Stephen Phelan's MaCrisis Magazine article is the latest in a series of coordinated attacks by a small number of groups whose claims about CRS have proven to be misleading and inaccurate. The Crisis Magazine article prompted the following response from CRS: The remainder primarily comes from investment revenue and other standard fundraising such as mailings and events. 70 percent of its revenue and donated services came from the federal government and another 10 percent or so came from private foundations that, while not listed in the latest published financial reports, in the past has included organizations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In 2013 (a typical year, percentagewise), only around 3 percent of CRS's revenue came from Catholics in the pews via the annual collection and rice bowl campaign. On the mission delivery and secular communications side of the organization, however, CRS takes a different tack: It apparently takes pride in not sharing the Gospel and in not preferentially hiring Catholics to do the Catholic charity's work, and it partners with organizations who together spend billions annually on immoral, and often coercive, means of population control. Those of us who receive CRS's fundraising pitches (this writer is a former donor) or who have visited CRS's website in the last few years are likely to see a clear identification with the Church. The second would be to argue that because CRS does so much good work, good Catholics must look away when questions are raised about how some of its work is done, and with whom CRS partners to do this work. The first would be to deny that Catholic Relief Services does an incredible amount of good in bringing aid to the poor around the world. In trying to understand the ongoing controversy regarding 'the official international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States,' there are two primary ways one might err. In a recent article at the website of Crisis Magazine, Stephen Phelan, director of mission communications at Human Life International, wrote (briefly excerpted click here to read the article in its entirety): The focus of this particular column is CRS. Over the last several years, there has been considerable controversy surrounding the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) and Catholic Relief Services (CRS), both of which were founded by the U.S. Bootkoski regarding his unjust treatment of a Catholic schoolteacher. Also, Michael Hichborn, president of the Lepanto Institute, recently posted a very good open letter to Bishop Paul G. (I'd first like to commend the pro-life leaders who staged a peaceful protest at House Speaker John Boehner's office the morning of March 25.
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