Inland Congregations United for Change

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Inland Congregations United for Change

Inland Congregations United for Change (ICUC) is a long-time grantee of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD), having received 11 grants totaling $565,000 from the CCHD, including $50,000 from the 2020-2021 grants cycle.

In 2019, we reported ICUC for having a trans-activist as their Clergy Organizer.  Adam Wedeking is still shown on ICUC’s staff page holding a “Trans is Brave” sign.

Given this, it’s not hard to understand why ICUC would publicly celebrate “Pride Month” in promotion of homosexual and transgender ideologies.  On July 1, 2021, ICUC posted to facebook its own logo overlayed with rainbow colors, saying, “As Pride month comes to a close we would like to let all our LGBTQIA+ community know ICUC stands with you 365 days a year in the fight for equity.”

Currently, ICUC is seeking to hire “an LGBTQ Youth Fellow whose role will be to help build a base of LGBTQ youth leaders in the Coachella Valley region.”

Membership in Faith in Action

The CCHD absolutely forbids organizations from membership in organizations acting against Catholic teaching.  In an FAQ on the USCCB website, the CCHD directly answers the question about whether grantees may be members of coalitions that oppose Catholic teachings.  In answer, the CCHD firmly stated, “CCHD will not fund groups that are knowingly members of coalitions that have as part of their organizational purpose or coalition agenda, positions or actions that contradict fundamental Catholic moral and social teaching.”
Despite this requirement, however ICUC is an affiliate of the radically pro-abortion Faith in Action, as can be seen here.

Faith in Action is a coalition of 49 members, many of whom receive funding from the CCHD. Faith in Action itself received $500,000 in 2016 from the CCHD, when it was called the PICO Network.  However, Faith in Action publicly supports abortion, its leaders openly slammed the overturn of Roe v. Wade, and FIA participated in electioneering activities in support of President Joe Biden and other Democratic candidates. The organization also supports LGBTQ+ ideologies. All of the pertinent information regarding Faith in Action on the whole is contained in the fully detailed report on FIA (see here), but the most important point is this:

On the day of the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Dobbs v. Jackson case which overturned Roe v. Wade, Faith in Action took a formal position condemning the ruling, while vowing to “stand with women” calling it “oppression” to deny a woman the right to murder her child through abortion.

In an official press release, published on Faith in Action’s website, Faith in Action said:

“Clergy and organizers with Faith in Action, the largest grassroots, faith-based organizing network in the United States, are speaking out against today’s Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, following a leak of the Supreme Court opinion.”

FIA’s executive director Rev. Alvin Herring called the decision, “a huge blow to women in this season of despair,” and declared that ”[w]e must speak out against dangerous policies that chip away at having agency over their own bodies.”

Rev. Dr. Cassandra Gould, FIA’s Senior Strategist at FIA’s Washington, DC office, claimed that the “SCOTUS decision to overturn ROE” was “legalized, judicially enforced oppression” that “shows contempt for the Creator.”

Rev. Kamilah Hall Sharp, member of FIA’s Organizing Clergy Board, said that the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade was “deadly,” and that she was “enraged at the injustice, the lack of care for women and that most people who voted to take this right away will never have to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term in their bodies.”  She then had the audacity to claim that “As a follower of Jesus,” her rage about the overturning of Roe “aligns with [H]is.”

This is the entire statement as it appeared on the Faith in Action website:

Conclusion

ICUC is a member of the radically pro-abortion Faith in Action network, it employs a trans-activist, posted in support of LGBTQ ideologies, and is seeking to corrupt the youth by hiring an LGBTQ Youth Fellow whose job it will be to “build a base of LGBTQ youth leaders.”  There’s no way this organization should be receiving Catholic funding.