Posted on 04/20/2015 10:38:17 AM PDT by NYer
Update April 20: In keeping with our regular practice, we contacted Catholic Relief Services on Friday morning for a response prior to publication, and gave them a deadline of 4pm. In this case they did not respond. However, by Monday morning, Estridge's LinkedIn and Facebook profiles were taken down.
BALTIMORE, MD, April 20, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) -- As Catholic bishops throughout the U.S. face attacks for requiring Catholic teachers not to support same-sex “marriage,” new evidence shows that a vice-president at the bishops’ own foreign relief agency is himself “married” to another man.
Critics say the news confirms Catholic Relief Services’ history of hiring high-level employees who openly oppose fundamental Catholic moral teachings, and raises further doubts about the organization’s stewardship of Catholic funds.
‘Flouting Catholic moral teaching’
Public records show that Rick Estridge, Catholic Relief Services’ Vice President of Overseas Finance, who has worked for the U.S. Bishops’ official international humanitarian agency since as long ago as 2001, “married” his homosexual partner in Baltimore, Maryland, on April 4, 2013.
The Lepanto Institute obtained the public marriage record from the City of Baltimore for Estridge and William Goretsas, Jr. The document confirmed the homosexual “marriage,” which took place the same month that Estridge was promoted by CRS to a vice president role, according to Estridge’s LinkedIn profile.
Estridge’s information on the professional networking site details his employment history totaling 14-plus years within CRS, including positions as Director of Overseas Finance for five years, Senior Technical Advisor for Finance and Emergencies for two years, and Manager of Finance and Administration for Relief for nearly four and a half years. CRS records from 2001 indicate Estridge was a Country Representative for Kosovo.
Estridge has also used social media to promote his views against Church teaching.
On his Facebook page, he “likes” numerous pages for homosexual activist groups, including Gay Rights, Human Rights Campaign, Matthew Shepherd Foundation, Freedom to Marry, The Next Family, and NO H8 Campaign.
On the Human Rights Campaign Facebook page, Estridge thanked four politicians that introduced legislation benefitting homosexual couples “for their courageous leadership.” In a post on the Facebook page for Progressive America, Estridge suggested sending Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern to the prison for terrorists at Guantanamo Bay because she filed legislation against homosexual “marriage” and indicated the idea that ‘homosexuality is normal and healthy’ is more dangerous to young people than terrorism.
"This vice president is flouting Catholic moral teaching by living in a homosexual union and engaging in homosexual activism online,” said Michael Hichborn, president of the Lepanto Institute, which uncovered the documentation. “Personnel is policy, so it's a fair question to ask how his lifestyle and activism have influenced policy at CRS."
"If CRS is willing to elevate a man in a homosexual union to an executive position, would it do the same for someone who commits surgical abortions in his spare time?” Hichborn asked. “It's a fair question since both acts are so violently opposed to Catholic teaching."
A history of hiring employees opposed to Church teaching
Catholic Relief Services claims that it “seeks to advance the common good of the world through the uncommon excellence of our staff, partners and programs,” but the organization has a history of hiring employees with strong ties to pro-abortion and pro-contraception organizations.
The most flagrant perhaps was Daphyne Williams, who was hired despite the fact that her LinkedIn resume showed she had previously worked at two openly pro-abortion groups, one of them called “Pro-Choice Resources.” (According to her LinkedIn profile, Williams left CRS in 2012, the month after LifeSiteNews highlighted her in a report.)
Another employee, Charisse Espy Glassman, was convicted of assault in 2011 for ramming her car into a crowd at the DC March for Life. A victim of the assault, who suffered two herniated disks, reported that Glassman had seemed to laugh as she drove into the crowd.
Dr. Amy Ellis, currently CRS’ Health Policy Advisor & Regional Advisor for Asia, was hired in 2011 directly from the pro-abortion group Population Services International, which CRS has funded in the past despite the fact that its purpose is population control and one of its major projects is marketing abortion drugs.
Ellis contributed to a paper by PSI employees on “global contraceptive needs” that was delivered at the International Conference on Family Planning in Senegal from Nov 29 – Dec 2, 2011, while she was on CRS’ staff. And in May 2012, she represented CRS at the Women Deliver conference in Bangladesh, a regular gathering of pro-abortion activists focused on achieving “universal access to reproductive health.” The session she joined included a focus on “revitaliz[ing] family planning.”
Stephen Phelan, Human Life International's director of mission communications, pointed to Article 7 of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s 2012 Apostolic letter On the Service of Charity, which states that Catholic charitable agencies “are required to select their personnel from among persons who share, or at least respect, the Catholic identity of these works.”
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“To ensure an evangelical witness in the service of charity, the diocesan Bishop is to take care that those who work in the Church’s charitable apostolate, along with due professional competence, give an example of Christian life and witness to a formation of heart which testifies to a faith working through charity,” the Motu Proprio added.
‘Is the Catholic faith central to the mission of CRS?’
Steven Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute, said CRS should be held to the same standard as a Catholic high school in West Des Moines, Iowa, that recently faced criticism for declining to hire a man engaged to another man.
Commenting on that issue recently, Bishop Richard Pates said, “While we respect all persons and civil law in regard to civil unions, the Church teaches based on natural law, Scripture and the Church's 2,000-year tradition that marriage is a sacrament between a man and a woman. The Catholic faith is central to our mission as a Catholic school and is an exercise of religious liberty. To deliver on that mission, it is our expectation that staff and teachers support our moral beliefs as they are the models of our Catholic faith.”
