UPDATE (09.13.2022): As of this date, 13 September 2022, Food for the Poor is NO LONGER on the “Not Safe” list. Following a very fruitful conversation with a senior executive vice president of Food for the Poor, the Lepanto Institute has confirmed that FFtP no longer has any association with the Association of United States Catholic Priests (AUSCP). Furthermore, FFtP followed through on a promise to investigate its relationship with Jamaica Aids Support for Life (JASL) and based upon our research and their own findings, has discontinued any and all support for that organization. Because of this good news, we are very happy to mark FFtP “Safe” on our Charity Reports List.
Food For the Poor (FFtP) is a popular Christian charitable organization that does much laudable work in alleviating poverty, especially in Latin American and Caribbean countries.
We scoured FFtP’s documents and activities and did not find any evidence that FFtP directly supports activities against Catholic teaching. However, FFtP does collaborate with and financially support outside organizations, some of which use that support to provide and promote contraception, primarily condoms, in areas FFtP works.
An example of this is Jamaica Aids Support for Life (JASL), a longtime partner of FFtP in Jamaica.
As far back as 2005, FFtP established and funded a clinic for JASL and in 2008, donated J$500,000 to expand the clinic. FFtP is also listed in JASL’s 2017 annual report as an in-kind donor partner.
JASL is a major provider of condoms in Jamaica.
For example, p. 17 of JASL’s annual report shows a JASL worker distributing condoms to a truck driver, while boasting that JASL passed out over 80,000 condoms in Jamaica that year.
P. 20 explains how JASL used “Safer Sex Week” to encourage and educate Jamaicans to use condoms, not just for protection against HIV, but also to protect against “unwanted pregnancies.”
These JASL Facebook posts from June 11th, June 15th, and June 25th 2021, shows JASL’s continued promotion of condoms:
JASL’s own website features prominent promotion of condoms as part of “what we do.”
On July 7, 2021, a faithful Catholic reached out to FFtP about these outside partnerships and received the following response the next day from FFtP’s donor services representative Elaine Hopper:
Thank you for your inquiry, and for your desire to help the destitute who live in developing countries in the Caribbean and Latin America.
Food For The Poor is an interdenominational charity that aids the poor of all faiths and is supported in the United States by churches and individuals of all denominations. Birth control is a sensitive issue, where there is disagreement among the denominations and even within churches. Food For The Poor goes about its work to serve the destitute, while avoiding partisan issues that may affect our interdenominational relationships and the fulfillment of our mission.
Our primary objective is to provide emergency relief assistance, clean water, food, medicines, educational materials, homes, support for orphans and the aged, skills training and micro-enterprise development assistance. We do not provide birth control in any form to our beneficiaries. However, we cannot speak for our many partners if they do or do not. [emphasis added]
On July 15, 2021, the Lepanto Institute sent the following email to Food For the Poor:
Hello,
I am a researcher for the Lepanto Institute. We run and maintain a list of charities and research whether these charities are safe for Catholic funding based on Catholic moral teaching. We have a very large audience, and Food For The Poor is perhaps one of the most requested charities for us to research due to your excellent and innovative work among the poor.
We are preparing a report that indicates that Food For the Poor does not directly violate Catholic moral teaching in its own activities, but unfortunately does give substantial support to organizations that do. As such we will not be able to recommend FFtP as a safe charity to our readers.
For example, FFtP has given Jamaica Aids Support for Life (JASL) major support, building a clinic for the organization and later expanding it, and JASL lists FFtP as a major in-kind donor in its annual reports. Unfortunately, JASL is a major supplier of condoms in Jamaica and promotes condom use regularly. A quick example can be found on JASL’s own website.
We understand if an organization must work with various partners in the course of assisting the poor. However, by funding and giving operational support to organizations such as JASL, the resources Catholic donors provide to you are ending up supporting things that gravely violate Catholic moral teaching.
We are holding off on the publication of our report until Wednesday, July 21, to give you a chance to respond. We are willing to change our report if you can ensure that you will no longer fund or give operational support to JASL and are willing to institute safeguards to prevent future funding of contraceptive promoting organizations. Otherwise, if you simply wish to provide a statement, we will carry it in its entirety.
