The Caritas Christi Kerfuffle Gets an Extreme Makeover in the Pilot

Several readers and colleagues brought to my attention the Pilot article written by Scot Landry responding to criticism over the Caritas sale and the Cardinal's lack of concern about Catholic identity.


Scot has brought a great deal of faithful teaching in Boston to Catholic adults (including priests) who are starving for it. Among the things he's done is running a solid and inspirational Women's and Men's Conference with phenomenal speakers.  (Some of you may know Scot's brother Fr. Roger Landry who is a serious physician of souls dedicated to bringing God's people to salvation.)  I respect Scot.


So, what do I think about Scot's article?


Why now is the diocese addressing this and why Scot?  Seems strange after all this time.   Is it the damage done by Phil Lawler's article - Terms of the Agreement?


In any event, I think Scot makes some valid points about the financial mess Caritas was in. But he doesn't convince me, for a lot of reasons.

The Democratic party has long had plans to take over the healthcare system in the United States.    Jack Connors as we like to say here in Boston "coincidentally" is a very big player in the Democratic party.  Connors, in fact, co-chaired the 2004 convention, the convention where Barack Obama made his political debut.  (For non-Boston readers, Connors is playing a co-Cardinal role which he shares with Bryan Hehir)

Caritas President Ralph de la Torre wanted to be a player in the plan.  Here's his introduction:   Open letter to Obama written on January 23, 2009.

Mr. de la Torre, made contributions and lined up others to make contributions to Martha Coakley  (among others) presumably to shore up the plans with political power.  ( Last year, de la Torre raised a million dollars for the Democratic party and  Obama made a personal visit to de la Torre in his home in West Newton.  I wonder if he got a pen!)

Everyone here following the minutia of these shady dealings (and this is purely educated political conjecture) thinks there will be a big "TA DA" when de la Torre is finished building this network of national hospitals: Jack Connors Partner's Health Care will gobble up the empire in an acquisition that will be working to accomplish Obamacare's objective of nationalized medicine.

When the plan is finished, the rights of Catholics to conscientiously object to withholding  treatment or killing a life the government has determined is worthless will have more far-reaching national consequences to Catholics.


By the way -- this is very simple.  We have a man here - de la Torre - with narcissistic ambition who sees the plan of Obama and he's decided he's going to be sitting pretty to make Obama an offer he can't refuse.  There is no 'conspiracy' here.   This is how political and social ambition come together in any mission.    As the government inches along, at some point they are going to need a network of hospitals to give cheap healthcare to the masses. "Guess who" will be sitting with the network.  This guy is very, very smart.     We have smart people on the side of the sanctity of life too, but sadly very few of them are at our Chanceries.  Smart people have the tendency to point out where mistakes are being made and things are going to go haywire.   We all know what happens when you try to tell Chancery folks that their ideas are unsound and dangerous to children.   Smart people get shunned and maligned and up goes a fortress of willful ignorance.


There's a Hitler or Goebbels quote that goes something like masses of people are more likely to fall victim to a big lie than a small one because they won't realize what's happening to them.  Of course what happened here, with all of these democratic players, is momentum in the trajectory of Obama's Obamacare and nationalized medicine. 


As it stands now, we had to promise that when women come into our primary care physicians and want an abortion Catholics will give out information that is neutral and send the child in her womb in a taxi cab to be executed.   The Cardinal agreed to let members of the Commonwealth go into examination rooms "if necessary" to make sure we are compliant with this contractual obligation.  The Cardinal signed off on this. He is not a stupid man and knows Catholics are now forced into doing something that condemns to death a living human being. It is sinful - possibly to the point of excommunication - I don't know - but it is a very serious thing he has forced us into.   I am not up for excusing his behavior with ignorance.    He has abdicated and it is about time we all start saying it out loud.  

You can't say that the Cardinal takes Catholic identity seriously when the man he has delegated (Bryan Hehir) has put the fox in the henhouse.  If the Cardinal took Catholic identity seriously, or Catholic doctrine or Canon Law - he'd be putting people in place that took it seriously.   Hehir has been working to extinguish the rights of Catholics to recuse themselves from doing something immoral to a sick and unhealthy patient.   Last year, Hehir even had the gall to sit on a panel beside an MGH doctor who does second trimester abortions and is working for the right to give the unborn a lethal injection before he decapitates them. Hehir's contribution essentially, was to say it isn't fair for Catholics to have conscience protections because it impacts the rights of patients to receive these medical services.  Conscience protections threatens social justice.   He calls his theory on Catholic conscience protections "Fair Adjudication".    I don't know how fair it is to the victims for a Catholic priest to sit on a panel affirming the services of the doctor who decapitates them, but there you have it. 

Maybe the Cardinal is ignorant of this too - but it isn't for lack of people trying to tell him that he's ignorant of all these facts, that's for sure.  More on that in a minute.

Scot's financial assertions seem reasonable.  But saying Caritas Christi was insolvent doesn't fly with me because Mr. de la Torre was and is quite capable of drumming up investors and making hospitals solvent.    Recently, de la torre's abilities to build a successful network of hospitals and make them succesful was highlighted in this article HERE.

Steward Health Care System chief executive Ralph de la Torre, making his debut at the annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, told investors this morning that he plans to take his company's Massachusetts cluster of community hospitals national.

"Our national model is really about replicating our regional model and keeping a very small centralized structure," he said.

De la Torre said Steward is building a model of lower-cost, high-volume patient care that is much different from larger hospital organizations such as Massachusetts General Hospital, Cleveland Clinic, and Mayo Clinic.

Cheap healthcare for high volumes of people.  Sound familiar? 

Catholics educated on more details than the average Pilot reader have a difficult time swallowing that on the one hand, de la Torre's claims he was incapable of building a model of lower-cost,high-volume patient care, keeping a very centralized structure with the six hospitals at Caritas Christi because on the other hand, he is out in the public square, now as the CEO of Caritas' parent company, saying he knows just how to do it. And, he says he is so successful, he is taking his Caritas model national.

Does he know how to do it or doesn't he? If he knows how to do it, then he was perfectly capable of doing it when the hospitals were Catholic and owned by the diocese.    That was his job.  Caritas was in fact making a profit by the time the Cardinal 'sold' them.  

This profit even allowed them to come up with the money to purchase two more (non-Catholic) failing hospitals. A  miraculous infusion of cash from wallets they were trying to claim were empty, isn't it?

You'll also note the claim in Scot's article that the Cardinal was ignorant of his contractual performance obligations to carry out abortions in the arrangement with Commonwealth Care.  According to the article, he was also ignorant of the related business arrangements and contracts that carried out the agreement of the diocese to provide abortions with Centene.  Additionally, he was ignorant about the acquisition of Landmark.   This is all believable up to a point, but it isn't excusable.


It appears from the article that if it weren't for newspapers, the Cardinal wouldn't know a thing about what's going on in his own diocese.     Isn't this how pedophiles got away with that they got away with for years?


This is just an observation here - but a puff piece on how ignorant the Cardinal was on very serious things going down in his diocese is kinda sorta enabling isn't it?   It's going in the opposite direction of the solution to all the people running amok with authority that belongs to the role of a Cardinal while he runs around planet earth being the Charles Kuralt of the Episcopal Conference.


So let's think this through...


The Cardinal appointed Bryan Hehir to represent him on the Board of Directors at Caritas.    Since Bryan Hehir is required to sign resolutions approving such transactions as a member of the board it is not possible for him to claim ignorance.  Assuming Scot's explanation is true, Hehir kept the Cardinal in the dark, even when Catholics stepped forward to communicate the information to him.


Here's where that starts to fall apart for me.   It's been a while since I read the by-laws and structure of Caritas - but I'm pretty sure the signature of the Cardinal was required on the contracts. But let's use the lowest common denominator and assume Bryan Hehir gave the Cardinal's permission for the diocese to take the major stockholder position in a partnership that is going to performing abortions on women and then kept him in the dark about it.


Quite scandalous, wouldn't you say?


Once Catholics stepped forward to tell the Cardinal, because Hehir keeps him in the dark, the Cardinal thinks and then characterizes them on his blog as liars and people doing a disservice to the Church.


And once the Cardinal finds out about all this he didn't fire Hehir?


This begs the question - what other kinds of dishonesty and deception is the Cardinal coddling up there at Chancery?  


If I remember correctly, the Cardinal claimed he didn't know how to figure out whether the diocese could provide abortions to women for the Commonwealth by registering a business who made contracts with abortionists and send the women to abortion clinic in a taxi cab if necessary was in keeping with Catholic ethics.  He thought about it and thought about and he just didn't see anything wrong with it.   After a lot of noise from lay Catholics, he outsourced his conscience to the National Catholic Bioethics Center who eventually unraveled the deal with Centene.   The diocese became a provider of physican services for Centene.  The new arrangment upheld the promise on the contractual obligations they made to the Commonwealth to send the women for abortions in a taxi to the abortionists Centene contracted with.    This might not have saved any children, it didn't protect the Catholics from being forced into providing neutral information on abortion and sending them in a cab - but it did stop the diocese from making the money they would make as a shareholder.


For about a year during this dust up, people called the Cardinal, faxed him, sent him emails, approached him physically at meetings and after Mass to speak to him about the abortion contracts.  We gave the information to the Nuncio, the Holy See, other Bishops, other high-ranking lay Catholics and asked them to intercede.  Reports came back that the Cardinal was completely silent in the face of these communications.  Others got letters confirming that any source saying the diocese was involved in abortion contracts was not giving out accurate information.   Others said they were ordered to be silent by the Cardinal.  The Cardinal did not retract his slanderous remarks about Catholic pro-lifers.    Meanwhile numerous glowing entries praising Bryan Hehir appear on the Cardinal's blog on a frequent basis.


Here's one that is particularly offensive:

We are pleased to announce that Father J. Bryan Hehir, Cabinet Secretary for Social Services and Health Care, has been invited to participate in a symposium hosted by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace at the Vatican this coming October. The topic for the symposium is “Caritas in veritate and the United States” and is the result of a joint collaboration with the Pontifical Council and the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies at the University of Southern California. The Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace is a ministry of the Holy See dedicated to promoting justice, peace and human rights throughout the world. Pope Benedict XVI, in his latest encyclical, Caritas in veritate, speaks to the issues of “integral human development” and what justice means in today’s global economy.

