So, it’s been over three years now since the Development & Peace scandal broke.  If you missed it, you can catch my round-up here.  I’d like to say that I’m satisfied with the progress made thus far, but the hard realityis that the progress we’ve made has been either incidental or minor. 

Now it’s true that Development & Peace has suffered a huge setback with CIDA’s recent funding cut, and it’s true the Catholic blogosphere and LifeSite News might have had a small part to play in that.  And it’s also true that we’ve had a grudging admission of the problem.  I say “grudging” because, as Archbishop Richard Smith said, the problems are with a few groups.   (A few groups?  Over four dozen is a “few”, your Grace?).  We’ve also had more bureaucracy setup by the CCCB to handle the those pesky “inquiries” which Catholics may have about Development & Peace’s perpetual pro-abort partners. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the first D&P pro-abort partners which Socon or Bust outed in our investigation three years ago was a group called Fanm Deside.  Here’s what we found out:

• Fanm Deside (Website: www.fanmdeside.org)
  Listed as a Partner of CCODP’s 2006-2011 Latin America Program, page 127

Fanm Deside has a pro-abortion stance. In their PowerPoint presentation located here at Slide 16, the presentation mentions having organized a day of reflection on the decriminalisation of abortion. (Source)

Soon thereafter, LifeSite News published their own report on this group (along with another group). You can read that report here.

A few posts ago, we highlighted how the CCCB was being hosted by two other anti-life groups in Haiti. (There’s now 4 D&P anti-life groups in Haiti that we know of.)

And just when you thought our bishops could not be more clueless or flippant to concerns raised by the pro-life community, fear not, my dear friends!  The CCCB’s clueless campaign continues!  Yes indeedy. Read the rest of this entry »

As John pointed out on Monday, another Development and Peace partner supporting contraception has been busted.

For those of you keeping score at home, that brings the total list of anti-Catholic, anti-life partners of D&P to 53.

Good grief. 53? Planned Parenthood must be jealous.

For some reason, this incident has disturbed me more than others. I think it’s because it was prefaced by Archbishop Richard Smith’s “trust me” message. If I was a bishop in this country trying to regain the trust of the faithful, I wouldn’t participate in any photo-op with a D&P partner unless a background check had been done to make sure the partner was clean. This obviously wasn’t done. The evidence we exposed wasn’t buried in a secret vault. It just took just 15 minutes and a search engine to dig it up. Somebody couldn’t be bothered for even that.

There’s a sort of flippancy about this whole affair on the part of the bishops. Even now, after all we’ve been through.  Even as they try to reform D&P and regain our trust, the whole thing smells of sloppiness, neglect and half-heartedness, as if being dragged kicking and screaming to where they’d rather not go.

“Trust me,” he says.

This is a bad way to start a 2-year stint as head of the CCCB.

Almighty God, how much longer?

Well, it looks like the Liturgical war is in full swing.  For all of the liberalizing influences of the “Spirit” of Vatican II, the Liturgical police seem to be insistent that it’s their way or the highway, regardless of what Rome says, or rather does not say.  

Here’s is how one of The Vox’s readers put it:

Sadly, in my diocese last evening, some left Holy Mass in tears and angry after being forced to stand after receiving Our precious Lord in the Eucharist and were prohibited from kneeling. Shame on the priest and our bishop!

 Which diocese is this reader referring to?  Well, London, Ontario, of course:

Meanwhile, the poor people of the See of Toronto’s wayward child have had gestapo like “ministers of uniformity” going around telling them to get off of their knees. The Diocese of London under Bishop Ronald Fabbro of the Congregation of St. Basil as High Priest of liturgy has ordered under the rubric of “obedience” that people must all stand after Holy Communion until all have received and returned to their pews as a sign of “unity” and “community.”

It seems that certain Canadian dioceses are into binding what the Church does not bind, and therefore making the Liturgy into a play-thing to be manipulated to their own tastes.  Relativism does not first affect morality and then eventually destroy culture.  Relativism first destroys the liturgy, and then it attacks morality and then the culture.  I am convinced that this is what has been playing out in the West these past 40+ years. 

Socon or Bust readers will know about the problems with London. We’ve covered this problematic diocese over the years.  And there’s stuff we simply can’t (at this time) publish on this blog but it’s no less scandalous than the tragic events which have already been reported on.