According to Mosher, “Bishop Pates’ comments here could also apply to CRS.”
“I would add that the bishops of the U.S., especially those elected to serve on the Board of Directors of CRS, should be asked the same question,” Mosher said. “Is the Catholic faith central to the mission of CRS? If so, then to delivering on this mission requires that the staff of CRS, especially the senior staff, will support the moral beliefs of the Catholic Church as they are--or should be--models of the Catholic faith, and representatives of the Catholic community in the United States.”
Hichborn also directed attention to recent steps on the part of dioceses in Ohio and California to strengthen Catholic identity in their schools and confirm that faculty uphold Catholic teaching, as examples for CRS to follow.
“CRS needs to follow suit,” said Hichborn. “If they don't, then CRS is operating above and outside the actions of local bishops.”
“An organization that touts itself as being Catholic should--of course--hire practicing Catholics in good standing,” Mosher said. “This CRS steadfastly refuses to consistently do. And we see the results here.”
“Catholic donors may wish to reconsider whether they would like their donations to go to an organization whose employees, by their actions, make a mockery out of the sacraments of the Church,” Mosher continued.
Hichborn asked how CRS’ internal oversight could be taken seriously when its own vice president of overseas finance is living in a homosexual “marriage,” and further questioned how many other CRS employees could be openly living lifestyles in violation of Church teaching while paying lip-service to Catholic principles.
"With a vice president living in a same-sex union, CRS has lost all credibility and cannot be trusted to conduct its own investigations,” he said. “It's high time the bishops took a closer look at our research and stopped taking CRS execs at their word. A full and complete, independent audit of all of CRS projects must be conducted."
Read: Catholic Relief Services: We’re ‘proud’ that we don’t discuss faith
50,000 denominations all under one roof.
I LOVE St. Vincent de Paul!!! They REALLY HELP people and waste no money.
Samaritan’s Purse is a great organization. Its leadership is not afraid to stand on principle.
Glad I stopped giving to these heretics a long time ago.
What a hypocritical religion, eh???
Because birds of a feather flock together...
What a nonsensical comment!
**Do NOT give CRS any money until they get straight with Catholicism.**
This is the answer.
Are they still available to answer any questions I might have? 😩😭😱😁
("About Lepanto", from their site):
"The Lepanto Institute for the Restoration of All Things in Christ is a research and education organization dedicated to the defense of the Catholic Church against assaults from without as well as from within. Whether in the form of armies, heretics, or traitors, the Church has always faced enemies seeking Her destruction. Today, the Church faces all three."
Do you have any unanswered questions that are keeping you from crossing the Tiber and returning “home” to Catholicism?
I don’t because I didn’t leave the Catholic church because of unanswered questions.
Well, let me think about that for a moment. No, come to think of it, I don't have any unanswered questions. Does that answer your question? 😄😃😀😁😅😇😀😃😄😅😂
You really need to research at least a little before you make such asinine statements...CRS is probably one of the finest and most efficient charitable organizations in the world.
You seem to think that you have all the answers already...(you don't)...so what would your questions be....maybe which of the thousands of misguided protestant "denominations" is correct???(answer:none of them)!!!
LOL, as Ronnie Reagan would say, there you go again. Actually, my unanswered question, was why did I think I could not go to Heaven, even though I thought I was in the only true church, the RCC. I wasn't, in the true church, that is. He just fed me the same nonsense I had been filled with, for my whole life, but never was able to give me a satisfactory answer, like, where was I going? Big surprise there. I decided I was going to read the Bible and interpret it myself. I am glad I did. Sorry if others don't like that. I do it anyway, and I love it, and don't care if anyone likes it or not. By the way, we all know that I belong to the only true church, the First United Church of the Navigators, in Jesus our Lord. It was formed in the distant past, like maybe about 5.379457321 million years ago, or maybe even before that. At any rate, it was formed so many millions of years ago, it must be right. 😄😀😃 I am glad I belong to the only true church, because no one can be saved unless they belong to the only true church, which is the previously mentioned church. 😄😃😀😱😎 I am comfortable with my choice. If others are not? Oh well. 😀😃😮😱🙉🙈🙊
Because what you really believe is shown by your actions and fruit. (Ja. 2:18; Mt. 7:20) And the popes and prelates overall must believe that treating even publicly known proabortion/sodomite/Muslim souls and their supporters as members in life and in death is right, without which Rome would lose a lot of its membership.
Unlike fund. evangelicals, conservative RCs cannot separate from these "brethren," except by becoming part of a sect like the SSPX, or a schism, like the SSPV. Which means they are like Protestants, since they rely upon their interpretation of what is written as being the truth, versus following the leadership who show by their actions and fruit the meaning of historical RC teaching.
"It follows that the Church is essentially an unequal society, that is, a society comprising two categories of per sons, the Pastors and the flock...the one duty of the multitude is to allow themselves to be led, and, like a docile flock, to follow the Pastors." (VEHEMENTER NOS, an Encyclical of Pope Pius X promulgated on February 11, 1906),
Thank you.
We have a St Vincent de Paul Society in my parish. Our 5th Sunday second collection goes to them.
They give out no cash but instead pay utility bills, rent, buy groceries, etc.
Since the parish started online donations, I expect SVdP to receive more money in the future.
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