Father Hehir is an international expert in the area of ethics and foreign policy and the role of religion across the global landscape and in American society. His work has encompassed a broad range of challenges that he has met with distinction, including taking leadership of Catholic Charities USA two days prior to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He very carefully and capably guided that agency through some of our nation’s most difficult hours, ensuring that Charities’ essential services continued to be provided during the crisis. He also served on the staff of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, addressing issues of both foreign and domestic policy for the Church in the United States.

I am very grateful to Father Hehir for his continued service to the Archdiocese of Boston as priest, cabinet secretary, strategic advisor and professor and for his long standing commitment to pastoral ministry in the prisons, our parishes and with Pro-Life ministries.

A likening to Hehir's career as 'charity in truth' was particularly offensive to Boston Catholics who, unlike the Cardinal, are educated and informed on Hehir's demolition of Catholic identity in Catholic Charities, Catholic healthcare, Catholic education, Catholic governance and doing everything they can to inform the Cardinal around the fortress set up to protect the blissful and willful ignorance.  


Here's the centuries old game in the Catholic Church of willful ignorance:  The Cardinal has an agenda makes plans, hires people to carry out those plans, surrounds himself with a cabal who will threaten, slander and demoralize people of good will who try to report to the Cardinal the theological, spiritual moral and sometimes criminal disorder swirling around the execution of his plans.


My thoughts are, I don't really think the article is helpful towards believing the Cardinal's trajectory is one of honor and truth.


Of recent vintage, the Cardinal misused a quote from the Pope claiming it was his license for his policy dismantling the Catholic identity of our Catholic schools.


“No child should be denied his or her right to an education in faith, which in turn nurtures the soul of a nation.”   (Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI to Catholic Educators in Washington DC, April 17, 2008.)"


Assuming he was ignorant of context of this quote, numerous people informed him that the context was about ensuring Catholic children who could not afford a Catholic education and wanted one, would receive the financial help they need.    Families who oppose Catholic teaching don't have the 'right' to Catholic education.  Decisions to deny them admission are made by people who realize that making classrooms donnybrooks actually denies the Catholic children the right to their education in the faith and the nurturing of their souls.    


Call it what you will - but the Cardinal was informed it was a dishonest use of the quote and he approved using it so I'm just going to say how it is perceived - deliberate dishonesty used to execute Bryan Hehir's decades old agenda of divesting Catholic education of moral theology and reducing it to social justice.


Boston bloggers will have more on this - but if you're interested in getting ahead on the trajectory of Catholic education under Bryan Hehir's regime - check out the youtube of Hehir's explanation embedded in Cardinal Sean's blog.  (I'll give you a hint on one little tidbit - the identity of Catholic education can be explained in the second collection at Mass - supporting The Catholic Campaign for Human Development.)  


Scot is trying to make an honest tapestry out of a web of lies to salvage the Cardinal's reputation as a forthright and honorable man interested in preserving Catholic identity for future generations in his role as a Catholic Cardinal here in Boston.  I understand the reasons why. Scot is a unifer, a peacemaker.  But the credibility and trustworthiness of the Cardinal has been deeply wounded.  Taking the pulse of informed hands-on committed and educated grassroots Catholics I would say irreparably.


There are too many instances where dishonest PR campaigns were mounted to publicly rebuke and undermine people who were trying to inform him of what he claims he did not know.  What he was accountable to know.   What people who informed him know he knows.   There is no honest pursuit of truth. The trust is gone and puff pieces are only going to pour gasoline on the flames.


Those are my thoughts on the article.  I don't mean to pick on Scot, but we've got to stop protecting the fortress of willful ignorance and publicly admit that the Cardinal has abdicated, things are going haywire here and we need official help from the Vatican.

Caritas Buys Landmark and Admits Distancing Itself from Operating as Catholic

UPDATED

Sometimes when I check my stats, I can see TTBO readers refreshing their browsers quite a bit when there's some ghastly development in the Archdiocese and I haven't posted substantively on it yet.    


Its like I know exactly that you're thinking.   "Whhhoah, look at this story.   I'll bet McKinley is steamed up. Let me mosey on over to TTBO to catch the locomotive!  "


:O)

So sorry about the post with no links and the radio silence.  It's been a crazy few days.   


I hope you found you way to the lively post at Bryan Hehir Exposed post HERE that contrasts what Caritas says:

"the deal does not require Landmark to become a Catholic hospital or to accept the limitations of Catholic doctrine.  Landmark spokesman Bill Fischer said the hospital intended to remain secular, and Caritas spokesman Chris Murphy confirmed that, saying, “Our intent is to preserve Landmark in its current form, which includes no religious affiliation.”

..with what Cardinal O'Malley says:

"Caritas Christi will never do anything …in any way to participate in actions that are contrary to Catholic moral teaching.”

Good Heavens no, Caritas Christi will never do anything contrary to Catholic moral teaching.  Why that would be preposterous.


Boston Catholics following the turmoil in the Archdiocese will tell you that the Landmark acquisition was preceded by the announcement from the "Pastoral Center" that the Caritas and the Cardinal had entered into a "Stewardship Agreement" with Cerebus that reportedly preserved the Catholic identity of Caritas.


The Pilot story about the agreement is here.


Given the news this week, I'm repeating the story in its entirety (emphasis mine)

The Archdiocese of Boston and Caritas Christi Health Care announced today that they have executed a Stewardship Agreement that ensures the Catholic identity of the Caritas Christi hospitals, pending the approval of the transaction transferring the system to Steward Healthcare System LLC (“Steward”), a newly formed affiliate of Cerberus Capital Management, L.P. 

“We are pleased to announce the completion of a Stewardship Agreement that memorializes Steward’s commitment to maintain the Catholic identity of the Caritas Christi Health Care system and its fidelity to the mission of the Church’s healthcare ministry,” said Cardinal Seán O’Malley. “The transaction with Steward will provide the system much needed capital for its infrastructure, programs, and pension funds while continuing to provide high quality healthcare in accord with the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services adopted by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (the “Ethical and Religious Directives”).”

“In our search for capital, we were committed to finding a partner that valued our Catholic tradition. Cerberus Capital Management has committed to preserving the Catholic tradition of Caritas Christi Health Care and this agreement solidifies that commitment. We are grateful that the RCAB and Caritas will continue to work together to fulfill our mission,” said Ralph de la Torre, MD, Chief Executive Officer of Caritas Christi Health Care.

“I wish to express my appreciation to Dr. Ralph de la Torre and his leadership team for their commitment to working with the Archdiocese to achieve a Stewardship Agreement for these hospitals,” said Cardinal Seán. “I am grateful that we have reached a meaningful agreement that allows us to continue to serve those in need while never losing sight of the moral and religious teachings handed down to us by Christ.”

They will never lose sight of it, I tell you.


Here are some other quotes about the Stewardship Agreement gathered up from another BHE post:

We announced yesterday that an agreement has been reached with Cerberus that ensures the Catholic identity of the Caritas Christi hospitals. The sale is still pending as the Attorney General has to review it, but this stewardship agreement was a key component for us because it will preserve the Catholic identity of Caritas. (Cardinal Sean’s May 7, 2010 blog) 

The Stewardship Agreement memorializes Steward’s commitment to maintain the Catholic identity of the Caritas Christi Healthcare system and its fidelity to the mission of the Church’s healthcare ministry.” (Fr. Richard Erikson, Vicar General, quoted in The Pilot, May 14, 2010) 

This is a substantive and structural commitment by the archdiocese and Steward to operate this hospital system by the religious and moral directives of the Catholic Church.” (Fr. Bryan Hehir, Secretary for Healthcare and Social Services, quoted in The Pilot, May 14, 2010) 

The Coalition to Save Catholic Healthcare has been all over this, asking the Nuncio to step into the donnybrook, among other things.   Their communications are worthy of its own post - which I hope to get to over the weekend.  


Deal Hudson picked up the story today, publishing CJ Doyle's spectacular press release.  




I'd say my sentiments could be accurately summarized by the comment named Enrichment from Abortions.

This is sadly not the first time the archdiocese has positioned itself to be enriched from abortions and other moral evils performed on sick and distraught patients. 

This does seem to be the most transparent arrangement. 

I f they follow their usual modus operandi, the archdiocese will make prominent an agreement signed by Cardinal O'Malley that purportedly binds Caritas to Catholic ethics and moral teaching keeping their fingers crossed that the Holy See will not scratch the surface. 

The agreement of course is set up to be nullified at any given time the new owners find Catholic moral teaching is in conflict with civil law, at which point they will give the Cardinal 25 million dollars and the Cardinal will release them from the Agreement. 

I am not making this up. 

The Cardinal has put the wolves in charge to ravage the souls of the sheep.  He has repeatedly made clear that he wants us to surrender, without resistance, our children to be destroyed.   But what a happy day it will be when we can all be unified with the game plan of the wolves.


Good luck with that.

A current assessment of the Caritas Abortion Scandal

On Friday, the Cardinal announced that Caritas would be pulling out of the 49% ownership of CeltiCare. The Archdiocese no longer owns the corporation that has contracted with abortionists and hired phone operators. This is a triumph to be celebrated and a miraculous one at that given the powers we were up against.

The CeltiCare partnership previously 51% owned by Centene and 49% owned by Caritas signed a contract with the Commonwealth to provide health care including abortions and family planning. All parties in the venture, Caritas, Centene and the Commonwealth have reached an agreement that permits Caritas to withdraw from CeltiCare but remain as providers of healthcare to patient's of CeltiCare, now wholly-owned by Centene.

However, upon the withdrawal of their ownership interest, they have maintained their working relationship with CeltiCare and has said, they will in fact, continue to forward the women to Celticare. CeltiCare has lined up the abortionists and the 24 hour hotline and had previously placed NARAL as a police dog for the enforcement - to police Catholic employees - even inside of examination rooms if necessary.

