Tuesday, March 19, AD 2024 2:30am

Head of CCHD Was Treasurer For Pro-Abort Candidate

In a dog bites man story, and an example of good blog journalism, Creative Minority Report has broken the news that the head of the CCHD, Ralph McCloud, while he was head of the CCHD, was the campaign treasurer for pro-abort Wendy Davis in her successful run in 2008 for the Texas State Senate:

 While the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) has come under well deserved scrutiny for supporting groups such as ACORN and groups with ties to promoting abortion, CMR has uncovered that Ralph McCloud, while heading the CCHD in 2008, was simultaneously working as a highly placed campaign official for a pro-choice politician seeking to unseat a pro-life politician.according to public records, McCloud also worked as the Treasurer for Planned Parenthood endorsed Democrat Wendy Davis.Annie’s List,raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Davis in 2008 while McCloud worked as Treasurer. The group even gave a spirited endorsement of the pro-choice Davis, who succeeded in defeating her pro-life opponent.

As you likely know, CCHD is the bishops’ anti-poverty program which funds community organizing and economic development projects and has been at the center of a number of controversies. Ralph McCloud was named head of the CCHD in November 2007. In his first year as head of the CCHD,

Why would the director of the CCHD, during his tenure as head of an ostensibly Catholic institution act as champion and treasurer of a campaign for a pro-abortion politician seeking to oust a pro-life politician? This is the textbook definition of scandal.

According to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishop’s website, “the CCHD fully upholds the Church’s teaching on the sanctity of human life from conception through natural death.” But acting as Treasurer for a pro-choice politician means that every single yard sign, every press release, every brochure or pamphlet of the Davis campaign had Ralph McCloud’s name on it. So in short, while heading up the CCHD, McCloud was very publicly working against the stated goals of the organization he oversaw.

Isn’t that a bit confusing to Catholics? Isn’t that in itself a scandal to the faithful?

McCloud himself labeled questions about another CCHD employee John Carr’s commitment to the pro-life cause “very disturbing allegations” which he believed were unfounded. CMR believes it to be equally disturbing that McCloud would work for a campaign garnering donations from Annie’s List (a pro-choice PAC), Planned Parenthood and ACORN.

Go here to read the rest at Creative Minority Report.

  

Here is the website of the CCHD showing Ralph McCloud as director.  Here is a bio piece on Ralph McCloud produced by the USCCB when he was named director of the CCHD.

McCloud has coordinated the peace and justice ministry in the Fort Worth Diocese and directed CCHD in the diocese since 1995. He has headed the diocese’s African American ministries since 1990. He also serves as a board member of the Roundtable, the National Association of Diocesan Social Ministry Directors.

Active in the civic community, McCloud was elected to four two-year terms to the Fort Worth City Council, in 1997, 1999, 2001, and 2003. He served as Fort Worth’s mayor pro-tem from 1999 to 2005. He currently chairs the Mayor’s Commission on Homelessness in Fort Worth.

In other civic activities, he was president of the Fort Worth Local Housing Development Council and served four terms on the National League of Cities’ Human Development Steering Committee.

McCloud attended Paul Quinn College in Dallas, Texas, and was co-founder of the African-American Summit for Peace, Justice and Equality. He is a past-president of the National Association of Black Catholic Administrators.

Msgr. David Malloy, USCCB general secretary, noted McCloud’s reputation as a “respected and experienced social ministry leader with strong ties to CCHD.”

“Ralph’s profound commitment to the Catholic Church enables him to communicate the biblical, theological and spiritual dimensions of Catholic social ministry and the principles that guide CCHD’s mission of empowering people trapped in the cycle of poverty,” Msgr. Malloy said.

Bishop Kevin Vann of Fort Worth praised the appointment saying, “Ralph has served the Diocese of Fort Worth for 14 years, assisting faithfully both the late Bishop Joseph Delaney and myself. He will be a great asset at the USCCB.”

Wendy Davis was on the Fort Worth city council with McCloud prior to her run for the state senate.  I find the bio of McCloud interesting for two reasons.  He is obviously a man who has received a lot of training by the Church, and it clearly had zero impact on his ability to comprehend that working to elect a total pro-abort betrays everything the Church stands for .  The second reason is that he is a poster child for the lay “professional Catholic” Church-o-crat, living off Church employment, while working against Church teaching;   a bad waste of donations to the Church, and a phenomenon that Catholics have become all too familiar with since Vatican II. 

From all of this we can draw the following lessons:  A pro-life Catholic would have to be an idiot to give a thin dime to the CCHD, and the USCCB is not to be trusted.  Of course we already knew both of these things before, didn’t we? 

 

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Aaron B.
Thursday, January 20, AD 2011 12:30pm

Other lessons:

Reform of the CCHD is irrelevant. It is what it was designed to be, and is fulfilling its purpose perfectly.

Peace is a good thing. Justice is a good thing (and a virtue). But when anyone says “peace and justice ministry” with a straight face, run the other way.

Bill Sr.
Bill Sr.
Thursday, January 20, AD 2011 3:49pm

Reminds me of something I once said…
The Lament of a Faithful Laity
The really sickening thing about this is to realize it could have all been avoided had a good portion of misled “Social Justice” Catholics and the USCCB who were more dedicated to political correctness than Biblical truth and more fearful of Federal lawmakers than the voices of their flocks had used common sense guided by facts and traditional values in evaluating candidates. And in particular one Doug Kmeic, (now Obama’s appointed ambassador to Malta) who used his status as and elitist in catholic doctrine to conger a guilt complex on any of the faithful who would waste a chance to vote for a minority president regardless of his lack of experience or his vague past and highly questionable background and associations.

Tom
Tom
Thursday, January 20, AD 2011 4:07pm

Some have called the USCCB the “Democratic Party at prayer.” In view of the above, will they now call it “pro-aborts at prayer” (or PP)?

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Thursday, January 20, AD 2011 5:14pm

Tom,

I think that is correct.

The majority probably are sanctimonious socialists, progressive humanists with nearly complete disrespect for things Spiritual.

That (D) behind they paste behind their names; it stands for damnation.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Thursday, January 20, AD 2011 6:01pm

I had a dream. In it I received a letter from my bishop.

It read, in part. “The Catholic bishops of the United States have designated January 22 as a special day of prayer and penance in reparation for voting for democrat candidates without which could not have been committed millions of killings that resulted from the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision (handed down January 22, 1973) which permits the murder of unborn babies throughout pregnancy.”

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