Examiner

A poverty-fighting arm of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which recently awarded $355,000 to Baltimore archdiocese nonprofits, is the target of a double-barreled challenge due to its funding of controversial community organizer ACORN and affiliated groups.

The furor over the Catholic Campaign for Human Development — stoked by allegations of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now’s use of the questionable organizing tactics of 1940s activist and writer Saul Alinsky — has Baltimore’s Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien mulling a letter seeking the halt all CCHD grants “until a complete review and overhaul of the campaign can be conducted.”

The letter also asked that “ACORN … and other Alinsky-style community organizations that follow immoral principles of action be permanently banned from receiving grants.”

“I’d like to see them cease altogether — not merely suspend, as the [USCCB] said it was going to do — all funding of ACORN [and related groups],” said Janet Baker, president of Faithful Catholics of Maryland/D.C. Inc., a member of the Virginia-based Catholic Media Coalition, which is spearheading the drive against CCHD’s funding.