Just because the Cardinal agreed to force Caritas to withdraw their ownership of CeltiCare doesn't mean all of the above arrangements that were in the original contract have been withdrawn. They may be - but I don't think we've done the due diligence and obtained the confirmation.

Is CeltiCare managing the obligations of the original contract? If so, in this scenario, Caritas employees are still burdened by them - even though the Archdiocese no longer has an ownership interest in CeltiCare?

Are we to assume that the Commonwealth agreed to permit Caritas to be the provider and released them from the obligation in the contract to ensure family planning and abortion be readily accessible in the arrangement?

Without a peep from Planned Parenthood representatives on the Commonwealth Connector Authority?

Caritas CEO Mr. de la Torre has affirmed that nothing at all has changed - when the patient comes in to seek an abortion, they will be referred back to CeltiCare who has taken out contracts with abortionists and hired phone operators to accept the requests from the patients that Caritas refers to it, they will make the arrangements for the abortion and then pay for the abortion.

Aren't we missing some details?

We still don't know if this new arrangement includes an intentional omission of that first course of action - counseling the patient and giving her prolife referral and resources-- and in its stead, handing patients the CeltiCare number. If we are to take Mr. de la Torre's comments on their face value - that intentional omission is built into these new arrangements.

Are we to be satisfied with this in our prolife community?

Giving the number of CeltiCare as the first course of action because Caritas and CeltiCare have agreed to do so in return for the money, this leads thousands to their deaths when they could have been saved. Isn't this the theological flaw in the contract we've been trying to avoid?


It's tempting to want to believe the new arrangement released Caritas from all the objectionable provisions in the contract. This certainly is implied in the Cardinal's and Caritas' statements. In reality, how that contract is being carried forward with all the parties remain mysterious. This is just too important not to insist on those details being made public.

Several people (reporters from the Boston Globe, from Catholic sources, prolifers in Boston, etc) have asked for clarification of the arrangements between all parties and the Cardinal has refused to make those details available. Since the National Catholic Bioethics Center has scrutinized this new arrangement we have asked for the report to be made public. If you review the facts as they are now, the Cardinal has not said that the NCBC has approved of this arrangement. The Cardinal thanked Caritas - who got them into the mess to begin with and thanked the NCBC whose comments have yet to materialize.

Now perhaps there is nothing sinister in the arrangements and the NCBC has approved this. If so, then the Cardinal needs to make all the contracts, partnership agreements and the NCBC opinion blessing this arrangeable, public. Until that time, we don't know what these changes are all about.

One more unpleasant thing needs to be dealt with in the post-mortem.


Though the contract had been long ago signed, the links on the Celticare website revealed, the Archdiocese had made contracts with abortionists and hired people to answer the phones, over 150 physicians and healthcare providers have been hired,the Cardinal continuously implying women would not be sent for abortions, even though Caritas had assured the Commonwealth they would and in fact the contract with the Commonwealth binds them to that promise, Anne Fox of MCFL is now claiming MCFL has always known the Cardinal would do the right thing and that is why they've been defending the Cardinal's false assertions for the last few months. In those few months - the conduct of MCFL activists is here and here.

The willful blindness, taking things out of context and full blown attacks upon people trying to bear witness to what is happening - the conduct in those posts speak for itself.

If you can't salute corruption, MCFL will throw you under the bus. They are not alone. For centuries now, whistleblowers have been treated as though they somehow got droped into an episode of Big Love.

It's time to put this dynamic out of its misery. This is the cause of the crisis that allowed the few pedophiles to fester into a situation whereby the problem could be hijacked to assert the word "priest" is synonymous with "pedophile".

We can no longer tolerate people who try to crush whistleblowers. People who do this in our parishes, in our communities, in our cyberworld and in our apostolates have got to be confronted and pushed back.

One victim of MCFL's tactics, Brendon O'Connell has had a pro-life television apostolate for many years that was somehow connected to MCFL. He interviewed CJ Doyle about the Caritas debacle (and I believe he interviewed Phil Lawler) and MCFL had Brendon's television program yanked.

This is the same conduct they have executed for the last 7 or 8 years, of recent vintage when Romney gave them 10,000 in exchange for a prolife award. When activists who had experienced Romney's tenure brought it to light into the public square, we all went under the bus then too.

They've got to knock this stuff off and everyone in the prolife community has got to put pressure on them to knock off. Firing salvos with the Cardinal at everyone in trenches that we are enemies of the Church is a hit to our reputation that is not only undeserved, it stalls convictions of people who have less knowledge of the situation and it stalls righteousness.

Every tactic has it's time and place. Crushing people speaking the truth has no place in our future. Let's stomp it out when we see it.

I was told earlier today a Q&A with the Cardinal produced by Joan Frawley Desmond will run in the National Catholic Register. I am contacting Fr. Owen and others in our prolife community to make known that a Q&A controlled and written by the Cardinal with Joan Frawley Desmond that will run in the Register is something the prolife community is going to be very, very upset about in light of the lack of transparency about the contracts between all the parties and the release of the "approval" by the NCBC. Having the Cardinal craft questions and then answer them while all the substance of the contracts gets left out of those questions, and the approval by the NCBC unpublished is unacceptable. Fr. Owen and the NCR are reasonable people and friends of prolife community and we expect they will see the problems with an arranged press release from the Cardinal.

If Joan Frawley Desmond is going to take our questions and get them answered, I'm all for it. We want to know the substance of the arrangements. When I get more details, I'll post them.

Caritas Abortions: Eleventh Hour Appeal

-----Original Message-----
From: cmmckinley@aol.com
To: DrJohnHaas@aol.com; tad.grd.nsc@aya.yale.edu
Cc: archbishopsean@rcab.org; Beirne_Lovely@rcab.org; terrence_donilon@rcab.org; thoopes@ncregister.com; jburger@ncregister.com; granny@all.org; editor@cwnews.com; bermudez@aciprensa.com; mpaulson@globe.com; klazar@globe.com; granny@all.org; joefeitelberg@maltaboston.org; jimk@firstbristol.com; ralph.delatorre@caritaschristi.org; CALMDOYLE@aol.com; lifejohn@aol.com; glendon@law.harvard.edu; rgbesse@comcast.net; catholic.conscience.protections@gmail.com
Sent: Sat, Jun 20, 2009 12:30 pm
Subject: Eleventh Hour Appeal

June 20, 2009

+
IHS

Dr. Haas, Fr. Tad,

In light of the National Catholic Register's story this week, I wanted to make an eleventh hour appeal to both of you. What is absolutely clear from the information reported is that the deal, as it exists on paper right now and as it was structured to function once operations commence on July 1, is unquestionably (and now admitted by the Archdiocese to be) contrary to the teaching of the Church. What is also clear is that no amount of "renegotiating" the contract can cure the immorality, because (a) the new entity will be performing immoral services and (b) Caritas owns 49% of the new entity and therefore will benefit from the immoral services, no matter how much Caritas distances itself from the actual performance of those services. Nevertheless, it is evident that the Archdiocese intends to proceed with this deal, after making some cosmetic changes to disguise what is really going on.

"Caritas" has taken a partner to infuse cash, taken a 49% interest in the new corporation, disguised themselves under the name CeltiCare, hired the abortionists, hired bilingual people to man the phone lines to give out the number of the abortionists they've hired, compeled employees of Caritas to stop guiding patients with Catholic doctrine and instead give out the phone numbers of their CeltiCare employees, placed Planned Parenthood and NARAL as their advisory board in this arrangement whom they've promised to give spying priveleges of Catholic employees (if necessary inside of examination rooms) to ensure "compliance".

It appears from the story, that Rev. Hehir is assisting in the theological interpretation of the Caritas Contract. I wanted to state, once again, for the public record that Rev. J. Bryan Hehir is a dissenter of Humanae Vitae and Evangelium Vitae and that he is working with several colleagues at the Kennedy School of Government who are notorious avengers of Catholic teachings and the Catholic Church. If you perform due diligence, you will find this group worked to elect Oama and are now using their various appointments to assist in carrying out the attack against the Catholic Church in America - all while wearing the virtuous veil of "helping the poor". "Helping the poor" was used by their political predecessors throughout history in every other country that has fallen to communism, socialism and every other imprisonment and oppression against the final frontier of religious freedoms now rapidly deteriorating in the United States.

"Caritas" has bid on a contract that compels carrying out moral evils upon the unchatechized, the unsuspecting, the economically depressed and women emotionally distraught by their unplanned20pregnancy and having irrational thoughts about "what to do". "Caritas" has promised, in writing, that they will either find somebody within the "Caritas" network who agrees to carry the moral evils out or they will hire subcontractors to carry out the moral evils, send the patients there to have them performed and complete those transactions by paying for them from the pot of money this lucrative contract brings to "Caritas".

We initially hoped the National Catholic Bioethics Center was tapped, in good faith, to theologically index the list of reasons why the Cardinal must block the venture. Least among these reasons, the realiztion that the Catholic Cardinal has got to find "somebody" to do the abortions, he's got to find a way to paper the trail so that he can send the women there and then pay for those services (less the patient's co-pay) - - and how he cannot spiritually exploit all these people because their birth certificates don't have the name "Caritas" on them. We had fervently hoped that any opinion coming from the NCBC legally defines "what" and "who" are "Caritas"? (The papers at the Secretary of State's Office? The Cardinal? The Board of Directors?)

We also hoped that the NCBC will not dishonestly leave out of their evaluation the out most important "Caritas" corporation in this "venture" - the one carrying out this contract, "CeltiCare" -- whether what actually happen s to all the "people" involved, i.e., whether "CeltiCare's" contracts with abortionists violates ‘Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services’, whether "CeltiCare's" phone lines where operators give out the numbers to the people are "referrals" and whether a Catholic Cardinal (or any other Catholic in the United States) can enter into a contract that includes moral evils and then hire people to perform those moral evils when they don't want to sin themselves.

This, theologically, is the question you are answering - Can Catholics, when we are faced with economic hardships, accept contracts that bind us to perform moral evilas and then hire people to perform those moral evils? Can we invest in the abortion industry, embryonic stem-cell industry or prostitution in Nevada?

We know that you know the answers to these questions. Why are we three months later without the answers?

