CCHD Funds Controversy: False Claim by Gamaliel Foundation

For the last 15 years, I have personally investigated and exposed the activities of hundreds of organizations receiving funds from the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD).  During that time, bishops and officers of the CCHD have gone to great lengths to deny that there are any problems with CCHD grantees while continuing to ask for funds.  In April, Ralph McCloud – the former CCHD director – suddenly departed his post without any explanation.  Furthermore, it has been discovered that the CCHD has run out of funds, and this week, the bishops are discussing the future of the CCHD – including whether or not the campaign should even continue.

Last week, the usual suspects of the Revolutionary Left (National Catholic Reporter, America Magazine, etc) published several articles begging the US bishops to keep the CCHD in place.  In fact, one of the CCHD’s most favored networks of grantees – the Gamaliel Foundation – published an open letter to the US Bishops asking them to maintain the collection and disbursement of grants.  In part, the letter reads:

“We write to you in advance of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ 2024 Annual Spring Plenary Assembly with grave concern for the future of CCHD. We have been alerted that the number of grants approved this year, as well as the size of those grants, will likely be significantly reduced.

We know that CCHD has been under attack for many of its 50-plus years by a vocal and extremist right-wing group in the Catholic Church whose agenda does not appear to align with the Scriptural and moral mandate to address the problems of the poor and marginalized in society. Recently, they engaged in a public “hit job” on CCHD (see article from National Catholic Reporter) claiming that CCHD funds have been mismanaged.

In response to the claim of mismanagement, nothing could be farther from the truth based on our experience. Through the years, CCHD has consistently required our affiliates to provide a full and public accounting of the use of those funds.” (emphasis added)

This statement is supremely ironic, considering the fact that in 2012, the Gamaliel Network was completely untruthful with the CCHD about its relationship with an organization that had taken a formal position on same-sex “marriage.”  When I proved to the CCHD that what Gamaliel told them was untrue, Ralph McCloud canceled the meeting we were supposed to have and cut off all subsequent communication.

In early 2012, my associate and I discovered that the Gamaliel Foundation was a member of, and on the leadership committee of an organization called the Fair Immigration Reform Network (FIRM).  At issue was the fact that FIRM had taken a formal position in favor of same-sex “marriage.”  On this archived page from the FIRM website from February 2012, the Gamaliel Foundation is identified as a national member of FIRM:

In 2010, as a member of FIRM, the Gamaliel Foundation added its voice to FIRM’s call for LGBT inclusion in immigration reform.

Consistently using phrases like “we believe” and “we support,” the statement issued by FIRM makes it abundantly clear that it reflects the intention of the entire organization, including members, to support same-sex “marriage” in immigration reform.

Once our investigation was complete in July 2012, my associate sent letters out to CCHD directors throughout the United States to inform them of what we had discovered regarding grantees under their jurisdiction.  One of those letters went to Ms. Helene Paharik, then Director for the Department for Human Dignity for the Diocese of Pittsburgh.  The reason for the letter was that a Pittsburgh-sponsored CCHD grantee called PIIN was identified as an affiliate of Gamaliel, which (as indicated above) was found to be involved with FIRM’s pro-same-sex marriage approach to immigration reform.  On August 4, 2012, Ms. Paharik sent an email to PIIN’s executive director, Lois Campbell, and the email was carbon copied to Ralph McCloud, Randy Keesler (a regional coordinator for the national CCHD), Bp. Zubik, and my associate Rob Gasper.  The email specifically addresses and asks about Gamaliel’s “engagement in advocacy of same sex marriage… Specifically advocacy on the issue of immigration as it relates to Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered persons rights to family (re) unification.”

