Since 2010, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has made several large financial contributions to an organization in San Francisco that is actively promoting all manner of immorality. Through grants from the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD), which is an official project of the USCCB, the Coalition on Homelessness has received $240,000 in four grants: $40,000 for 2010-2011; $50,000 for 2014-2015; $75,000 for 2015-2016; and $75,000 for 2016-2017, the last available grants list on the USCCB website. According to the Archdiocese of San Francisco website, the Coalition on Homelessness is slated to receive another CCHD grant for 2017-2018, though the amount has not yet been disclosed.
The problem is that the Coalition on Homelessness (COH) is very vocal about its support for Planned Parenthood, birth control, homosexuality, transgenderism, legalized prostitution and even legalized drug use.
COH has its own print publication called Street Sheet, which is a bi-monthly paper that reaches about 16,000 people through homeless or low-income distributors.
In other words, COH is an agenda-driven firm that is using the homeless to spread its ideologies. What follows are a few examples of the grossly immoral propaganda.
This May 2017 issue of Street Sheets carries an article with the headline, “Where is the Reproductive Justice for Homeless Women?” (page 7). In the article, the author makes three statements promoting Planned Parenthood. She says:
Many women’s rights to reproductive health and family planning services are being violated through recent actions by the Trump administration plans to stop funding to programs such as Planned Parenthood.
…
Low-income and homeless women need access to services from organizations such as Planned Parenthood, Women’s Community Clinic, and Women’s Health Justice
…
In fact, Planned Parenthood participates annually in a fair put on by Project Homeless Connect, a San Francisco social service organization.
On June 1, 2018, Street Sheet published what it called the “Sex Work Issue.” This issue is filled with unrepeatable and filthy “poetry,” promotes transgenderism and most prominently calls for the decriminalization of prostitution. The issue contains headlines like, “Criminalizing Sex Work Creates Violence,” and a raunchy poem by a “transgender sex-worker.” Page 5 of this issue contains an ad for the “March for Sex Worker Rights,” which is aimed at combating anti-sex trafficking laws.
The last page of the Sex Worker issue contains a full-page social media ad, which says “I Support Sex Workers and Homeless People” and contains the hash-tag “#SexWorkIsWork.” This page instructs people to take a selfie, fix it to the white area of the page, take a picture of that and post it on Instagram, tagging the organization, “@coalitiononhomelessness.”
The June 15, 2018 issue of Street Sheets is their “Pride Issue.” This issue celebrates the decriminalization of sodomy, uses unrepeatable language, and advertises for the then, up-coming “Dyke March.”
In the September 1, 2016 issue, COH published an image of a mural “celebrating LGBTQ love,” complaining that it was vandalized, saying, “you cannot destroy love.”
Despite the fact that in May of 2017, Coalition on Homelessness gave a ringing endorsement of Planned Parenthood, on June 8 of this year (2018), COH’s executive director Jennifer Friedenbach co-authored a piece in America Magazine with the Archdiocese of San Francisco’s Office of Human Life & Dignity, Valerie Schmalz, titled, “SF must help pregnant homeless women qualify for housing.” Given that the CCHD claims to have “strict guidelines” and that it works to “build relationships” with the granted organizations, it’s hard to imagine that CCHD did not know about COH’s promotion of Planned Parenthood a year before this article was written. What makes this article particularly egregious is that it uses pro-life language in order to make homelessness a “pro-life issue.” This is, of course, disingenuous given the prior promotion of the world’s largest abortion chain.
But COH’s offenses against the Catholic Church are not limited to the Church’s moral teachings. COH has also grievously offended Our Lady. On Sept. 12, 2016, COH posted a blasphemous image of Our Lady called “Our Lady of Compton Cafeteria,” describing it as “brilliant.” The piece was a part of COH’s art auction, so they sold this image for their own funds. At the bottom of this horrific image is a blasphemous prayer, which beseeches “our Lady” to “grant all transwomen … safe love.” It claims that “our Lady” launched “the movement for LGBTQ freedom.”
Also in 2015, COH created an effigy of Donald Trump and then decapitated it.
In November of 2017, COH posted its support for the “Trans March of Resilience.”
According to the CCHD’s application review process:
“National grants staff, who cover multiple dioceses in specific regions of the country, also conduct site visits throughout the year, and build and maintain relationships with funded groups.”
The National CCHD Director responsible for San Francisco is Sean Wenlinder. It’s hard to say if Mr. Wenlinder was simply not doing his job in properly vetting COH, or if he is actually complicit by turning a deliberate blind eye to the above activities we just identified. Either way, the fact that COH received a grant is because he and the CCHD director for the Archdiocese of San Francisco allowed it to happen. What is interesting, however, is that Mr. Wenlinder gave a plug to the Coalition on Homelessness in June of this year, when it’s executive director co-authored the article mentioned above, so he was at least aware of them. And it’s no coincidence that the CCHD focused on COH as well on their twitter account, mentioning that they are working with “partners” (such as the “trans” marchers we spotlighted above) to eliminate homelessness.
At a time when the Church is mired in a deep crisis regarding homosexual clergy, there is no way the Church’s bureaucratic infrastructure can afford to be caught aiding and abetting the LGBT lobby and agents in support of the Culture of Death. And yet, here is just one more example of the serious problems with the moral laxity at the USCCB. If the USCCB is willing to turn a blind eye to this, or claim that it missed a problem so egregious and easy to find such as this, then the USCCB cannot be trusted to police itself at all and should be shut down until every program, every employee, and every agenda can be fully scrutinized in a completely transparent manner. At the very least, the CCHD should be eliminated and the money returned to each and every Catholic donor who believed that their money was being used in a proper, Catholic manner.
Contact the CCHD’s office and demand to know why this group was funded, and how it intends to rectify the fact that at least a quarter of a million dollars has been given to a clear enemy of Holy Mother Church and Our Blessed Mother.
NATIONAL OFFICE STAFF
Main Number . . . . . . . . . . 202-541-3210
Fax Number . . . . . . . . . . 202-541-3329
Main Email . . . . . . . . . . cchdgrants@usccb.org
Ralph McCloud Director: 202-541-3367 rmccloud@usccb.org
Lydia Jiles Grants Administrator: 202-541-3210 ljiles@usccb.org
Sean Wendlinder Grant Specialist, Area E: 202-541-3212 swendlinder@usccb.org
ARCHDIOCESE OF SAN FRANCISCO
Ms. Valerie Schmalz
Director, Office of Human Life & Dignity
Archdiocese of San Francisco
1 Peter Yorke Way
San Francisco, CA, 94109
Phone: (415) 614-5500
SchmalzV@sfarch.org