Finally, in Mr. de la Torre's open letter to Obama published in Business Week in January of 2009 (http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/jan2009/ca20090123_798447.htm?chan=careers_managing+index+page_top+stories), he positing questions about "defining access" in a "complete overhaul of our healthcare model", he asks the following questions:
0A
-"Should the elderly and the very poor continue to have access that others do not? Does "access" define all medical care without reservation?"

-"Do we want to shoulder the tremendous costs of medicine that meet the very highest standards?"

-"What should be the goals for infant mortality, cancer survival rates, and other such metrics?"

Sadly, these questions and others in the thesis leave the discinct impression that the interests in "serving the poor" will end should any of them become old enough or sick enough to be in the negative columns in the Caritas cash cow financials. I'm underwhelmed by the virtues of the servitudes to the poor implied therein.

Fr. Tad, Dr. Haas, I feel it is my baptismal duty to plead with you in this eleventh hour: Walk away from the table before you scramble and confuse the teachings of the Church to give Rev. Hehir the paper to cover up the spiritual and physical atrocities inherent in this contract. The scandal it will create (and has created) to the Cardinal, to the Church, to the trust of Catholics who know that20you know that there is no conceivable arrangement that will comport this contract with Catholic teachings and the Cardinal must block the venture.

From the ashes of the systemic flaw that responded to salacious crimes against children by getting opinions that swept what was really happening under the carpets, you cannot be the vehicle for this arrangement. I implore you, in the Name of Jesus Christ, to walk away - no matter what the personal and professional cost. Dust your sandals and get out of town and let those actions speak for themselves.

In the service of Christ,
Carol M. McKinley

Boston's Hour of Accountability Draws Near

The bottom line is that NARAL and Planned Parenthood’s involvement is the proverbial straw that has finally broken the camel’s back and thus the Archdiocese of Boston is officially ending the charade. But, as of this moment, neither the word “abortion” nor the abortion cartel’s involvement have been mentioned in a single archdiocesan document or statement. How can that be?


Boston's Hour of Accountability Draws Near


The furor over the July 1 deadline facing Sean Cardinal O’Malley, of the Archdiocese of Boston, has been newsworthy for many weeks. Meanwhile, however, the clock is ticking and the fear is that Caritas Christi’s agreement with CeltiCare will go into effect with nary a whimper from the decision makers at the chancery. That would indeed be a tragedy of no small proportions.

As we said in our statement of this past Friday,

While Catholics and pro-lifers around the country await a definitive statement from the Archdiocese of Boston indicating that it will not participate in or facilitate abortions or other procedures contrary to Catholic teaching, Cardinal O’Malley’s latest statement raises even more questions.

The archdiocese has acknowledged that an agreement has been reached with Celtic Group, Inc. – a subsidiary of St. Louis-based Centene Corporation – for a joint healthcare venture. We know that CeltiCare includes abortion and “family planning services” in its coverage and has promised to continue this policy after July 1.

The archdiocese’s statement also acknowledged that the agreement requires modification. This is a positive step, but certainly not acceptable as a final answer.

What is disconcerting is that Cardinal O’Malley and the Boston archdiocese have thus far failed to clearly explain how abortion and “family planning services” will not occur in Catholic healthcare facilities. The terms of CeltiCare’s contract with the state government specifically require coverage for abortions and other “reproductive health” services. How then could Caritas Christi – which owns 49 percent of the for-profit CeltiCare – justify its involvement and direct connection with this business while adhering to the Catholic Church’s unequivocal teachings on abortion, contraception and sterilization?

Even if patients seeking abortions or contraception will be outsourced to a third-party referral service, this does not remove the archdiocese’s culpability for involvement in procedures that violate the Church’s fundamental moral teachings.

Most concerning of all is the following quote from Mr. Ralph de la Torre, president of Caritas Christi: ‘When a patient seeks such a procedure, Caritas health care professionals will be clear that (a) the hospital does not perform them and (b) the patient must turn to his or her insurance for further guidance’ [emphasis added].

Boston Catholic commentator Carol McKinley responded well to this statement: When the patient “turns to his or her insurance company,” they are “turning” to the “HMO” [of] which the Cardinal and Caritas are co-owners, [CeltiCare]. Therefore, the Cardinal and Caritas are providing these services…

With the exception of removing family planning, abortion, sterilization, embryonic stem cell research and other moral evils covered under the HMO the Cardinal has an ownership interest in, there is no conceivable modification to the arrangement that could ever be in compliance with Catholic moral teaching.

Incrementally separating the Boston archdiocese from committing an abortion or from the provision of contraception, sterilization and other such ‘services’ does not negate the fact that, through this agreement, Catholic hospitals will ultimately be referring mothers to abortion and/or contraception facilities such as Planned Parenthood, if the deal between Caritas Christi and CeltiCare remains as it is now written.

Cardinal O’Malley can stop this today with one word. We beg Cardinal O’Malley and the Boston archdiocese to prevent yet another scandal by providing a clear defense of Catholic moral teaching, rather than a pact driven far more by financial interests than fidelity to the Catholic faith.

Further, McKinley, who is no stranger to controversy or making sure all the facts add up, wrote this last Saturday:


Can a Catholic Cardinal bid on a contract that includes performing abortions, give written assurances they will either perform them or contract with people outside of their network to perform them, create an entity to send the women to the abortionists and take 49% ownership in that entity who then hires subcontractors to perform abortions, hires bilingual phone operators who will give the woman the number of the abortionists they've subcontracted, tell their employees at the hospital to give the number out of their 49% owned corporation?

What level of ownership interest can they take in the set up that would make the arrangement consistent with the Gospel of Life and Catholic theology?

After they have set this all up, can they then submit a revision of a partnership agreement to reduce their interests to 3% ownership in the arrangement?

1% ownership in the arrangement?

After you bid on a contract that compels you to promise to perform abortions and you promise in writing to perform them - what is the structure in a corporation that the Cardinal can claim his arrangement meets compliance with Catholic ethics?

When the Cardinal placed members of NARAL as his Advisory Board Members in his new business venture, what kind of advice to you suppose he is seeking? What are the ramifications of such advice?


McKinley and the majority of those concerned about this grave situation in the Boston archdiocese have asked how, in God’s name, this agreement with the secular corporate structure of CeltiCare could possibly concur with the teachings of the Catholic Church, as set forth in Humanae Vitae and Evangelium Vitae. Try as we might, we cannot find a statement in either encyclical letter that justifies accepting a little bit of evil in exchange for an allegedly greater good. As a matter of fact, Pope John Paul II taught,

The moral conscience, both individual and social, is today subjected, also as a result of the penetrating influence of the media, to an extremely serious and mortal danger: that of confusion between good and evil, precisely in relation to the fundamental right to life.

The condition the Holy Father described is so evident in so many corners of the culture today that we have to ask ourselves if perhaps, in his quest to aid the poor and needy in his archdiocese, the cardinal and his advisors felt pressured into making this deal for altruistic reasons. Perhaps they feel compelled to act without seriously considering the questions we and so many others have raised. While serving the poor is indeed a noble goal, this plan’s consequences are so serious that we have adamantly called for a reexamination of the agreement and dissolution of the contract before July 1.

Phil Lawler, a well-known Catholic commentator and reporter, examined the matter and wrote,

While pro-life activists in Boston have pleaded for Caritas Christi to withdraw from the CeltiCare initiative, abortion advocates have also been watching the situation closely and demanding reassurance that the new state-funded agency will impose no restrictions on access to abortion. The efforts of abortion advocates-- unlike those of pro-life activists-- have been successful. The Boston Globe reported:

Brian Delaney, a spokesman for CeltiCare, said an abortion rights group, NARAL Pro-Choice of Massachusetts, will serve on an advisory group for the health plan but he did not know whether any Catholic groups would be on the panel.

Boston archdiocesan officials have stressed that no abortions will be performed at the hospitals of the Caritas Christi chain. That claim is not in dispute. The question is whether Caritas Christi, through its partnership in CelticCare, will provide-- and perhaps even profit from-- abortions performed at other facilities. CeltiCare advertisements indicate that Planned Parenthood will be enlisted to provide "reproductive services."

The bottom line is that NARAL and Planned Parenthood’s involvement is the proverbial straw that has finally broken the camel’s back and thus the Archdiocese of Boston is officially ending the charade. But, as of this moment, neither the word “abortion” nor the abortion cartel’s involvement have been mentioned in a single archdiocesan document or statement. How can that be?

What is it going to take for the Archdiocese of Boston’s officials to take definitive action? Please keep them in your prayers and continue to communicate your concerns to them. The clock is ticking; the hour is late; the Boston Massacre of 2009 could be just around the corner ...

CONTACT:

Cardinal Sean O’Malley, OFM, Cap.
Cardinal Archbishop of Boston
Office of the Cardinal
66 Brooks Drive
Braintree, MA 02184-3839
617-782-2544
Judie Brown

Good Summary of Prolife Reaction to the Caritas/CeltiCare Abortion Services

Nobody but Michael Paulson and Kay Lazar seem to be saluting the Cardinal's Press release.

(A reader pointed out that the Joint Statement is avoiding the word "abortion" - referring to it instead as the "procedure" )

Anyway - my first reading of the Globe, I missed these curious little tidbits:

The archdiocese would not say yesterday whether the ownership structure of CeltiCare would change, but a statement from the archdiocese and Caritas said, "Caritas is in active discussions with Celtic Group [a Centene subsidiary] and CeltiCare with a view to making acceptable modifications to their arrangement."
Centene referred questions to CeltiCare, and its spokesman said he had no comment.

Centene referred questions to "CeltiCare"?

But Centene is CeltiCare. The only other partner that makes up "CeltiCare" is the Archdiocese.

Further, today, it seems the loose cannon at CeltiCare has a new credo? Perhaps.. Gallus in suo sterquilino plurimum potest?

Some of the cardinal's critics are applying a tougher standard to the deal than are many moral theologians and Catholic healthcare officials, who have said that the issue here is whether Caritas is "cooperating with the evil of abortion."

No, long list of dissenting theologians has not articulated "the issue" at all.

