Catholic Relief Services found Complicit in depopulation

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The Lepanto Institute and Population Research Institute (PRI) held a press conference March 6, 2024, to reveal the results of a year-long investigation of Catholic Relief Services (CRS) projects conducted in three African countries.

Read the disturbing findings below.

The entire press conference can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/live/kmbzKXdAYh0?si=FYfXOy0rr0JNCDJW

The 120-page report by Lepanto Institute and Population Research Institute can be viewed here: https://www.lepantoin.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Full-Investigation-Report-v1.pdf 

MEDIA RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
www.lepantoin.org/wp/report-catholic-relief-services-government-funding-and-contraception
06 March 2024
For Interviews of Michael Hichborn please contact:CJ Vizier 858-472-4285 | cj@bookitcj.com

Front Royal, VA – The Lepanto Institute and Population Research Institute (PRI) held a press conference at 11:00 EST this morning to reveal the results of a year-long investigation of Catholic relief Services (CRS) projects conducted in three African countries.  After obtaining and analyzing official documents related to CRS-led projects funded by the federal government, Lepanto and PRI sent a team of researchers to CRS project areas in Cameroon, Zimbabwe, and Lesotho. 

In a highly detailed, 120-page report published with the press conference, Lepanto and PRI showed, in part, that CRS:

... Implemented a sex education program, with its own logo on the front cover, that promoted masturbation as a form of “safer sex.”

... Provided at least $180,129 to an organization taking girls for abortions and lobbying for pro-abortion laws.  This organization’s logo is a heavily pregnant woman with an “X” through the location of the preborn baby.  CRS’s contributions to this organization between 2017 and 2021 may have violated the Mexico City Policy and Siljander amendment then in force.

... Led the implementation of government programs specifically designed for the spread of contraception.

... Knowingly introduced girls to contraception-providing organizations so they could receive sexual and reproductive health ‘services’ as integral aspects of these projects.

... Permitted at least one organization to promote and distribute condoms in schools under their charge.

“CRS has denied its involvement in the promotion of contraception and condoms for well over a decade, but this report proves otherwise,” said Michael Hichborn, president of the Lepanto Institute.  “In every CRS project-area our team visited, it was clear that CRS was far more interested in working with other NGOs to implement federally funded contraception-spreading programs than with the local Church.”

"This must end," says Steven Mosher, President of the Population Research Institute.  "CRS should first seek the permission of each and every local bishop in each and every diocese that it intends to operate in, fully disclosing every aspect of the project and promising full cooperation with the diocese.  Bishops are, after all, tasked with protecting and promoting the spiritual welfare of their flock, and would and should be the first and best judge of whether a given project would help or harm souls."  

In the conclusion of the report, Lepanto and PRI call upon the bishops to force CRS to follow Pope Benedict XVI’s motu proprio On the Service of Charity, which mandates that bishops responsible for any given charitable organization deny the reception of funds from organizations “that pursue ends contrary to Church’s teaching.”  The Pope’s document also requires bishops to ensure that “charitable agencies do not accept contributions for initiatives whose ends, or the means used to pursue them, are not in conformity with the Church’s teaching.”

“USAID and PEPFAR – which account for a majority of CRS’ annual budget – make the spread of contraception and condoms a top priority, and the DREAMS project that CRS helped establish made the increased use of contraception a primary goal,” said Hichborn.  “CRS’ addiction to federal funding has completely corrupted its moral foundation, its credibility, and its Catholic identity.”

"In our view," says Mosher, “the bishops who serve on CRS’ Board of Directors have both a moral and a fiduciary responsibility to ensure that CRS withdraws from such programs.

Indeed, as Germain Grisez, one of America's leading theologians, noted a decade ago, “Faithful Catholics who have donated to CRS in recent years for AIDS relief did so because they expected the program to be carried out in a distinctively Catholic way.  Had they not expected this, they could have donated to a secular organization fighting AIDS.  If CRS officials have used donations otherwise than they have led donors to expect, CRS officials have misappropriated those funds.”

The entire press conference can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/live/kmbzKXdAYh0?si=FYfXOy0rr0JNCDJW

The 120-page report by Lepanto Institute and Population Research Institute can be viewed here: https://www.lepantoin.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Full-Investigation-Report-v1.pdf

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