The Chickens Have Come Home to Roost: Obama, ACORN, and the Catholic Campaign for Human Development

From our friends at Catholic Citizens of Illinois:

By Stephanie Block

For nearly forty years, The Wanderer has followed the Catholic Campaign for Human Development's funding of radical, left-wing political organizations, many of them carrying the brand of Saul Alinsky. The Wanderer also covered the first Call to Action conference - the months of "hearings" leading up to it, its orchestrated structure and contrived demands - and our reporters commented on the Alinskyian nature of it, not merely in its tactics but in its outcomes. In hindsight, we can see that organized dissent in the Church was a product of organized parishes, filled with Alinskyian-trained laity.

The Catholic Campaign for Human Development is responsible for that. [my emphasis]

It is also responsible, in some part, for the fact that forty years later, we have a virulently pro-abortion, pro-homosexual presidential candidate whose principle political training has been in Alinskyian organizing. While he - Barak Obama - was lead organizer in Chicago for the Developing Communities Project, it received a $40,000 Catholic Campaign for Human Development grant in 1985 and a $33,000 grant in 1986.

While he was in Chicago Obama was trained by the top Alinskyian organizers. One mentor was the ex-Jesuit, Greg Galuzzo, lead organizer for Gamaliel....

....millions of dollars of Catholic money over the last four decades going into Alinskyian community organizing....

Relatively little from the Catholic Campaign for Human Development collection goes to "help the poor." .... [Even though Catholics were led to believe that they were "helping the poor"]

...The Catholics involved in the extensive trainings these networks offer are not catechized in Catholic principles of social activism or political analysis but in Marxist analysis and praxis.....

The problems are manifest and deeply rooted:

Catholics trained in Alinskyian thought become confused about the comparative moral weight of the issues they encounter in the public arena. They also become confused about the legitimate authority of the Church....

Even the politically naïve are fascinated by the pejorative dismissal of Obama as a "community organizer" and his campaign's rebuttal that to disrespect community organizers is to disrespect Catholic Action.

It is not authentic "Catholic Action" for Catholics to engage in such Alinskyian-trained "community organizing." It is antithetical to true social justice and Catholic teaching.

I have to whole-heartily agree with Stephanie Block when she states:

After 40 years of funding the bad guys, it's time to stop.
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NB: In the epigraph of his book, Rules for Radicals, Alinsky notes

"Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins -- or which is which), the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom -- Lucifer." [Source]