Caritas isn't a real person. The word "Caritas" is a fata morgana. Prolifers are talking about a Cardinal agreeing to perform moral evils upon poor people, including killing children and then hiring other people to do it. The issue is exploiting and killing poor people for money.


I have 2500 emails in my inbox. Haven't come across a single one that has bought into the Cardinal's spin. In fact, they have only created more questions.

The Boston Herald ran the Cardinal's soundbyte (suddenly,liberal secular media believers everything the Archdiocese says?): "No Abortions at Catholic Hospitals"

Thanks Sherlock. But, if you've been following along with the story, Caritas said it was going to subcontract out the abortions. Catholics have been three months trying to flush out the Cardinal's theology that hiring people to kill other people and then paying for the abortions is consistent with the Catholic ethics. They're playing games with names. They've stalled opposition by giving the false impression that the Cardinal would block the venture, that the deal was not signed and he had a a team of luminaries trying to crack the code of Humanae Vitae and Evangelium Vitae to see how they can get the women over to the people they've hired to perform the abortions while making ludicrous assertions that this arrangement does not violate Catholic teachings and are services to the poor "at the very heart of Catholicism".

A posted named "Catholic Dad" had this to say in the comments section:

So let me get this straight. Caritas, a "Catholic" health care provider, is merged with "a secular health care company". The "Catholic" health care provider will allow the "secular health care company" to maker referrals for abortions. The Cardinal will then issue a press release lying that no abortion referrals will be made through the "Catholic" entity. This is a lie, sionce we know from the article that the "Catholic" health care provider and the "secular" health care provider are one and the same entity. The cardinal is up against some stiff competition when it comes to ecclesiastical bomfoggery- Cardinal Mahony in LA can give him a run for his money- but as of this morning His Eminence O'Mallery has got to be the odds on favorite to win the AmChurch Award for Most Disgraceful Dishonesty in a Public Statement by a Catholic Bishop. Congratulations, Boston.

Catholic Culture has a post up that articulates the reaction of the prolife community, pretty much across the board.

Although Caritas Christi sought out the government contract, and formed a partnership entitled CeltiCare to carry out the state mandate, Church leaders in Boston have insisted that Caritas Christi would not become involved in services incompatible with Catholic teaching.

Responding to critics who had noted that CeltiCare is advertising coverage for abortion, the Archdiocese of Boston released a public statement on June 10 saying that Caritas Christi "is in active discussions with Celtic Group (its partner in CeltiCare) and CeltiCare with a view to making acceptable modifications in their arrangement." The release did not indicate what sort of modifications would be sufficient to preserve the Catholic identity of Caritas Christi. But the June 10 statement did seem to suggest that the current agreement-- which Caritas Christi struck with Celtic Group in order to form the partnership that won the state contract-- contains provisions that archdiocesan leaders now recognize as unacceptable.

Cardinal Sean O'Malley insisted that Caritas Christi is, and will remain, faithful to Catholic moral principles. He said that "under no circumstances" would Caritas Christi perform abortions or "refer any patient to other providers who perform or procure such procedures." [The cardinal's statement, and the archdiocesan press release, refer to the issue obliquely, never actually using the word "abortion."]

However the terms of the state government contract that CeltiCare sought and won specifically require coverage for abortions. How could Caritas Christi-- which owns 49% of the for-profit CeltiCare-- justify its connection with that business? Dr. Ralph de la Torre, the president of Caritas Christi, explained:

When a patient seeks such a procedure, Caritas healthcare professionals will be clear that (a) the hospital does not perform them and (b) the patient must turn to his or her insurer for further guidance.

But when subscribers to the CelticCare plan turn to their insurers, they will be turning to CeltiCare-- in which, again, Caritas Christi is an active partner. The Boston archdiocese did not explain how the Church could justify that involvement.

While pro-life activists in Boston have pleaded for Caritas Christi to withdraw from the CeltiCare initiative, abortion advocates have also been watching the situation closely and demanding reassurance that the new state-funded agency will impose no restrictions on access to abortion. The efforts of abortion advocates-- unlike those of pro-life activists-- have been successful. The Boston Globe reported:

Brian Delaney, a spokesman for CeltiCare, said an abortion rights group, NARAL Pro-Choice of Massachusetts, will serve on an advisory group for the health plan but he did not know whether any Catholic groups would be on the panel.

Boston archdiocesan officials have stressed that no abortions will be performed at the hospitals of the Caritas Christi chain. That claim is not in dispute. The question is whether Caritas Christi, through its partnership in CelticCare, will provide-- and perhaps even profit from-- abortions performed at other facilities. CeltiCare advertisements indicate that Planned Parenthood will be enlisted to provide "reproductive services."

Judie Brown's Response to the Cardinal & Caritas Dishonorable Joint Statement

Cardinal Claims to "reaffirm" Hospital Commitment on Catholic Morals, ALL Responds.

The American Life League, who has led the charge against the arrangement, told LifeSiteNews.com today that the Archdiocese's explanation was "absolutely not" acceptable.

"I find it extremely tragic that the Cardinal cannot stand up and simply say that it's unacceptable under any circumstance to enter into any kind of business relationship with a company that's involved in sterilization, contraception, and abortion," said American Life League president Judie Brown. "I don't understand what's going on."

"I think at the end of the day this is about money," she continued. "Caritas Christi has been in financial trouble for a long time, and the Cardinal is trying to massage the rules in order to allow this to go forward, and I think we are succumbing to the world when the Church does things like this, and it's bad."

To reiterate, the Cardinal and Caritas are leaving out glaring omissions in their publicity stunts.

CeltiCare is insurance provider who will complete the abortion transactions. Caritas owns 49% of Celticare.

Caritas signed the contract to provide abortions, has stated numerous times in the public square - and has given the Commonwealth promises in writing that they will provide abortions and other services, has asked abortionists to provide those abortions in return for payment for those abortion services, will refer women to abortion services.

The Cardinal and Caritas is deliberately misleading the public in this important distinction.

Catholic Action League's Response to the Cardinal & Caritas' Dishonorable Joint Statement

NEWS RELEASE



THURSDAY, JUNE 11, 2009

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: C. J. DOYLE

(781) 251-9739



CARDINAL O’MALLEY, CARITAS CHRISTI, AND ABORTION



The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today took issue with the statements released yesterday by Sean Cardinal O'Malley, Archbishop of Boston, and Dr. Ralph de la Torre, President of Caritas Christi Health Care, regarding the Commonwealth Care contract awarded to the Caritas Christi/Centene Corporation partnership, now known as CeltiCare. This contract, offering health insurance to low-income Bay State adults, due to take effect on July 1, includes abortion coverage.



The Archdiocese stated that “Caritas is in active discussions with Celtic Group and CeltiCare with a view to making acceptable modifications to their arrangement.” The Cardinal went on to say that “...under no circumstances will Caritas either perform procedures prohibited by [Catholic teaching] or refer any patient to other providers who perform or procure such procedures.” Dr. de la Torre said “when the patients seek such a procedure, Caritas...will be clear that (a) the hospital does not perform them and (b) the patient must turn to his or her insurer for further guidance.”



Ironically, these statements came just one day after Brian Delaney, CeltiCare’s Director of Communications, when asked whether the Caritas hospitals would refer a patient seeking an abortion to the Caritas/Centene call center, answered “I believe so.” Meanwhile, The Boston Globe reports that Caritas Christi now owns a 49% share of CeltiCare, and that NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts will serve on CeltiCare’s advisory board.



The Catholic Action League described the statements as “yet more unpersuasive denials intended to obscure the fact that as of July 1, Caritas Christi will be in the abortion business.”



Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle stated: “The Archdiocese has known for at least 3 1/2 months that this contract requires abortion coverage. Now with less than three weeks to the startup date, the cardinal is suddenly seeking modifications, having previously castigated others who questioned the contract. This reversal begs the questions of why Caritas sought this contract in the first place; why they signed it knowing it was problematic; and why they failed to raise these issues when they testified before the awarding agency on March 12. This last minute call for revisions is either a desperate public relations ploy aimed at diffusing opposition from pro-life Catholics, or a stunning admission of institutional incompetence, or both.”



“The Cardinal’s statement is contradicted by that of Dr. de la Torre. In sending a patient seeking an abortion back to her insurer, Caritas will be sending Commonwealth Care members to the Caritas/Centene partnership, which will not only procure the abortion but lists Planned Parenthood as a reproductive services provider. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 2009 will allow no exemption for Caritas Christi in the matter of abortion. Caritas must withdraw from this contract.”

American Life League: Clock Ticking in Boston Archdiocese Abortion Scandal

WASHINGTON, June 9 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Archdiocese of Boston is on track to provide abortion "services" and American Life League is rolling out an aggressive campaign to expose the scandal.

Celticare, the joint venture of archdiocesan Caritas Christi Health Care network and Centene Corp., will join Massachusetts' subsidized health program effective July 1.

Celticare lists abortion, family planning and "reproductive services" on their Web site. Centene and Caritas Christi both said they would ensure access to all services required by the Massachusetts Connector Authority, including "confidential family planning services."

"We will not allow this scandal to go unnoticed," said Judie Brown, president of American Life League. "The Catholic Church in Boston is set to become a partner in the abortion industry."

Catholic Action League of Massachusetts reports new information on abortion services on Celticare's Web site is "final and conclusive proof" Caritas Christi will participate in abortions.

While the Archdiocese of Boston continues to assert that the matter is under review, Centene Corp. has and continues to state the current plan will become effective July 1.

"Cardinal O'Malley must realize this situation requires his immediate and definitive action," Brown said. "The Cardinal must not permit this scandal to continue. It would be tragic for yet another debacle, caused by misinformation, contradictory statements and shameful cover-ups to besmirch the reputation of the Archdiocese of Boston."

American Life League was cofounded in 1979 by Judie Brown. It is the largest grassroots Catholic pro-life organization in the United States and is committed to the protection of all innocent human beings from the moment of creation to natural death. For more information or press inquiries, please contact Katie Walker at 540.659.4942.

Caritas Abortion Contract Update - May 26, 2009

Please pray for all involved. Especially those working behind the scenes on the defense of life and freedoms of Catholics.

Special petitions to Pope John Paul II, most appreciated.

