Posted on 01/25/2002 11:38:01 AM PST by Nachum
THESE ARE BILL SIMON'S WORDS
In recent years, I have increasingly tried to incorporate my faith into business, family, and charitable activities as I discovered that success in my work left me strangely empty. At first, I simply tried to incorporate the lessons taught in church during the balance of the week at work and at home. Later, I tried to increase my charitable work by volunteering and serving on BOARDS OF LOCAL CHARITIES such as Children's Hospital, Covenant House, and CATHOLIC CHARITIES, as well as setting up a foundation with my wife to help underprivileged children.
http://americanpatrol.com/CATHOLICHURCH/churchmeddlepolitics991020.html
CATHOLIC CHARITIES WENT POLITICAL LONG AGO
Catholic Charities was established in 1910 as a network of Catholic organizations providing such social services as adoption, alcoholism counseling, and aid to Catholic families, immigrants, and the elderly. By the 1970's, however, it was receiving more and more funds from Great Society programs and its focus grew more diffuse.
Instead of offering services to the faithful, Catholic Charities became an "advocate for justice." Today, Catholic Charities receives 64 percent of its $2.1 billion budget from government sources. In a piece available on Catholic Charities' website entitled Ten Ways Catholic Charities are Catholic, Father Fred Kammer, S.J., the president of Catholic Charities, has listed "advocacy for those in need," i.e., lobbying for greater social spending -- as one of the ten religious components of the organization. "The Catholic Church has a long and strong tradition of teaching about the responsibilities of government in promoting the common good," Kammer explains.
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CATHOLIC CHARITIES LOBBIES FOR DAY LABOR CENTER FOR ILLEGAL ALIENS
FROM NEWSDAY (Saturday, March 10, 2001)
http://www.newsday.com/news/daily/hire310.htm (Link has since expired)
"the proposal [to fund a day labor center] by Legis. Brian Foley (D-Blue Point) was held in committee status and not moved to the full body for a vote. The bill, heard in the legislature's social services committee, would grant taxpayer dollars to Hicksville-based CATHOLIC CHARITIES, A DIOCESE OF ROCKVILLE CENTRE group that has been lobbying for the facility the past two years. "
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http://www.rochesternews.com/1018hispanic.html (Link has since expired)
ROCHESTER, NEW YORK
PUTTING DOWN ROOTS
ITINERANT FARM WORKERS CREATE THEIR OWN COMMUNITIES WHEN THEY SETTLE IN THE ROCHESTER AREA
By Jim Memmott Democrat and Chronicle
The growth in rural Hispanic numbers is part of a nationwide trend, as more and more Spanish-speaking people who are hired to work on farms, and in meat and vegetable processing plants, choose to stay here year-round. "THIS IS NOT JUST A SHORT-TERM PHENOMENON," says Tim McMahon, director of CATHOLIC CHARITIES IN LIVINGSTON COUNTY, which has its office in Mount Morris. "AND WE NEED TO MAKE PEOPLE AWARE OF IT." But, as McMahon and others note, it is not always easy for Hispanic people to settle in the region. There are language barriers at every turn. There are transportation barriers. Finally, there are cultural barriers, a kind of understanding gap that needs to be filled in, though progress is being made. But even with these barriers, people stay and eventually thrive, says Maria O'Hearn, McMahon's colleague at Catholic Charities. "Why do they stay?" she says. "Because they like it here, because it's a good place to raise children, because they like the schools, because they can live here and have peace of mind." First one, then others Hispanic settlement is increasing in the same way other immigrant communities grew in the past. One person comes, and a family follows. Other family members and their friends arrive. SOON, THERE IS A SETTLEMENT.
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http://www3.cantonrep.com/cantonrep01/menus.php?ID=28391&r=3&Category=11
NEW PROGRAM EMPOWERS AREA LATINO IMMIGRANTS
By CHARITA M. GOSHAY
Repository staff writer
1/24/02
CANTON -- When Francisco Rojas came to America from Mexico in 1987, he couldn't speak English.
Rojas explained that as a field worker, there wasn't much need for it, since all of his co- workers were Latinos.
