This past Wednesday, March 6, the Population Research Institute (PRI) and the Lepanto Institute (LI) released a scathing report on the activities of Catholic Relief Services (CRS) in three African countries.
The report was the result of a year-long investigation that included in-depth reporting on the targeting of young African women by the Population Control Lobby (PCL) and its affiliated Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO’s) that are funded by the American taxpayer through the Agency of International Development (AID).
CRS is an NGO funded through the same U.S. AID channels; the investigators focused on the relationship of the work of CRS and that of certain population control projects in Cameroon, Zimbabwe, and Lesotho.
Some might find it difficult to find these countries on a map, but together they comprise an area larger than that of New York and California combined.
These three countries are home to some 47 million Africans. And according to the Population Control Lobby, that number has to be reduced – drastically.
And they are doing it under the banner of “AIDS Prevention.”
In the past twenty years or so, vast sums of federal and foundation money have been invested in PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief). The program is described by the U.S. State Department as “the largest commitment by any nation to address a single disease in history, enabled by strong bipartisan support across ten U.S. congresses and four presidential administrations, and through the American people’s generosity.”
Of course, that “generosity” comes from our mandatory taxes, but that’s not the worst of it.
“AIDS” was known forty years ago as the “Gay Plague,” but within a decade, men acquiring the disease through homosexual sexual behavior had become “victims.”
Whereupon the popular “AIDS Prevention” label eventually became a universal “seal of approval” for a number of initiatives.
Unfortunately, those include “population control.”
In Africa, PEPFAR’s good intentions (“elimination of AIDS by the year 2030”) have been quietly expanded, and often distorted, to include “elimination of babies” – through programs targeting young girls.
The PRI/LI Report outlines the findings of the investigation:
“Over the course of a year, LI and PRI received from our investigators thousands of pages of documents, recorded conversations, and photographs that, taken together, reveal that CRS has, in multiple countries, referred girls as young as 10 to abortion and contraception providers, been the “prime implementer” of projects that, through a network of partners, is designed to spread and promote contraception and condoms, and has even corrupting the good morals of young girls with its own materials.”
PRI President Steven Mosher addressed the results of the investigation by posing several questions that were framed in the light of papal teaching.
“We do not take these questions lightly,” Mosher said, “nor should we. These are questions that involve the health of not just bodies, but souls. I am talking about the souls of girls and young women, aged from 10 to 24 years of age, who are the targets of certain USAID/PEPFAR-funded projects in Africa in which CRS has participated in various ways.
“Our investigation and analysis was guided from beginning to end primarily by two papal documents: Caritate in Veritatis (CV) and Pope Benedict’s 2012 motu proprio, “On the Service of Charity” (SC).
“Did these charitable projects in Africa follow Catholic principles or did they involve commitments which negatively affect the observance of those principles? (SC, 1 § 3). Here we were looking chiefly at Catholic moral theology governing human sexuality.
“Were local diocesan Bishops in Africa allowed to exercise their legitimate authority over “the activities and management of these projects to ensure that the norms of the Church’s universal and particular law were respected”? (SC 4 § 3) (cf. canons 1300 CIC and 1044 CCEO).
“Were the intentions of the American faithful, who make donations and bequests in the understanding that these funds will only be used in accordance with Church teaching, being respected in these African projects? (SC 4 § 3).
“Did CRS take care to ensure that it selects its personnel from among persons who share, or at least respect, the Catholic identity of these works? (SC 7 § 1).
“Did CRS take care to ensure that the African faithful—and here we are talking about young girls—are not led into error? (SC 9 § 3).
“Finally, did CRS receive financial support from institutions, in this case USAID and PEPFAR, that pursue ends contrary to Church’s teaching? Related to this is the question: Did CRS receive funding for the implementation of initiatives – even in part – whose ends are not in conformity with Church teaching? (SC 10. § 3).
“The answer to this last point is, quite obviously, yes on both counts. USAID and PEPFAR pursue ends, among them “increasing contraceptive prevalence,” and “increasing the contraceptive mix,” that are clearly not consonant with the Church’s teaching. Furthermore …. CRS is a lead implementing partner in the USAID/PEPFAR-funded project called DREAMS, which has the firmly stated goal of increasing the use of contraceptives among adolescent girls and young women.
“The answer to all the remaining questions, however, is no. We believe that the CRS’ projects we investigated are at odds with the Church’s teaching and do not, I repeat, do not adhere to Pope Benedict’s 2012 motu proprio, ‘On the Service of Charity.’ This, in itself, is a matter of scandal,“ Mosher concluded.
Steven Mosher then summed up the findings of the investigations. “While the specific violations of Catholic teaching that we have identified are new, but this overall pattern of behavior on the part of CRS is not new. Lepanto Institute, Population Research Institute, and many others have identified many similar violations over the past ten years.
“These violations have continued, in my view, because they are, in a very real sense, the cost of doing business with the federal government in general, and with USAID in particular. USAID/PEPFAR projects require that projects ‘promote condom use,’ ‘increase the contraceptive mix,’ and ‘promote the contraceptive prevalence rate’ in order to qualify for funding. A truly Catholic charity that refused to be complicit in such morally corrupt projects would be refused funding. Compromises have been made, and various cut-outs, carve-outs, set-asides and artful dodges have been constructed to try and disguise these compromises.
“At the end of the day, it’s hard to avoid concluding that it’s all about the money. Every year, CRS receives over a billion dollars in funding from the federal government, nearly three times what it receives from the Catholic laity,” he concluded.
Read the full report here.