I am beginning to be more and more convinced that the problems concerning liturgy go much further than what happens at Mass.  I think liturgical deviance from Rome and the enforcement of pseudo liturgy by the liturgical commissariat end up revealing a serious problem with authority, ecclesiology and even sexuality.

For instance, readers will remember Richard Gaillardetz.  He’s the dissenting theologian which Socon or Bust exposed a couple of years ago when he was invited to address the CCCB.  Well, you’ll never guess where’s he’s recently turned up.  If you guessed in London at its Pastoral Study Days, you would be right!

Bishop Fabbro, the bishop of London, is the bishop who chairs the CCCB’s ad hoc Committee on Life and Family which is responsible for initiating the Canadian Church’s pro-life strategy over the next several years (which has been prompted, I might add, from the pressure exerted on them from the abortion scandal concerning Development & Peace).  He’s the same bishop who has invited Richard Gaillardetz.  Gaillardetz sat on Obama’s National Catholic Advisory Council, dissents on the infallible status of Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, contraception, and many, many other areas and is the feature speaker at the Diocese of London’s “Pastoral Study Days”.

Does this make any sense?  Actually, it makes perfect sense.  Liturgical abuses, doctrinal dissent, and pastoral abuses all go hand-in-hand.  

Binding us to liturgical novelties might not therefore seem to be a big deal, but it invariably points to the proverbial canary in a Church coal mine.

…The prelate stressed the essential role of obedience in promoting a culture of life, and lamented that even some bishops had openly dissented from Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, which reiterated the Church’s opposition to contraception.

“A most tragic example of the lack of obedience of faith, also on the part of certain Bishops, was the response of many to the Encyclical Letter Humanae vitae,” he said.  “If the shepherd is not obedient, the flock easily gives way to confusion and error.”

…

“The so-called ‘contraceptive mentality’ is essentially anti-life,” the cardinal insisted.  “Many forms of so-called contraception are, in fact, abortifacient, that is, they destroy, at its beginning, a life which has already been conceived.”

“Through the spread of the contraceptive mentality, especially among the young, human sexuality is no longer seen as the gift of God, which draws a man and a woman together, in a bond of lifelong and faithful love, crowned by the gift of new human life, but, rather, as a tool for personal gratification,” he explained.

Correcting this “contraceptive thinking,” he said, is “essential to the advancement of the culture of life.”… (Source)

Thank you Cardinal Burke for telling it like it is.  Let us pray that the Canadian bishops repent of their most grievous assault on the unity of Holy Mother Church through their act of ecclesiastical contraception.

The much touted “New Evangelization” is going no where unless we get some of that OLD evangelization which includes being honest about our mistakes and unrepentance.

The bishops need to repent of the Winnipeg Statement and start getting serious about contraception.   That means, preaching about it….vigorously.

Another Plenary Assembly has come and gone, yet we don’t have many tangible results to show for it in terms of improvements to Development and Peace. The bishops seem to have supersized their cone of silence on the matter and are being less transparent than ever about what’s going on.

For those pro-life bishops out there who are taking this problem seriously but are facing resistance from D&P and the more liberal bishops, I humbly submit three suggestions. They won’t be popular, but I think they make sense in light of what I’ve observed from closely following this soap opera for nearly three years. Read the rest of this entry »

As has been customary for the past several years, the CCCB did not release its financial statements to the media this year. That information can be found at www.cra-arc.gc.ca under the CCCB’s corporate name Concacan Inc. (Source)

According to the CCCB’s (CONCACAN INC.) 2010 charity financial return, the CCCB has shown a surplus in its operations. In fact, it has recorded a healthy “profit” for the past several years according to their charity financial returns at CRA’s website.

I’m not sure what Msgr. Pat Powers means about “budget deficits” being incurred by the CCCB several years ago.  What budget deficits?  All I see is a healthy bottom line every year with approx. $1M in surplus every year for several years now.  Their gross revenue also keeps going up, up, and up, with over $9M in revenues for 2010.  What exactly  does the CCCB spend this money on?  That’s something that Canadian Catholics would really like to know.  Is that the reason detailed financial statements are not released to the public? In case we want to question or complain about how our money is being spent?  What’s there to hide?  I think the whole Catholic institutional and “social justice” edifice needs a lesson in transparency.  Maybe they can spend some of that surplus on education sessions on that topic.

