As a practicing Catholic and former Colorado governor, I am proud that my church is a powerful leader in serving the poor and advocating for public policies that help the most vulnerable among us. So it is surprising and deeply troubling to learn that the bishops’ national anti-poverty campaign is being compromised in pursuit of a divisive, conservative political agenda.
Compañeros, a small non-profit in rural Colorado that helps poor immigrants with health care and other basic needs, is one of many groups around the country now caught in the cross-hairs of culture war politics. Compañeros may lose its funding from the bishops’ Catholic Campaign for Human Development because it also happens to be a member of a statewide coalition of immigrants rights organizations that has opposed discrimination based on sexual orientation. As a New York Times investigation recently detailed, a growing number of organizations that live out the Gospel values of Jesus by serving immigrants, the poor and the homeless have seen their funding cut off if they have any connection, however distant, to groups that support equality for the gay community.
Conservative activists who put politics and narrow ideology before the common good are directing this mind-boggling right turn. A few groups, including the American Life League, united to start a “reform” coalition that scrutinizes the U.S. bishops’ anti-poverty campaign, which provides some $8 million annually to about 250 organizations around the country.
For decades, Catholic conservatives have targeted the campaign, but in recent years an organized group of activists has ramped up the pressure on church leaders. It’s good to see that some Catholic bishops are standing their ground. Last fall, the bishop who chairs the subcommittee for the anti-poverty campaign and the bishop who leads the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ domestic justice committee sent a memo to all bishops decrying the “repeated accusations” of those who hold “clear ideological and ecclesial agendas.”
It is hard for me not to take these efforts to undermine the church’s anti-poverty work personally. I am a Catholic whose identity has been forged by the church’s bold witness to justice and human dignity.
Inspired by Catholic nuns and priests who educated me as a young man, I was taught to put my faith in action by serving the least, the last and the lost, as Christ modeled in his ministry. Along with my wife, I was a Catholic missionary in Zambia for three years back in the late ’80s. There, as the director of a food and nutrition center, I experienced first-hand the remarkable Catholic commitment to compassion for all God’s children — regardless of an individuals’ race, creed or sexuality. This is the Catholic Church that so many admire as a source of hope for providing sanctuary to refugees, healing the sick and feeding the hungry.
It is also difficult to comprehend how the hierarchy can believe that complying with conservative pressure groups is a winning proposition.
Programs like the Catholic Campaign for Human Development depend on the charitable donations of lay Catholics for their existence, and poll after poll has shown that a majority of Catholics disagree with the pressure placed on groups over many issues, including equality for the gay community.
These are hard times. One in six Americans now live below the official poverty level and more than 46 million of our fellow citizens — almost half of them children — rely on food stamps to make ends meet. Some members of Congress want to slash safety nets for children, the elderly and the sick. Catholic bishops and other Catholic leaders have correctly described the most recent GOP budget proposal as morally indefensible.
With some in Washington determined to play politics with the lives of the poor, it is more important than ever that we keep politics out of the church’s commitment to the most vulnerable. Do we really want more children going to bed hungry, or an immigrant mother denied prenatal care simply because the organization providing the care is associated with another organization that does not meet a conservative litmus test? This makes no sense and undercuts the effectiveness of organizations doing critical work helping struggling families.
It seems to me to be a drastic departure from how we American Catholics try to practice our faith.
We should not tolerate a culture war that distracts us from the core Gospel message of addressing poverty and hunger in a serious way.
Bill Ritter Jr. was Colorado’s 41st governor.