Today, Rojas and his wife, Rita, are taking English and computer classes at Centro San Jose, el Trabajador (St. Joseph Center for Workers), a new, multifaceted program for Spanish-speaking immigrants.
The center at 1500 Market Ave. N is co-sponsored by CATHOLIC CHARITIES OF STARK COUNTY and the Wooster-based Immigrant Worker Project.
Rojas, who has a pretty good grasp of English, said the classes have helped him on his job at an area restaurant.
"When you speak English, you can better communicate," he said.
"Our goal is to empower Central American and Mexican immigrants," said Laura Yeomans, who oversees the center. "English is so important. If you can speak English, you can get a better job, you can understand your rights as a tenant."
"Putting words together is difficult," Rojas said. "It's kind of hard to know the English language because it's different combinations of words from other countries."
Yeomans said 40 to 60 immigrants from Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador attend classes each week. The age range is from 15 to 52.
Immigrants who can't speak English face common problems, such as access to medical care, better jobs, housing and transportation, she said.
In Ohio, a person must have a Social Security number to obtain a driver's license. On Tuesday, YEOMANS HAD TO DRIVE A MAN TO A DENTIST IN ANOTHER TOWN BECAUSE THE MAN CAN'T GET LICENSE and "we couldn't find a Spanish- speaking dentist," she said.
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http://www.newsday.com/coverage/current/editorial/thursday/nd238.htm (Link has since expired)
04/19/2001 - Thursday - Page A 42
EDITORIAL -- GOOD REASON TO OVERRIDE VETO ON FARMINGVILLE HALL
What's Spitzer's take? "I believe the county executive's opposition to government support of the center is based upon a flawed interpretation of the law," he said last week. "Neither the creation of a shape-up SITE NOR THE ACTIVITIES OF THE CATHOLIC CHARITIES IN RUNNING THE SITE WOULD BE IN VIOLATION OF ANY LAW." But he doesn't stop there: "Catholic Charities would not be recruiting, hiring or referring day laborers for a fee," he said. "Nor will they be impeding enforcement of immigration laws." In other words, there's nothing illegal about the center-or about following the lead of other municipalities and using public money in the center.
Gaffney, in an interview before the issue came to a second vote, explained his veto.
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http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010424/us/immigrant_tension_2.html (Link has since expired)
Tuesday April 24, 2001 -- 10:31 PM ET
NY COUNTY BACKS OFF DAY LABOR SITE
By FRANK ELTMAN, Associated Press Writer "We are being asked to give tax dollars to a FACILITY WHOSE PURPOSE IT IS TO BREAK THE LAW - THE FEDERAL IMMIGRATION LAWS AND STATE LABOR LAWS," he said. "It's like using government funds to build a hall during the Vietnam War to counsel those against the war on how to dodge the draft."
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http://www.newsday.com/news/daily/vote424a.htm (Link has since expired)
April 24, 2001
Legislature Fails to Override Veto
By Emi Endo and Bart Jones
Staff Writers
Legis. Andrew Crecca (R-Hauppauge), who had supported the original bill to provide CATHOLIC CHARITIES with $80,000 to build a center, said his vote today stemmed from his belief that illegal hiring activity would take place at a permanent hiring site.
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LAKE HISPANICS CRITICIZE INS RAIDS, QUICK DEPORTATIONS
Friday, November 17, 2000
By SARAH HOLLANDER
PLAIN DEALER REPORTER
PAINESVILLE - Five-month-old Jakalynn rested quietly in a fuzzy blue blanket last night, surrounded by grownups who say the girl captures the very essence of fear and turmoil facing Lake County's Hispanic community. Tuesday, the Immigration and Naturalization Service raided three Lake County factories and rounded up about 15 Mexican nationals, including Jakalynn's 19-year-old mother, Miriam Moreno. Moreno spent the night in jail. The next day, she was bused to Toledo, flown south, and dropped off at a border town with 10 others. "When we found a lawyer she was already in Mexico," said Painesville resident Efrain Rodriguez. He and his wife have no idea what will happen next, but will care for the baby in the meantime. Rodriguez joined about two dozen community members in the basement of a Painesville office building last night to draw attention to what they see as insensitive treatment by the INS... They want to be very hard- line, but it's damaging families and it's definitely damaging our community," said Veronica Dahlberg, an outreach worker WITH CATHOLIC CHARITIES IN PAINESVILLE and co-chairwoman of an advocacy group of Hispanic women called HOLA. The community wants raids and speedy deportations to stop, she said.