-----Original Message-----
From: cmmckinley@aol.com
To: cmmckinley@aol.com; archbishopsean@rcab.org; joefeitelberg@maltaboston.org; catholic.conscience.protections@gmail.com
Cc: Beirne_Lovely@rcab.org; tdonilon@vzw.blackberry.net; terrence_donilon@rcab.org; tad.grd.nsc@aya.yale.edu; DrJohnHaas@aol.com; CALMDOYLE@aol.com
Sent: Tue, 26 May 2009 8:36 am
Subject: Re: Caritas Update - May 27,2009

+

IHS

Gentlemen:

I beg your indulgence, but I neglected to mention:

On March 5th, the Cardinal said:

“I want to confirm for the Catholic community and the wider interested public that Caritas Christi Health Care has assured me that it will not be engaged in any procedures nor draw any benefits from any relationship which violate the Church’s moral teaching..." *(7a)

It appears the Cardinal knew on March 5th that the contract violated Church's moral teachings, but was assured that Caritas Christi would not draw benefits from the violations.

Caritas h as been in financial trouble and it's purpose in bidding on the contract was to draw financial benefits, the business Caritas and the Archdiocese created to carry out the contract that violates Church teachings, Celtic Care Health Care plan of Massachusetts, Inc., is a registered as a&nb sp; "for-profit". Since Caritas is a substantial partner in the "for-profit" that violates the teachings of the Church, they indeed draw benefits from the violations.

In the interests of transparency, Caritas and the Cardinal need to release the opinion of the National Catholic Bioethics Center. If the NCBC has given approval to this deal, it means that they believe if their corporation develops financial difficulties, Fr.Tad and Dr. Haas can=2 0become the minority partner in a for-profit corporation that performs embryonic stem cell research. If the NCBC declined to approve this deal, the Cardinal not only proceeded knowing that it was unethical and children would be harmed, he released statements undermining the credibility of Catholics warning the faithful in the public square.

In the interest of full disclosure, Catholics have a right to know what transpired. Please release the opinion.

In Christ, Carol McKinley




-----Original Message-----

From: cmmckinley@aol.com To: archbishopsean@rcab.org; joefeitelberg@maltaboston.org; catholic.conscience.protections@gmail.com
Cc: Beirne_Lovely@rcab.org; td onilon@vzw.blackberry.net; terrence_donilon@rcab.org; tad.grd.nsc@aya.yale.edu; DrJohnHaas@aol.com; CALMDOYLE@aol.com
Sent: Tue, 26 May 200 9 1:56 am
Subject: Caritas Update - May 27,2009

May 27, 2009

+
IHS

Dear Joe,

I wanted to memorialize our conversation on Friday evening, May 23rd.


You responded to my last email by calling Bill Cousins on Friday and asking him to assure me that "Caritas" will not be making referrals for abortions" I phoned you later Friday evening to have a followup conversation. I must confess, there still seems to be a great deal of confusion.

Hopefully I can clear up the confusion in a more simplified manner in this email.

"Caritas will not be making referrals for abortions"

When you and the Cardinal are using the word "Caritas" in this context, I believe you mean to convey that the Cardinal and Caritas have created another business to carry out the abortions. In this business structure, the name "Caritas" is a substantial partner in the abortion business but the name "Caritas" will be on the back burner.

The confusion is arising because pro-lifers are speaking about the various people involved in this venture, the souls, the living people, not the name of the businesses that will execute the services that are binding in the contract.

Pro-lifers have been deeply concerned because in the arrangement, the medical staff inside of the Caritas buildings, who are face-to-face with the patients, wil l now be compelled to hand out pro-abortion information. And, Catholics will no longer be free to to describe the spiritual problems with the unethical medical services, in accord with the teachings of the Church.

"Amo ng the written assurances are a pledge that medical staff operating under the Centene-Caritas insurance plan, known as Commonwealth Family Health Plan, will inform women of their healthcare options, including abortion." *(1)

Theologically speaking, these are sins of commission and omission.

In fact, some of the things this contract requires will impose a sentence of automatic excommunication. Before the contract, Catholic employees inside of the buildings of Caritas were able advise the patients that abortion is murder and such a grave offense it severs your relationship with God and His Church. With the contract "Caritas" has signed, Catholic employees inside of the buildings of Caritas are no longer free to advise women coming in requesting an abortion, because "Caritas" has not only promised that the Catholic staff will be compelled to violate their conscience, "Caritas" with the consent of the Cardinal is working out the details of how they will per mit state to monitor Catholic employees. *(1) *(2) *(3) *(8) *(9)

“How compliance will be monitored is just being worked out now,” Massachusetts hea lth authority spokesman Powers said March 16. *(11)

This will have a terrible impact upon evangelization,20conversion and the salvation of souls. It divests Catholics of the freedom to practice medicine.

You and the Cardinal seem concerned about the name of the business in all this. But, the real problem here Joe, is that Caritas bid on a contract that includes performing abortion services and other moral evils upon people. That's not something a Catholic Corporation can do for several reasons. First and foremost, abortion is murder. It is a business arrangement that invol ves murder and somebody is going to have to carry those killings out, somewhere and somehow. Catholic Cardinal's can't involve themselves in contracts like this one because all the people involved are injured physically and spiritually. *(2), *(3) *(9) *(10)

On February 27, 2008, "Caritas" said they would "contract with providers" to perform the moral evils. *(9) When you contract with somebody you tell them to do something and then you give them money. That is what a contract is. In this case, Caritas bid on a contract that involves contraception, sterilizations, in-vitro fertilization and other services including abortion. In this case, when " Caritas" said it would make "contracts with providers", it means they will invite people who commit murders to do business with them and then they will send the women their direction and pay them money to do it.


You also told Bill:

• "the contract ha d not yet been signed"
• the Cardinal will not sign the contract unless the contract excludes Caritas making abortion referrals".
  

This is consistent with your previous email to Bill. *(4)

Howe ver, according to the public records at the Secretary of State's Office, a contract has already been signed.

When the Cardinal and Caritas originally set the structure up, Caritas was the majority shareholder in "Centene-Caritas" structure. *(5)

Since that time, "Caritas" has entered a joint venture called CeltiCare, formal name is Celtic Health Care Plan of Massachusetts, Inc. *(6)

I reviewed the Articles of Organization at the Massachusett's Secretary of State's Office which were filed on May 5, 2009 for Celtic Care Health Care Plan of Massachusetts, Inc., and it appears that four people from Caritas Christi Health Care have been appointed to the Board of Directors of Celtic Health Care Plan of Massachusetts, Inc. While shareholders are not part of the public record, the By-Laws of a corporation flush out the rights each partner gets in appointing officers and directors. Therefore, Caritas is a partner and substantial shareholder in this corporation. Article V of the Orga nization documents discloses the contract between CeltiCare and its shareholders, including Caritas, has indeed been signed.

If I understand the situation as it currently stands, when you say "Caritas will not be doing abortions or referring women for them", you don't mean Caritas isn't involved in the abortions business or the women won't be referred by a business Caritas is involved in or the abortions won't happen as a result of the contract "Caritas" has entered, you mean the abortion services "Caritas"has promised to perform on women will be done under a different business name. On face value, a soundbyte can be created that inoculates Caritas from what is happening on the ground inside of the hospitals to the people, "Caritas will not be doing abortion referrals". (Is the Bioethics Center giving an opinion on the spiritual obligations of a Cardinal hiring people to perform services that are obstacles to the salvation of those souls?)

This latest development is bewildering and disconcerting. The concerns of Catholics in the Cardinal's consent for Caritas to involve itself in abortion business have been met with obfuscation and secrecy. The Cardinal gave the impression that the deal was on hold until the National Catholic Bioethics Center would examine it, give us the moral rationale and opine whether it was indeed sound and could stand up to proper moral standards. The Cardinal gave the impression that once he obtained the opinion from the National Catholic Bioethics Center, he would open the arrangement to public scrutiny and the deal would not be consummated before the scandal was addressed. *(7a) *(7b) *(7c)

This will have a devastating impact on the Cardinals reputation, credibility and trust. The Cardinal=2 0ceded control of the Catholic operation to Martha Coakey *(12) and then keeping the names of the Caritas Board of Directors secretive, contradicting Caritas and the Commonwealth about the fact that women would be referred for abortions, the secrecy surrounding the details of the arrangement, calling people who were trying to let pro-lifers know that women were indeed going to be referred for abortions under this contract and that Catholic conscience protections would be obliterated under it "people who are doing a great disservice to the Church", giving the impression the deal was on hold and he would publicly release the opinion of the National Catholic Bioethics Center who examined the arrangement - the Archdiocese of Boston is in a grave situation.

In your email to our friend Bill, you said:

"Be assured that with my 1950s HC (Holy Cross) background I will never support a development which would injure our Church. Having said this I will also tell you that while at HC I learned to use the full power of judgment to find new wa ys to improve things while living within the Church’s standards."

Perhaps you were relying upon Rev. Bryan Hehir, who was the Cardinal's representative and liaison to the Caritas Board to guide the full power of you r judgment. Rev. Hehir is deeply involved with a pocket of Catholic dissent operating out of the JFK School of Government - Mary Jo Bane and Marshall Ganz. (Ganz was a protege of Cesar Chavez and an integral player in the Obama campaign, with expertise in "mobilizing".) *(13) I'm afraid you may have been the recipient of some bum advice.

I hope this clarifies the confusion.


In Christ, Carol McKinley

*(1) The Connector Authority board, which oversees the Commonwealth Care program, voted unanimously in favor of the joint venture propose d by Centene Corp., a St. Louis-based health organization, and Caritas Christi Health Care Network.

The vote followed several closed-door sessions in which officials from Centene and Caritas , the minority partner in the joint venture, assured regulators that women will have "ready access" to family planning and reproductive services, an issue that sparked concerns from abortion foes and reproductive rights activists.

Among the written assurances are a pledge that medical staff operating under the Centene-Caritas insurance plan, known as Commonwealth Family Health Plan, will inform women of their healthcare options, including abortion. The insurers will also provide a toll-free customer service line, available around the clock, to inform women about where they can get contraception, sterilization, and other family planning services not offered in the immediate setting. In an emergency, a service representative will arrange transportation to the nearest appropriate facility, officials said.