One more thing.  According to the 2010 Return, the CCCB had $13.6M in long term investments (see their balance sheet below).  “Long term investments”, for the uninitiated, is the accounting term that is used for investments which will not be redeemed for cash within one year. In other words, they’re investments which are held for a longer or indeterminate duration but are still generally liquid; that is, you can cash them out without great difficulty.  They usually come in the form of stocks, bonds, and mutual funds.  This asset has been growing steadily through the years and has jumped over $2M since 2008 ($11.2M).

What’s this money for?  For pensions? Whose pensions?  I thought each individual diocese is responsible for supporting their own priests’ pension costs. I know that’s the case here in Ottawa.  And if it is for pensions, why is the corresponding liability not reported?

And if it’s not for pensions (which it’s likely not), then what is all of this money going to be used for?

Social justice?  Certainly not for the unborn.  That’s for sure.  The holocaust is all around us, but the CCCB’s investment balance just keeps rising.

It’s good that we have our priorities straight.

2010 CCCB Financial Position @ Dec.31

From LifeSite’s Report.

…In response to LifeSiteNews’ question about the statement, CCCB media relations director Rene Laprise explained that D&P cannot always obtain the local bishop’s permission for a project.

Have I missed something?  So now the CCCB media relations director is talking to LifeSite after bouncing them from the Plenary a couple of days ago?  Can someone fill me in on what exactly is going on here?  Has the CCCB brain trust finally figured out that banning pro-life news media from their Assemblies is not exactly the way to “communicate” their message?  I sure hope so, otherwise, we’re dealing with some serious schizo issues here.

“There will … need to be [flexibility], especially in situations when communication is difficult within a diocese, such as during civil war, or when government is antagonistic toward Church efforts on behalf of literacy or democratic movements, or during other forms of social unrest,” Laprise said.

In such situations, he continued, D&P may need to consult with a neighboring bishop or the local bishops’ conference instead.

“There are times when a local Bishop cannot authorize a CCODP project without endangering himself or his diocese,” Laprise said.

Oh pulease!  Is that the gist of what Bishop Fred Henry was getting at in his interview?  Civil War?  Give me a break.  He didn’t even come close to suggesting that.  He made it sound like it was ultimately D&P’s decision, regardless of what the local bishop said, otherwise there would have been no point in bringing in the “nihil obstat”.

Besides, this excuse doesn’t really cut it.  The conditions Mr. Laprise raises are virtually irrelevant and moot.

#1 – What is D&P going to be doing in a civil war zone anyhow?  Setting up more condom-promoting radio stations, perhaps?

#2 – Unless the bishop is under arrest and in prison, under what circumstances would it not be possible to communicate with him?  Rome is still able to communicate with underground bishops in China, after all.

This clarification by the CCCB  is an EPIC FAIL of a communication because either Bishop Henry’s original comments stand or the CCCB’s media director’s comments are reflective of the true intentions of the working policy.

Well, which is it? Because they are very different.

I invite Mr. Laprise on to this blog to reconcile Bishop Henry’s comments with his own ”clarification”, as reported by LifeSiteNews.

For me and the pro-life community, the rubber hits the road on the single most important requirement:  if the local bishop rejects the group, there should be absolutely no partnership. PERIOD.  Bring on the nihil obstat!

“One of the purposes for the CCCB Standing Committee for CCODP is so Development and Peace can talk these challenges and difficulties over with our own Bishops, and also so the CCCB can work with CCODP in helping it extend its contacts with Bishops in the Global South.”

Bishop Henry, who serves on that standing committee, has in the past maintained that it is acceptable for D&P to fund projects run by “pro-choice” groups.

“CCODP is not supporting abortion but a project to help the poor and their partners also happen to [be] pro-choice,” the bishop wrote in an e-mail to concerned pro-lifers in 2009. “There is an important difference between the two.”

“Lifesite’s position seems to suggest that before we cooperate with anyone or any organization in supporting a good action, our opening question must be: ‘What is your stance on abortion?’ and that as the litmus test should override everything else. I don’t think that this would be the starting point of Jesus.”