Despite being given a full week, Food For the Poor did not respond by the 21 July deadline. Unfortunately, our website was hacked the very next day and we were unable to post our report until now.
Because FFtP is unable to ensure that it is not supporting or facilitating the spread of contraception among the poor through its partners, despite all their excellent work, we cannot recommend FFtP as worthy of Catholic donations. We hope that FFtP implements mechanisms or safeguards to prevent such activity, and look forward to the day where we can give full recommendation to FFtP.
I’m sure they care. Condoms prevent useless eaters and poverty–they think. Thanks for the info. I don’t give to the Campaign for Human Development either even though the USCCB supports it. Never have since its inception.
God Bless you for following up on a loyal supporter’s information with your own in-depth investigation into this particular charity (which I am pretty darn certain you would do following ANY negative information that came your way about ANY organization on your list) and then not only calling them out to explain, but doing so with a totally non-judgmental “Christian” fairness and the chance to rethink their outside partnerships in light of Catholic moral teachings. Then, you practice what you preach with your final decision — unless and until they promise change, you remove them from the list.
Oh, how we wish our Church hierarchy could stand as firm for the teachings of the One, Holy, Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church………
I have donated each month to FFtP for at least 25 years. Main reason besides their work was they
said they do not sell your name to others and as far as I know they have kept that promise. NOW
this! How sad that I will have to remove their organization. I give to Students for Life also, are they
OK? It gets hard to know where to donate. Thank you for your service of this watch.
How about Covenant House? Safe or not? Appreciate your doing this. So hard now to know who is honest upfront and behind the scenes. Glad to know why FFTP is on your list as they did reach out to me after I cancelled my gifts to them.
Many thanks for the info on Food for the poor. Are the Franciscan Mission Associates, Association of Marian Helpers and Fr. Ho Lung’s Missionaries of the Poor favourable distributors of aid to the Poor? Will mail you a donation. Don’t do any monetary transactions on the media.
Thank you for bringing honesty to many areas I have given support in my 80 plus years. It’s harder to distinguish the subtle ways “outsiders” come into the fold of agencies that once were strictly Catholic in their charitable works. Your hard line is very much appreciated.
I visited JASL web site.
It does not promote use of condoms for birth control, AIDS, and other STD transmission is the stated purpose of condom distribution.
I can’t thank you enough Michael and the Lepanto Institute for the stirling investigative work that you do. It is thorough, fair and completely reliable. No one else is doing this valuable work.
May God bless you Michael and all your family and everyone who works for your apostolate. Hope your health continues to improve too Michael. May the two hearts of Jesus and Mary be your protection and consolation always. X
Oh thank you so much, my husband and I have always been big supporters of Fftp. I had been looking for them on your website to see if they aligned with the teaching of our Catholic Faith. This is most helpful for us going forward we will give our funds to a more Authentically Catholic organization. Thank you for your research.
As a Cathilic I am so very disappointed and surprised to learn of FFtP’s partnership with entities that support and facilitate practices that are in moral conflict with the Catholic Church. I have been a small but willing contributor for years but am now saddened that I am unable to continue.
If you were to disassociate FFtP from those questionable partners I would be more than happy to pick up where I left off.
I have kept all the pictures of the children you have sent over the years and prayed for them and their families each day and, of course, will continue to do so.
Very truly yours….
As a practicing Catholic I have given monthly donations to FFTP due to their low administrative costs and helping thousands from starving, building safe homes and water systems. I will continue to do so even with your finding they funded a clinic that provides condoms. Hard to find even Catholic help organizations that don’t rub elbows with others that don’t practice our dogmas in every way.
Is the current “Christ’s Mission Appeal ” just a renaming of the “Catholic Relief Services”? In other words, is the “Christ’s Mission Appeal” a reputable Catholic fundraiser?
I visited JASL web site.
It does not promote use of condoms for birth control, AIDS, and other STD transmission is the stated purpose of condom distribution.
In the words of Pope Francis’s,
“It’s not my place to Judge”!
If I look hard enough, I can find reason to not support anything of perceived value. Including Peters Pence.