Bishop Paprocki has suggested that the annual Bishop's national collection for the CHD be replaced by one for Catholic education. Discontinuing the campaign: good idea; replacing it with an alternative: not so good.
He argues that the goal, helping the poor, is valid but that we do not know that this program is succeeding. He correctly indicates that education is the surest path out of poverty. Financially the program is in trouble; they have exhausted their resources in recent years as donations are not covering their distributions. Conservatives have no doubt discontinued contributions when it was disclosed some years ago that the fund was supporting organizations tied to leftwing, anti-Catholic activities (birth control, abortion) as well as political support for the Obama campaign. Theoretically, better vetting of recipients could solve this problem. But a deeper look will show that the model itself is problematic from a Catholic perspective.
The objective of the CHD is not simply the corporal works of mercy: feed the hungry, clothe the naked, etc. Rather, the intent is to change systems that keep people in poverty. It ambitions social change; systemic change; political action for justice. It is guided by the philosophy of Saul Alinsky, the father of community organizing, an atheist Marxist who exerted immense influence on the Catholic focus on social justice after the Council in the late 1960s.
Such action for social justice is intrinsic to the lay mission to reflect God's grace in every area of society, culture, economics and politics. The problem is that political action and policy decisions always have multiple, uncertain, complicated and unanticipated consequences. Even the best intended actions and policies can have bad consequences. The political arena is one of uncertainty, risk and prudential decisions about which participants will disagree and fight. It is clearly the arena of the laity. The hierarchy...priests, bishops and pope...have no inherent competence. They have authority in faith and morals, but not in economics and politics. For the hierarchy to ambition social change is a clericalism whereby it intrudes where it does not belong and is not competent. Therefore, it is a bad idea for the bishops to fund initiatives for social justice.
May the Campaign for Human Development rest in peace!
Do we need to replace it with a national campaign for education? Do the bishops need another bureaucracy? No and No!
By the principle of subsidiarity, schooling belongs at the local level: family, parish, community; not at the national or global level.
The crisis of the Church is in no small part the over-institutionalization, the overreach of the hierarchy beyond its proper boundaries. Our current pope and many bishops assume responsibility for the well being of the entire society...climate, equality, education, care for the suffering...and deprive the laity of their identity and mission. The mission of the American episcopacy in our time is to divest, declutter, surrender, simplify, and strip down to the simple tasks of preaching the Gospel and presiding over our worship. An let the laity teach their young, feed the hungry, and fight for justice.
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