Frankly, yes, your Grace.  For the Catholic faith and Catholic partnership, abortion is the litmus test, among many such non-negotiable tests.  It’s all about re-establishing our “Catholic identity”, as the Pope has insisted we do.  The thing about identities is that you need boundaries in order to form them.  Boundaries help to form identity.  It keeps muddled thinking and the drugged-up “spirit” of Vatican II out, and provides some coherence and consistency to what we believe as Catholics.

The fact that you don’t get it only serves to show us why you should excuse yourself from this Committee.  Perhaps your past and current tragic support of the Winnipeg Statement has something to do with your original position on the issue of supporting pro-abort groups.  The Winnipeg Statement, as you may or may not realize, provided the foundation for your original position on funding pro-abort groups, and continues to obviously impact your reticence to come around fully and respect the Church’s ecclesiological nature as well.

For you and the rest of the Canadian bishops, it’s a question of obedience and deferrence to ecclesiatical authority that is not your own.

And as for a “starting point of Jesus is concerned”, it is certainly true that Our Blessed Lord was very open to gently correcting the woman caught in adultery.  But, we must admit, He wasn’t so keen in plundering His ministry’s treasury to finance her existing lifestyle, which I’m sure was not all just about sexual immorality or prostitution.

I know we’re popular, but this is ridiculous….

The relevant part runs from 2:29-5:58.  (The original link was removed.  The embedding is no longer an option.)

A few remarks…..

#1 – So according to Bishop Henry, the local bishop will not have a veto on whether D&P gets to fund a partner. That’s what he said.  Instead, there’s discussion and collaboration and committees and deliberations and dialogues and all the rest of the hot air.  Maybe this is just political lingo to assuage D&P supporters, and some real reforms are indeed coming.  But I would like to share a very simple scenario which could very well play out: Read the rest of this entry »

9/10/11 – 15 h 37 LA CROIX – MONDE lacroix
Les évêques canadiens barrent l’accès à un site pro-vie critique

Réunis en assemblée plénière à Cornwall (Ontario), les évêques catholiques du Canada ont interdit l’accès à leurs débats à des représentants d’un site pro-vie connu pour ses positions très critiques vis-à-vis de la conférence épiscopale canadienne.

René Laprise, directeur des relations avec les médias de la Conférence des évêques catholiques du Canada (CECC) a en effet informé John-Henry Westen, éditeur du site LifeSiteNews que « les responsables de notre conférence ont exprimé de sérieuses réserves sur les prises de position de votre organisation ». « Nos dirigeants ont à leur tour indiqué que service des relations ave les médias de la CECC doivent faire preuve de prudence vis-à-vis de votre organisation », a-t-il ajouté.

En 2009, LifeSiteNews avait déclenché une campagne très agressive contre Développement et Paix, l’organisation d’aide au développement de l’épiscopat canadien, l’accusant de financer des groupes promouvant l’avortement. Les évêques avaient appelé LifesiteNews à un « dialogue franc et transparent » qui n’a jamais été possible au vu des positions extrêmement tranchées du site. (Source)

We always hear of these “extreme positions” in general, but rarely do the lapdog media, D&P supporters or the CCCB themselves tell us precisely what those “extreme positions” are.

And do you know why?  Because that’s where the rubber hits the road and the bullpucky hits the fan.

You will never hear them get into the specifics of these so-called “extreme positions” because these “extreme positions” are backed up by the Catechism, Encyclicals, and other Papal documents in doctrine and by Benedict’s pastoral approach in practice.

They have absolutely no grounds for complaint.  But beating the old vague and nebulous “extreme positions” sure sounds ominious, doesn’t it?  Well, that phrase use to get a lot more mileage in the past than it does now-a-days.  Now-a-days, the people who utter it are most likely liberal complaining about absolute moral principles.

For La Croix and the rest of the lapdog press who like to bark non-sense, it’s time to put up or shut up.

…CCCB president Pierre Morissette said the plenary will discuss two major reports: one by the Standing Committee on CCODP and the other by the Ad Hoc Committee for Life and Family that includes a “proposal for immediate and future pastoral planning.”