And, there is much more.
CATHOLIC CHARITIES TEACHES ILLEGAL ALIENS HOW TO COLLECT EARNED INCOME TAX CREDITS
CATHOLIC CHARITIES USES TAXPAYER MONEY TO DEFEAT OUR IMMIGRATION LAWS
CATHOLIC CHARITIES PLACES MIGRANT FAMILIES WITH PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH FAMILIES AND POCKETS THE MONEY IT GETS FROM THE GOVERNMENT.
THE IDEA THAT BILL SIMON WAS NOT AWARE OF CATHOLIC CHARITIES' MAJOR ROLE IN WORKING TO DEFEAT OUR IMMIGRATION LAWS IS SILLY.
MORE LATER,
GLENN SPENCER
(E-mail sent to mailing list on 1/24-25/02)
I would love to pin him down on this.
I have no gripe with people who take their own dollars and their own sweat and help people out. It's the folks who try to do it with other people's money through government spending who bother me.
From the headline, I thought this was about his links to the Republican Party.
Well, I see your point. We don't want anyone teaching new immigrants how to speak English. They might start competing for the higher wage jobs then.
And that Catholic Charities and their encouraging women to give their babies up for adoption instead of just aborting them and being done with it. I mean, just how un-American is that? /sarcasm off
As conservatives and libertarians most of us here at FR feel that the poor and unfortunate are best served through charitable giving and the lessons of independance and self-help that those charities teach, rather than the suffocating dependance that comes with socialist government schemes.
Those are the concepts that people like Bill Simon support when they donate to Catholic Charities and other similar good causes.
You should spare us your ignorance, climb back into whatever hole you crawled out of and go back to watching for black helicopters. The rest of us have work to do fighting to restore the great and good Republic our founding fathers left us.
Let's say charity A is a major pro-life PRIVATE charity and also helps the less fotunate. Some that they help are illegal aliens. By Glenn Spencer's standards, I then support illegal aliens.
RIIIIIIIGHT.
In fact the ONLY charities my wife and I give to outside our church are the crisis pregnancy centers in Sacramento and Stockton. So we must be guilty.
Based on Nachum's reasoning we should all stop giving to ANY charity for fear that an illegal alien might receive a pair of old shoes or a Christmas Turkey.
Catholic Charities has a long and distinguished history. If they are getting government money, that's less money going to Planned Parenthood. God calls on everyone to help those who are less fortunate. I think that is particularly good of Bill Simon to not only put his money into charitable giving, but his time as well.
As advanced social thinkers rediscover the power of faith-based institutions to rescue the down-and-out by transforming the dysfunctional worldview that often lies at the root of their difficulties, you would think that Catholic Charities USA would be a perfect model to emulate, getting the poor into the mainstream by emphasizing moral values and ethical conduct. But no: rather than trying to promote traditional values and God-fearing behavior, Catholic Charities—and the same could be said about the Association of Jewish Family and Children's Agencies or the Lutheran Services in America—has become over the last three decades an arm of the welfare state, with 65 percent of its $2.3 billion annual budget now flowing from government sources and little that is explicitly religious, or even values-laden, about most of the services its 1,400 member agencies and 46,000 paid employees provide.
Far from being a model for reforming today's welfare-state approach to helping the poor, Catholic Charities USA is one of the nation's most powerful advocates for outworn welfare-state ideas, especially the idea that social and economic forces over which the individual has no control, rather than his own attitudes and behavior, are the reason for poverty. The example of this multibillion dollar charity should serve as a warning to policy makers seeking to privatize the care of the needy that they had better pick and choose prudently: for some of the institutions of civil society have been tainted with the same value-free worldview that has made most government-run poverty efforts a hindrance rather than a help to the poor.
< SNIP >
I live in California. The illegals have almost destroyed this state.
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