The U.S. bishops met in executive session in June during their annual spring meeting in Louisville, Kentucky, to discuss the future - and possibly the fate - of theCatholic Campaign for Human Development, the bishops’ longstanding anti-povertyprogram.
Based on whatleaked out from that session, the bishops gave enthusiasticsupport to the campaign, known colloquially as CCHD, which is largely funded by a national collection typically taken up the weekend before the U.S.Thanksgiving holiday.
Despite thissupport, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops laid off half of the CCHDstaff just two weeks later. Many bishops were caught off-guard since theylearned the news after their people.
Reorganization within USCCB
Other USCCB personnel cuts took place in the Department of Justice, Peace, and Human Development, of which CCHD is a part, at the same time. The staff had beentrimmed earlier, but this time, policy advisers for Africa and Asia – the tworegions where the percentage of Catholics is growing the fastest – were let go.This, too, was news to the bishops.
According toReligion News Service, multiple people with ties to the USCCB said they hadbeen informed that staffing across the department was cut by 50%.
The unfolding ofevents was reminiscent of the USCCB’s reorganization of its communicationsministries in 2022, which resulted in the closure of the 102-year-old CatholicNews Service’s domestic operations, cutting 14 jobs in the process – and withsome bishops registering shock and surprise at the action.
Further reading: End of an era: Catholic News Service to shut domestic operations
Archbishop JohnWester of Santa Fe, New Mexico, said in an essay in the Jesuit journal America, "I believe the USCCB is quietly taking extraordinary actions that curtail oursacred social mission."
"After thebishops' strong support of our social mission two weeks prior, how did thishappen?" Archbishop Wester asked. "After my 26 years as a bishop, Iam appalled that the USCCB would undermine a vital function without a processinvolving consultation and transparency," he wrote.
Steven NabieuRogers, executive director of the Africa Faith and Justice Network, a CCHDgrantee, agreed with Archbishop Wester, telling the National Catholic Reporternewspaper, "It can be more accurately characterized as really a retreatfrom the mission of the church." He cited Pope Benedict XVI’s words thatthe church "cannot and must not remain on the sidelines in the fight forjustice."
Further reading: When US Catholic charities work in coalition, laws get passed
A June 28 memosaid other cuts at USCCB headquarters in Washington, D.C., are being made inthe general secretariat, finance and accounting, general counsel, generalservices, human resources, and information technology departments. No detailswere provided.
Critics against grant recipients
However, slicing and dicing at CCHD have been topics of discussion in Catholic circles. Established morethan 50 years ago in response to ongoing poverty in the United States, the Campaignfor Human Development was the most popular national collection until theRetirement Fund for Religious collection was born in 1988. As vocations shriveled, the collection bought time for women’s and men’s religious orders to care for their aging members.
The campaignsplits its revenues 75-25, with 75% staying in the diocese for local grants and 25% going to national headquarters to fund regional or national initiativesbeyond the scope of an individual diocese.
However, over thepast 15 years, the campaign has been the focus of persistent attacks by some Catholic conservative circles who accused it of partnering with organizations thatsupport legal abortion and that it used socialist and Marxist tactics with grant recipients.
Campaign officialsissued new guidelines and added the word "Catholic" to their names in an effort to quell the controversy. It hasn’t silenced any of the critics. The job cutswill make oversight of grant spending more difficult. Some bishops, though,have already washed their hands of CCHD and now conduct their own in-dioceseCCHD-style collections.
The attacks andthe defections have resulted in lower CCHD collection figures for severalyears. Even so, in the 2010s, CCHD had more than $40 million in reserves andwas instructed to spend it down. Archbishop Timothy Broglio of the Archdiocesefor the Military Services, USCCB president, said June 13 in Louisville,"Unfortunately, they did that better than perhaps was desirable."
A deficit of several million dollars
CCHD reportedlyhad to float a loan from the USCCB to meet funding commitments. Starting in 2019, it had made five-year commitments to several grantees. But before theend of 2022, CCHD had to tell some grantees it would not be able to fulfill thefifth year of the funding commitment in 2023. Some grantees ultimately received six months of funding from that group.
In 2022, CCHDoperated at a $5.7 million deficit, spending about half of its $17 million net assets to award about $12.7 million to 192 grant recipients despiteonly taking in about $9.2 million in total revenue.
As for more recentnumbers, Bishop John Stowe of Lexington, Kentucky, chairman of the USCCBsubcommittee that oversees CCHD, said in Louisville the subcommittee had yet toreceive "a clear financial report" from the USCCB that "laysout" the CCHD’s complete financial picture.
Bishop MichaelBarber of Oakland, California, a Jesuit and one of Pope Francis’ first U.S. episcopalappointments in his papacy, told Crux, a Catholic news website, that he has ahard time promoting CCHD because he "can’t show real results for the amount ofmoney that has been spent over the years."
Deficit is not aproblem for the USCCB itself. A June 28 internal memo declared that the "finances of the (bishops’) conference are solid." At its fall 2022 meeting, the USCCB reported total assets – property, investments, its Washington headquarters building, and other financial instruments – in the neighborhood of$275 million.
