Catholic Campaign for Human Development

The Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) is the national anti-poverty and social justice program of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).

CCHD was begun in 1969 as the "National Catholic Crusade Against Poverty" by the Catholic bishops in the United States, in part as a response to Pope Paul VI's encyclical Populorum progressio ("The Progress of Peoples"). CCHD's mission is "to address the root causes of poverty in America through promotion and support of community-controlled self-help organizations and through transformative social justice, education, and solidarity between poor and non-poor." [1]

CCHD is supported by an annual collection in U.S. Catholic parishes, and individual donations.

Projects

By means of annual grants provided in collaboration with local dioceses, CCHD funds community initiatives meant to overcome the root causes of poverty. Through its community development program, CCHD funds low-income community organizations working to address the structural causes of injustice, such as the need for immigration reform, economic justice, criminal justice reform, access to health care and education, and environmental justice. Through its economic development program, CCHD works to empower community-based initiatives such as land trusts, cooperatives, credit unions, business development and job training programs, and social purpose businesses.

Examples of CCHD's grant making can be found on its educational website, www.povertyusa.org.

Criticism

CCHD has at times been subject at times to criticism, with allegations that some CCHD-funded organizations were promoting abortion, contraception and radical politics, and that the CCHD was a force of internal corruption within the USCCB.[2][3] The USCCB responded definitively to these criticisms in 2010 with the Review and Renewal of CCHD.[4] The Review and Renewal affirmed the core mission of CCHD and instituted controls to ensure that all CCHD-funded initiatives are consistent with Catholic mission and identity.

References

  1. ↑ CCHD Annual Report 2007
  2. ↑ http://www.wandererforum.org/publications/focus026.html
  3. ↑ crisismagazine The Catholic Campaign...
  4. ↑ Review and Renewal of CCHD

External links


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