“Part of the challenge facing us is to remind our faithful how these two areas of concern are intimately inter-related,” said Morissette, whose term as president is up at the conclusion of the plenary. “Justice and human rights include respect for all human life,” and includes “concern for the human person from conception to natural death, and thus every moment in between.” …(Source)

Although the infantile policy of the CCCB to ban pro-life media (and by extension, flipping the bird to pro-life activists across the country) has overshadowed what’s going on at the Plenary,  I picked out a couple of hopeful areas from Deborah Gyapong’s article that I wish to highlight.

The first is that +Morissette’s reference to the Ad Hoc Committee for Life and Family  which includes “a proposal for immediate and future pastoral planning“.  Now, folks, what do you all suppose that means?  It means that perhaps these past three years of hammering away at Development & Peace had a secondary purpose in God’s plan.  Aside from shining the light on the abortion-pimping practices of the socialists at Development & Peace, the light was also shining on the virtual non-existence of the bishops’ teaching on human life and family issues these past 40 years.   Invariably, a few bishops realized that Development & Peace’s enthusiastic support of pro-abort political organizations was directly related to their massive negligence in the area of teaching about the sanctity of human life.   Well, better late than never, as they say. 

I also like the word “immediate” in front of “pastoral planning”.  It means that they plan to grab a clue sooner rather than later.  I hope “immediate” means the same thing to them as it does to the rest of us.  Here’s hopin’, although admittedly, “dialogue” and “transparency” haven’t fared so well in their vocabulary.

The second comment by the bishop is also certainly worth highlighting.  “Part of the challenge facing us is to remind our faithful how these two areas of concern are intimately inter-related…justice and human rights include respect for all human life.”

Really? It seems to me that there are two constituencies which need to be reminded of this “challenge”.

Development & Peace and the Canadian Bishops:  Development & Peace for financing the politico-abortion industry, and the Bishops for failing to teach Humanae Vitae which provided the vacuum for this mess to happen in the first place.

So, if the worst we’ve had to endure is the CCCB flipping a bone to D&P by banning pro-life news organizations from covering their snoozefests in exchange for some real victories and movement, I’d say it’s a great bargain.

And we should take it and run.

I almost thought the guy beside Georges was a representative of the CCCB.  Then I read the fine print.

I guess the Bishops are too busy ”streaming” to their 13 viewers to really care about…oh…what 400 Catholics have to say.

You know, I seriously weighed the idea of inviting Voris to Cornwall and booking a NAV Centre room.  Now I regret not having done so.

That would have been some show.  I would have even been magnanimous enough to invite all of the Bishops to hear what Voris has to say about diocesan bureaucracies, not to mention offering Salt +Light an exclusive contract to cover Voris’s talk on Taliban Catholics!

A reporter for the LifeSite News service was barred from attending a meeting of the Canadian bishops’ conference, in apparent retaliation for the outlet’s critical treatment of an anti-poverty program sponsored by the bishops’ conference.

John-Henry Westen, the editor of LifeSite News, was informed on arrival that he could not attend the bishops’ plenary meeting. The news agency had sent reporters to meetings of the bishops’ conference in past years.

A spokesman for the Canadian bishops’ conference informed Westen that his organization would no longer be welcome. “The leadership of our Conference has expressed serious concerns over the manner in which positions have been taken by your organization,” he said.

LifeSite News has been highly critical of the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace (D&P), the anti-poverty campaign of the Canadian hierarchy. LifeSite News has charged that D&P has provided funding for groups involved in the promotion of legal abortion and same-sex marriage. The controversy—similar to the controversy surrounding the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) in the US—has created considerable friction between the Canadian bishops’ conference and the pro-life news agency.

In 2009, the Canadian bishops’ conference issued a statement on the D&P controversy, saying that LifeSite News should engage in “frank and transparent dialogue” with representatives of the hierarchy to resolve the tensions. Westen charged that the bishops’ conference has “rejected every offer of dialogue we have made.” (Source)

Who was the brain-wave who came up with this bright idea at the CCCB, anyway?  Can’t be the sharpest tack in the box.   You’d think that after the problems with transparency the Catholic hierarchy has had on so many issues lately, they’d learn their lesson by now.  But, you know, as the saying goes, sin makes you stupid.