The regulators promised to watch closely. "We will certainly monitor their performance ," said Jon Kingsdale, the authority's executive director. "We will not allow them to start up or continue if they are not in compliance."

As a measure of the underlying tensions, four board members emphasized the need for 0Aoversight.

"I remain somewhat concerned abou t implementation," said Nonnie Burnes, state comm issioner of insurance and a former Planned Parenthood board member. "I am willing to support this as long as we have some way to monitor this" in doctor's offices and other healthcare facilities (Boston Globe 03.13.2009 Massachusetts Regulators Approve Joint Caritas-Centene Healthcare Venture)


*(2) On Thursday, Sandy McBride, the director of corporate communications for Centene Coproration, e-mailed the Globe a statement declaring, "Commonwealth Family Health Plan will contract with providers, both in and out of the Caritas network, to ensure access to all services required by the Authority, including confidential family planning services." Commonwealth Family Health Plan is the proposed joint venture between Caritas and Centene; "the Authority" is the Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector Authority Board.(03.04.2009 "Archdiocese criticized on Caritas, abortion")

*(3) Andrea Miller NARAL
We are not privy to the details of the Centene-Caritas bid, but it does appear that the Connector has obtained affirmation from Centene-Caritas that low-income women and men of the Commonwealth will be “insulated” from the influence of Caritas in this system such that this join t venture will improve – not impede – access to basic care, including the reproductive and sexual health care required by law,and that clear, affirmative disclosures will be made. But, we know that it’s in the real world where the rubber meets the road, so we will be diligent in monitoring the roll out and implementation of this plan - and we appreciate that the Connector Board members have pledged to be a partner in ensuring full disclosure and timely provision of medical care. (prochoicemass press releast 03.12.2009)

*(4) From: Joe Feitelberg [mailto:jhfeit@comcast.net]
Sent: Tuesday, April 28, 2009 11:32 AM
To:
Subject: RE: from boston globe

XXX-Thank you for sending this along.

0A

Here are a few missing pieces:

· The Globe wrote this early on before all today’s facts were available

· There has been no execution of the Connector agreement at this time. There is a clear intent to try and be part of this resource which principally serves the poor

· In the Centene-Caritas proposed plan Caritas would be the majority, not the “minority” shareholder

· Cardinal Sean has this under ethical review by the Church’s highest talent20base

· Caritas now has had an outstanding Management team in place for one year which has a skill set that was missing

· FINALLY—none of us should let innuendo or inadequate information stampede us into assumed incompetency

Be assured that with my 1950s HC (Holy Cross) background I will never support a development which would injure our Church. Having said this I will also tell you that while at HC I learned to use the full power of judgment to find new ways to improve things while living within the Church’s standards.

See you in June,

Joe

Joe Feitelberg

* (5) "Commonwealth Family Health Plan, Inc. (CFHP) is pleased to announce that it has submitted a response to the Request for Proposal is sued by the Commonwealth Care Health Insurance Connector Authority (Connector Authority) to provide health insurance for Massachusetts residents enrolled in the Commonwealth Care Program. CFHP is a partnership between20Celtic Group, a subsidiary of Centene Corporation, and Caritas Christi Health Care. The partnership was created to offer a new form of local managed care that is tailored to the needs of Massachusetts’ progressive healthcare system(03.04.2009 "Archdiocese criticized on Caritas, abortion")

About CeltiCare Health Plan of Massachusetts

*(6) CeltiCare Health Plan of Massachusetts, Inc. is a managed care organization that will provide health insurance to Massachusetts residents enrolled in the Commonwealth Care Program. A partnership between Celtic Insurance Company and Caritas Christi Health Care, CeltiCare offers a new form of local managed care that is tailored to the needs of Massachusetts progressive healthcare system.Effective July 1, 2009, the plan will contract with the Commonwealth Care Health Insurance Connector Authority (Authority) to serve low-income, working adults who are not eligible for Medicaid.

*(7a) “I want to co nfirm for the Catholic community and the wider interested public that Caritas Christi Health Care has assured me that it will not be engaged in any procedures nor draw any benefits from any relationship which violate the Church’s moral teaching as found in the Ethical and Religious Directives. Caritas Christi has been consistently faithful to these standards in the past and will continue to do so in the future.” (Boston Pilot 03.05.2009 "Cardinal O'Malley Releases Statement on Caritas Christi Proposed Management")

*(7b)"While I appreciate the opportunity given to Caritas Christi to serve the poor through this agreement, I wish to reaffirm that this agreement can only be realized if the moral obligations for Catholic hospitals as articulated in the Ethical and Religious Directives of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops are fulfilled at all times and in all cases. In order to assure me that this agreement will provide for the integrity of the Catholic identity and practices of Caritas Christi Health Care System, I have asked the National Catholic Bioethics Center to review the agreement and to assure me that it is faithful to Catholic principles." (Cardinal's Blog 03.12.2009)

*(7c) "There has been a significant amount of public dialogue concerning my statement yesterday about the propose d arrangement involving Caritas Christi Health Care with the Commonwealth Care Program.

To be perfectly clear, Caritas Christi will never do anything to promote abortions, to direct any patients to providers of abortion or in any way to participate in actions that are contrary to Catholic moral teaching and anyone who suggests otherwise is doing a great disservice to the Catholic Church. We are committed to the Gospel of Life and no arrangement will be entered into unless it is completely in accord with Church teaching.

Recognizing the complexity of the proposed arrangement, I will ask the National Catholic Bioethics Center to review the arrangement and to provide me their opinion." (Cardinal's blog 03.07.2009)

*(8) While state regulators presented th e proposed Caritas-Centene bid last week as a "joint venture," Caritas characterized its participation yesterday as a "minority investment." It also said the venture, to be called Commonwealth Family Health Plan, has filed for licensing by the state Department of Insurance. (Boston Globe 03.04.2009 Caritas Draws Fire on Abortion)

*(9) At least one board member expressed concerns about the proposed Caritas-linked venture, called Commonwealth Family Health Pla n, because Caritas, a six-hospital network affiliated with the Boston Archdiocese, does not perform abortions.

"How will our female members be provided these reproductive services?" said member Nancy Turnbull, an associate dean at the Harvard School of Public Health. "Those are not services Caritas provides." In response, Caritas and Centene issued a joint statement late yesterday that said the new venture "will contract with providers, both in and out of the Caritas network, to ensure access to all services required by the authority, including confidential family planning services."

A spokeswoman for the companies declined to elaborate. (Boston Globe 02.27.2009 "Caritas Bids to Join State Network of Health Insurers")

*(10)Connector Authority spokesman Dick Powers, asked about the issue by the Globe, today said "Health plans must provide covered services. Covered services specifically include abortion services." (03.04.2009 "Archdiocese criticized on Caritas, abortion")

*(11) “How compliance will be monitored is just being worked out now,” Massachusetts health authority spokesman Powers said March 16. (National Catholic Register 04.05.2009 "Did Catholic Hospit al System Compromise Ethics")

In March of 2008, Martha Coakley urged the Archdiocese to cede control of operations of Caritas Christi.

*(12) The report, based on a four-month study, also urges the archdiocese to cede control of the operation of Caritas Christi Health Care System so that an independent board with expertise in healthcare management can run it. The board now answers to Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley - Caritas Christi officials said they are already working on Coakley's top recommendation, creating an independent and professional board to run the system.. The new board will have 15 members, each serving a maximum of nine years, and a chair serving for a maximum of three years. The cardinal will appoint three members.(Boston Globe 03.07.2008 "AG urges change of course for Caritas")

(13)

April 2006

E-Newsletter

This edition of the Hauser Center E-News highlights activities and events from February-March 2006.

Activity Update

People in Action

Hauser People in the News

Student Activities Grant Recipients

New Hauser Publication Series: The Philanthropy Classics Access Project

Featured Research

Activity Update

Religion, Politics and Public Life Faculty Seminar Series
On March 13th, the Program on Religion and Public Life (PRPL) held its second seminar in the Religion, Politics and Public Life Faculty Seminar Series. A dynamic presentation from the featured presenter Mark Noll, titled Evangelicals: Theology and Politics: Domestic and Inter national Implications was followed by an energetic and stimulating group discussion. Prof. Noll is the Mc Manis Professor of Christian Thought at Wheaton College, and a Senior Advisor to the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals (ISAE.) To view a seminar transcript, click here. This (by invitation only) faculty seminar series is co-convened by J. Bryan Hehir and Mary Jo Bane and is a primary activity of the Program on Religion and Public Life.

Joint Catholic Church Civic Asset Mapping Project
This newly-launched project is a joint initiative between the Program on Religion and Public Life at the Hauser Center and the University of Pennsylvanias Program for Research on Religion and Urban Civil Society (PRRUCS). The project aims to explore how Catholic institutions deploy their human, financial and physical plant assets has a bearing on how the nation's nonprofit sector as a whole meets civic needs and creates public value. The projects first conference, Catholics in the Public Square, was held April 5th, at Saint Joseph's University, in Philadelphia and featured panels and discussions moderated by John DiIulio with Mary Jo Bane, Mark =0 A Moore, and Father J. Bryan Hehir, among other distinguished speakers. To view reports and papers from the conference, click here. For information please email Anne Mathew.

Back to top

People In Action

In the interest of space, the E-News does not include titles for Hauser faculty, researchers or staff. For titles and bios, please click he re.

On February 2nd, Stephanie Bell-Rose, member of the Hauser Center Advisory Board and managing director and president of The Goldman Sachs Foundation, presented a roundtable at the Kennedy School of Government, and organized by the Hauser Center, on trends and practices in philanthropy.

Also on February 2nd, Marion Fremont-Smith presented and discussed her award-winning book, Governing Nonprofit Organizations: Federal and State Law and Regulation at the Harvard Square Coop bookstore.

Peter Dobkin Hall participated in a roundtable discussion hosted by Contribute Magazine on February 9th of New York City's philanthropic culture with a group of area nonprofit leaders. His participation was later featured in the inaugural issue of Contribute: The People and Ideas of Giving.