Four days later, we received a letter from Ms. Paharik stating that our information was erroneous.  According to the letter:

“The Gamaliel Foundation severed relations with the Fair Immigration Reform Movement BEFORE the Pittsburgh Interfaith Impact Network received CCHD funding in 2011-2012. (emphasis original)

The Gamaliel Foundation, in compliance with Catholic teaching reflected in CCHD guidelines, severed relations with the Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM) in May 2010.  The Gamaliel Foundation states that it was not aware of nor involved in the decision by FIRM to issue a statement in support of adding “permanent partners” into a section of the Immigration and Naturalization Act.  According to Gamaliel, soon after they became aware of FIRM’s statement, the Foundation cut all ties to FIRM.” (emphasis added)

It is vitally important to note the alleged timing of Gamaliel’s severed relationship with FIRM.  Gamaliel claimed to have “cut all ties to FIRM” in May 2010.  However, we discovered a zipped file on Gamaliel’s website titled, “FIRM Strategy Session,” with all the files marked 2011.  The page in which we discovered these files on Gamaliel’s website was: http://news.gamaliel.org/documents/CRI/cri.html The link no longer works, but we still have all the documents.  The page looked something like this, and we’ve uploaded the documents we saved from FIRM’s website so you can click and see the evidence for yourself:

FIRM Strategy Session

• FIRM Contact List – Membership 2011
• FIRM Membership Map 2011
• FIRM-Structure 2011
• List of current FIRM member organizations plus brief descriptions 2011

The “FIRM contact list,” which states that it is “Effective Dec. 2011” – a full year and seven months AFTER Gamaliel was said to have “cut all ties” with FIRM – was hosted on Gamaliel’s website and lists both Ana Garcia Ashley (Gamaliel’s executive director) and Juan Soto (Gamaliel’s Civil Rights of Immigrants Director) as contact members of FIRM.

The FIRM document titled, “List of current FIRM member organizations plus brief descriptions 2011,” indicates that the Gamaliel Foundation was not only a “founding member” of FIRM but was (at that time) “currently” sitting on the Executive Committee (EC).

Also found in the zip files on Gamaliel’s website was this spreadsheet for a FIRM-related “planning grid,” showing an intention to meet specific goals for FIRM for the year 2012.

The “Firm Structure 2011” document, found on Gamaliel’s website, contained this memo which indicates that FIRM members are required to participate in monthly conference calls and meet in person at the annual FIRM summit, and at the summit, they are to nominate and vote for members of the Executive Committee.

The mention of the conference calls and the summit are extremely important to making our case because we also discovered a FIRM conference call that took place on December 9, 2011 – again, a full year and seven months AFTER Gamaliel told the CCHD that it had “cut all ties to FIRM” – wherein the executive director for Gamaliel, Ana Garcia-Ashley, is identified as a participant on the call.  Not only that, but the call shows that Gamaliel was once again nominated to the Executive Committee of FIRM.  We saved the ENTIRE Google Groups page, which can be viewed here.  But for the sake of space, here are the truncated images proving that Gamaliel was represented on the call, and that it was once again nominated to the Executive Committee of FIRM:

And to prove even further collaboration with FIRM, nearly 2 years AFTER Gamaliel told the CCHD it had “cut all ties,” in March of 2012, Gamaliel marched with FIRM as a member in a reenactment of the Selma protest of 1965.

The bottom line here is that the Gamaliel Foundation very clearly provided false information and documentation to the CCHD to hide its ongoing relationship with FIRM.  This information was immediately provided to Ms. Paharik, who in turn forwarded it to Ralph McCloud.  This is confirmed in an email exchange with McCloud on August 22, 2012, and at the time we were working on scheduling a meeting with McCloud that September.

After some back and forth, we were finally able to schedule a meeting for September 14 – just three weeks from the time we provided this information to the CCHD.  On September 12, without warning, McCloud inexplicably canceled the meeting.  We were concerned as to whether this meant we needed to reschedule or if the meeting was off, regardless.  McCloud’s reply effectively slammed the door on all possibilities of rescheduling and that was the last time we formally met with the CCHD.  The email exchange is below:

At this point, not only was Gamaliel caught being untruthful, but the CCHD was caught covering it up while refusing to discuss the matter with those who discovered and proved the falsehood for what it was.  As it stands, this is still an unresolved problem the CCHD has never addressed.  And now, the Gamaliel Foundation – the organization which was clearly being untruthful to the CCHD about its relationship with FIRM – is defending the CCHD, begging the bishops to maintain CCHD funding.

Here’s the thing – if the CCHD is willing to cover a falsehood coming from one of its favorite networks of grantees, what else is it willing to cover up?  A couple of weeks ago, we drafted and sent an open letter to the US Catholic Bishops asking them to permanently shut down the CCHD.  Given what we’ve proved here, alone, we see no alternative.