the Church out of it), and my reform suggestion is that the family be supported privately for a year or two (three months is hardly time enough to find a job and be self-sufficient) with NO dependence on taxpayer-funded social services.  In that way, the parishioners wishing to help a family would be doing so out of a purely private charitable motivation and there would be a heightened opportunity for the family to truly assimilate.

Here is the story from Chicago.  Again, does this mean the funds received by the contractor for this family can be pocketed?

RIVERSIDE – Earlier this year, St. Mary Parish of Riverside started an initiative to help refugee families resettling in Chicago become self-sufficient in three months by providing housing, job opportunities, financial support and a medium to develop relationships with the church’s parishioners.

St. Mary Parish began its Refugee Sponsorship Committee in March in collaboration with the Catholic Charities Refugee Resettlement program and plans to help resettle two families by the end of this year.

It needs to raise $1,600 per family to be able to supply services, including a welcome pack, subsidized rent for 90 days, an apartment in Rodgers Park, financial help and assistance in finding a job.

The church has raised $1,556 so far and has furniture in storage for the potential apartment.

“The goal is to ease [them] in,” Dalia Rocotello, a member of the Refugee Sponsorship Committee said.

To be clear, my plan would naturally limit the number of refugees entering the US by the amount of private charity available for their care until they are truly on their feet.

Why the Catholic Bishops are wrong on immigration

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

That is the title of a piece by writer Brad Miner at The Catholic Thing.   Miner asserts that the primary thrust of their interest in the so-called “comprehensive immigration reform” effort now being debated in Congress is driven by a desire to increase the number of Catholics in their dioceses.    He may be be correct, but only partially, since he leaves out any mention of the payola the Bishops receive from the US taxpayer to ‘service’ immigrants in need of social services and jobs.

He says the Bishops are “apolitical when it suits them.”  And, he does say they are farther to the political Left then some Democrats on immigration.  And, they love Obama on immigration (that is me saying that, not Miner).  But, Miner never mentions Caesar’s $$$$ that the Bishop need to survive!

I’m grateful though for one more voice saying that the Bishops are wrong (they are wrong too because they are doing a terrible injustice to the American working class in need of jobs and impoverished Americans of all races and faiths who could use their help!).

Here is how Miner’s piece begins (Hat tip: Judy).  Emphasis below is mine.

BEFORE his role in the “Gang!”

My purpose here is neither bishop-bashing nor politician-baiting, and I have no reluctance in supporting an immigration measure that respects the rule of law and actually accomplishes the goals set down by the U.S. Senate’s most recent “Gang of Eight” in its Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013 [S.744]: progress towards citizenship and secure borders.

However, my guess is that this law – which can’t even be rendered as a proper acronym! – will be about as effective as that monument to futility, the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. Marco Rubio’s career – he’s one of the Eight – may get a boost from . . . BSEOIMA, but as long as the border’s a sieve and Latin American governments are either socialist or plutocratic, nothing will change the pace of illegal immigration except a depressed economy in el Norte.

Anyway, I suspect Sen. Rubio, who is Cuban-American and speaks Spanish, believes he is the answer to the Republican Party’s recent electoral woes, and the GOP is just desperate enough to believe him. We’ll see how that works out in 2016.

And I suspect Christian compassion plays a role in animating both the politicians’ and the Catholic bishops’ concerns about the plight of Central American immigrants.

That said, immigration reform as it now stands is a baldly political business, and that’s as true of the bishops as it is of the politicians: votes for the latter; devotees for the former.

Read it all.

As for Rubio and the other Republicans pushing amnesty, for all of their efforts to get dead parrots to speak, it won’t even get them votes.  It will get him money from big business for his campaign war chest, but Rubio has already been abandoned by a large segment of the conservative base.

For new readers, we have an extensive archive on the USCCB here.