On March 6th, the Population Research Institute and the Lepanto Institute held a joint press conference to release the findings of a year-long investigation into Catholic Relief Services. We detailed in the press conference, and in a 131-page report filled with evidence, that CRS has been involved in programs pushing contraception, abortion education, and graphic sexual education on girls as young as ten.
In spite of our requests, CRS has not yet released a full public statement responding to the recently released investigation findings. That does not mean they haven’t responded at all, however. In correspondence with top donors only, CRS has given vague denials. The organization has refused to address the copious evidence in our report and attempted to discredit our report by reminding their top donors that “the authority to make such assessments rests with the bishops and theologians.”
Well, it is clear that CRS did not go through our report as “meticulously” as they claimed or bothered to watch the press conference. If they had, they would know that not only did we have a moral theologian evaluate the evidence and reaffirm our call to defund CRS, we also had already received support from a U.S. bishop at that time of the press conference.
The aforementioned moral theologian was Christian Brugger D.Phil. (St. Hugh’ s College, Oxford), professor of Christian Ethics, author, and advisor to both medical and diocesan leaders on moral and ethical issues. Dr. Brugger reviewed the findings of our investigation and found that they established, “beyond reasonable doubt, clear examples of five expressions of grave evildoing.”
First, Catholic Relief Services is clearly “the primary agent of evildoing,” as far as its literature that targets children and adolescents promotes masturbation. Our investigator in Cameroon found that CRS produced material with a CRS logo that promotes masturbation as a form of “safe sex” as part of its KIDSS project.[1] CRS’s My Changing Body program in Lesotho condones masturbation as well.[2] Unfortunately, this is not the first time that proof of CRS’s masturbation promotion has been uncovered.
Second, “CRS formally cooperates in others’ grave evildoing in as much as it publicly endorses, refers to, and financially supports organizations that actively and very publicly promote direct abortion, contraception, and masturbation.” Evidence of these immoral activities, enabled through partnering organizations, was found in all three countries we investigated. In our field investigation of Zimbabwe, for one example, our investigator met with a number of CRS’s implementing partners and other stakeholders in USAID’s DREAMS project. There they learned how these partners were collaborating with CRS in the DREAMS project, and how they were promoting and providing contraceptives to clients referred to them by CRS Pathways.[3]
Third, in cases where there was no formal cooperation, CRS was nonetheless materially cooperating with evil. “CRS’s close working relationship with organizations that promote evil poses a very substantial risk of grave scandal” Dr. Brugger found. The sin of scandal, he explained, “makes serious wrongdoing seem less serious, and hence makes the choice for evildoing much easier, and leads vulnerable people to conclude that bad acts are good.” The young girls who are the victims of these “Sexual and Reproductive Health” programs may believe the immoral aspects of the program are moral, and good for them, because CRS backs them, he said.
Fourth, “CRS’s evildoing badly undermines the credibility of the Church’s witness to the Gospel in Africa.” In its mission, CRS serves as an apostolate of the Catholic Church. As Dr. Brugger points out, “its first purpose should be the advancement of the teaching of Jesus through its unique mission to care for the poor.”
Instead, CRS advances an agenda that endorses and encourages abortion, masturbation, and contraception, all of which are in complete opposition with Church teaching. Through these programs, CRS is defying Jesus’ call for us to “protect human life, guard the souls of his little ones, and uphold the chastity of the marriage bed.” While not all of the programs that CRS funds and administers involve these immoral aspects, commingling good with evildoing misleads the general public, leaving the impression that the Church is “hypocritical in its definitive moral teachings on life and sex.”
“If the Church cannot be trusted to teach the truth on matters pertaining to the Fifth and Sixth Commandments,” Dr. Brugger asked, “how can it be trusted to teach truth on other matters pertaining to salvation: for example, the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, the reality of Heaven and Hell, and the necessity of the Church for salvation?”
Dr. Brugger’s fifth, and final example, was the misrepresentation of CRS as a Catholic organization to garner donations from the faithful Catholics at Mass. “Catholics who financially support CRS, rather than other secular aid organizations, do so because they believe that its relief services are marked by something distinctively Catholic,” he said. “By engaging in wrongdoing in the ways just mentioned, CRS acts unjustly to those donors by misrepresenting itself.”
Dr. Brugger concluded by reaffirming our call that the bishops of the United States “both individually and collectively should withdraw their support from Catholic Relief Services.” At the time of the press conference, PRI had already received one response from a United States prelate, Bishop Joseph Strickland, who provided us with us a statement to be read at that press conference:
“I urge everyone to read and take note of the work of Michael Hichborn and his collaborators. The serious concerns he documents involving how funds donated by faithful Catholics are used in ways that undermine Catholic teachings must be addressed. Michael has been exposing this corruption for years but his protests and documented concerns have been ignored for the most part. The time to address this is long past and it is essential that the Church in the United States finally acknowledges that this must stop.”
In addition, Fr. Robert McTeigue, S.J., Ph.D., a professor of philosophy and theology who has spoken worldwide on moral issues, offered this statement based on the study’s findings:
“Promoting or practicing promiscuity, contraception, or abortion constitutes bad medicine and bad morality. From the premise that the current collaborative report published by the Population Research Institute and Lepanto Institute is accurate one may reasonably infer that Catholic Relief Services in Cameroon and Zimbabwe have partnered with entities promoting bad medicine and bad morality, namely, promiscuity, contraception, and abortion.”
We continue to await a full public response from CRS, and we work and pray for them to cease their involvement with immoral programs and partnerships. As PRI President Steven Mosher asked at the press conference, “What does it profit a Catholic organization to save lives if in doing so it is losing souls in the process?”
As the news spread, Catholic media outlets like ACI Africa have faced the same silence in their requests for comment from Catholic Relief Services regarding our investigation.
“CRS has yet to respond publicly to the many media outlets who have requested a statement,” says Mosher. “Worse still, the organization has been suggesting to donors–without adducing any evidence whatsoever–that they should ignore our report.”
“In the absence of any real corrective action, we would suggest that faithful Catholics who receive CRS’ solicitation letters should just ignore them,” Mosher continued. “Additionally, they should ask their bishop to withdraw his support from Catholic Relief Services.”
******
[1] See page 13 in the full report.
[2] See page 98 in the full report.
[3] See pages 72-93 in the full report.