On February 10th, Marshall Ganz gave a talk to students enrolled in the community development program at Southern New Hampshire University. The talk, entitled Practicing Democracy: Leadership, Community, Power, focused on the practice of organizing - the knowledge of how to combine around common interests and mobilize resources to act20on common interests.

Several Hauser people took part in the annual International Bridge Builders Conference that took place February 27-March 3 at the Kennedy School of Government. Marshall Ganz led a discussion on youth, the arts, and organizing -- focusing on the work of Peruvian artist/organizer Rafael Virhuez in one of Lima's poorest barrios. Dave Brown facilitated a workshop on "Building Partnerships across Sectors. And Tiziana Dearing delivered the workshop The Fundraising Workshop, on fundraising strategies.

On March 1st, Elizabeth Keating and Jim Honan presented the panel Transparency and Accountability - Current Challenges and Opportunities at the National Business Officers Association Annual Symposium, on current issues and challenges to financial transparency and accountability.

Also on March 1st, Xavier de Souza Briggs gave a public address on his book, The Geography of Opportunity: Race and Housing Choice in Metropolitan America at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, organized by the student group HousingGSD.

Marion Fremont-Smith and Peter Dobkin Hall participated in a roundtable on governance hosted by the staff of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee on March 3rd in Washington, DC. Fremont-Smith participated in the panel on Proposals on Governance and Transparency, addressing general issues of nonprofit governance in terms of law, regulation, and self-policing mechanisms; Hall participated in the panel on Red Cross governance, which focused more specifically on the Red Cross problems and how they might be addressed.

Hauser Center provided sponsorship for the 7th annual student-run Social Enterprise Conference at the Harvard Business School that took place on March 5th. At the conference Chris Letts facilitated the panel The Next Generation of Venture Philanthropy, and Elizabeth Keating facilitated the panel Creating a High-Performance Culture in Social Enterprise.

On March 10th Hauser Center provided sponsorship for the panel on Reintegration of former child soldiers at the student-run conference Children on the Frontlines: A Crisis in International Security.

Marshall Ganz was a featured speaker at the annual Toxics Action Citizens conference, Environmental Action 2006 that took place on March 18th. Ganz spoke about the20importance of social movements in shaping public policy and developing political strategy on the basis of moral claims, committed leadership, and the organizational capacity to engage large numbers of people in collective action.

Xavier de Souza Briggs presented work from his study, Democracy as Problem-Solving: Civic Capacity in Comparative Perspective, at the Planning Africa 2006 conference in Cape Town, South Africa from March 22nd 24th. The work looks at cross-sector effort--by civil society, market, and government players--to tackle urgent local problems, such as restructuring the job economy when industries become obsolete, managing population growth without ignoring sustainability, and investing in children.

Marshall Ganz and his research team kicked-off the Leadership Development Project with the Sierra Club on March 25th-26th with a two-day workshop in San Francisco. The purpose of the workshop was to begin training a team of trainers to lead future leadership development workshops with focus groups from the Sierra Club.

From March 29th -31st, Mark Moore and Gordon Bloom attended the third annual Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship, Leveraging assets, growing social capital markets: Sustainable routes to wealth and well-being, at Oxford University. At the forum, Bloom chaired the panel Mobilising Underutilized Assets to Realise Social and Environmental Value: Next Generation Models.

From March 30th -April 2nd Peter Dobkin Hall participated in the Philanthropy in History: German and American Perspectives conference sponsored by the German Historical Institute in Washington, DC. At the conference Hall presented the paper, Philanthropy, the Welfare State, and the Transformation of American Public and Private Institutions since 1945.

Hauser Center Associate Prabha Kotiswaran is organizing a Workshop on Law and Social Movements, in India June 26-27, which will bring together activists, lawyers and academics from various disciplines in order to deepen the extant theorizing on the relationship between social movements and the law.

Activity Update

Religion, Politics and Public Life Faculty Seminar Series
On March 13th, the Program on Religion and Public Life (PRPL) held its second seminar in the Religion, Politics and Public Life Faculty Seminar Series. A dynamic presentation from the featured presenter Mark Noll, titled Evangelicals: Theology and Politics: Domestic and Inter national Implications was followed by an energetic and stimulating group discussion. Prof. Noll is the Mc Manis Professor of Christian Thought at Wheaton College, and a Senior Advisor to the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals (ISAE.) To view a seminar transcript, click here. This (by invitation only) faculty seminar series is co-convened by J. Bryan Hehir and Mary Jo Bane and is a primary activity of the Program on Religion and Public Life.

Joint Catholic Church Civic Asset Mapping Project
This newly-launched project is a joint initiative between the Program on Religion and Public Life at the Hauser Center and the University of Pennsylvanias Program for Research on Religion and Urban Civil Society (PRRUCS). The project aims to explore how Catholic institutions deploy their human, financial and physical plant assets has a bearing on how the nation's nonprofit sector as a whole meets civic needs and creates public value. The projects first conference, Catholics in the Public Square, was held April 5th, at Saint Joseph's University, in Philadelphia and featured panels and discussions moderated by John DiIulio with Mary Jo Bane, Mark Moore, and Father J. Bryan Hehir, among other distinguished speakers. To view reports and papers from the conference, click here. For information please email Anne Mathew.

Back to top

People In Action

In the interest of space, the E-News does not include titles for Hauser faculty, researchers or staff. For titles and bios, please click he re.

On February 2nd, Stephanie Bell-Rose, member of the Hauser Center Advisory Board and managing director and president of The Goldman Sachs Foundation, presented a roundtable at the Kennedy School of Government, and organized by the Hauser Center, on trends and practices in philanthropy.

Also on February 2nd, Marion Fremont-Smith presented and discussed her award-winning book, Governing Nonprofit Organizations: Federal and State Law and Regulation at the Harvard Square Coop bookstore.

Peter Dobkin Hall participated in a roundtable discussion hosted by Contribute Magazine on February 9th of New York City's philanthropic culture with a group of area nonprofit leaders. His participation was later featured in the inaugural issue of Contribute: The People and Ideas of Giving.

On February 10th, Marshall Ganz gave a talk to students enrolled in the community development program at Southern New Hampshire University. The talk, entitled Practicing Democracy: Leadership, Community, Power, focused on the practice of organizing - the knowledge of how to combine around common interests and mobilize resources to act20on common interests.

Several Hauser people took part in the annual International Bridge Builders Conference that took place February 27-March 3 at the Kennedy School of Government. Marshall Ganz led a discussion on youth, the arts, and organizing -- focusing on the work of Peruvian artist/organizer Rafael Virhuez in one of Lima's poorest barrios. Dave Brown facilitated a workshop on "Building Partnerships across Sectors. And Tiziana Dearing delivered the workshop The Fundraising Workshop, on fundraising strategies.

On March 1st, Elizabeth Keating and Jim Honan presented the panel Transparency and Accountability - Current Challenges and Opportunities at the National Business Officers Association Annual Symposium, on current issues and challenges to financial transparency and accountability.

Also on March 1st, Xavier de Souza Briggs gave a public address on his book, The Geography of Opportunity: Race and Housing Choice in Metropolitan America at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, organized by the student group HousingGSD.

Marion Fremont-Smith and Peter Dobkin Hall participated in a roundtable on governance hosted by the staff of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee on March 3rd in Washington, DC. Fremont-Smith participated in the panel on Proposals on Governance and Transparency, addressing general issues of nonprofit governance in terms of law, regulation, and self-policing mechanisms; Hall participated in the panel on Red Cross governance, which focused more specifically on the Red Cross problems and how they might be addressed.

Hauser Center provided sponsorship for the 7th annual student-run Social Enterprise Conference at the Harvard Business School that took place on March 5th. At the conference Chris Letts facilitated the panel The Next Generation of Venture Philanthropy, and Elizabeth Keating facilitated the panel Creating a High-Performance Culture in Social Enterprise.

On March 10th Hauser Center provided sponsorship for the panel on Reintegration of former child soldiers at the student-run conference Children on the Frontlines: A Crisis in International Security.

Marshall Ganz was a featured speaker at the annual Toxics Action Citizens conference, Environmental Action 2006 that took place on March 18th. Ganz spoke about the20importance of social movements in shaping public policy and developing political strategy on the basis of moral claims, committed leadership, and the organizational capacity to engage large numbers of people in collective action.

Xavier de Souza Briggs presented work from his study, Democracy as Problem-Solving: Civic Capacity in Comparative Perspective, at the Planning Africa 2006 conference in Cape Town, South Africa from March 22nd 24th. The work looks at cross-sector effort--by civil society, market, and government players--to tackle urgent local problems, such as restructuring the job economy when industries become obsolete, managing population growth without ignoring sustainability, and investing in children.

Marshall Ganz and his research team kicked-off the Leadership Development Project with the Sierra Club on March 25th-26th with a two-day workshop in San Francisco. The purpose of the workshop was to begin training a team of trainers to lead future leadership development workshops with focus groups from the Sierra Club.

From March 29th -31st, Mark Moore and Gordon Bloom attended the third annual Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship, Leveraging assets, growing social capital markets: Sustainable routes to wealth and well-being, at Oxford University. At the forum, Bloom chaired the panel Mobilising Underutilized Assets to Realise Social and Environmental Value: Next Generation Models.

From March 30th -April 2nd Peter Dobkin Hall participated in the Philanthropy in History: German and American Perspectives conference sponsored by the German Historical Institute in Washington, DC. At the conference Hall presented the paper, Philanthropy, the Welfare State, and the Transformation of American Public and Private Institutions since 1945.

Hauser Center Associate Prabha Kotiswaran is organizing a Workshop on Law and Social Movements, in India June 26-27, which will bring together activists, lawyers and academics from various disciplines in order to deepen the extant theorizing on the relationship between social movements and the law.

Back to top< /b>

Featured Research

Spotlight on Financial Transparency in the Archdiocese of Boston"

In mid-April, the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston released a full disclosure of its finances to the public. The report was the first of its kind for Boston, and appears to be the first of its kind by any Catholic diocese or archdiocese in the United States. Jack McCarthy chaired the independent commission, assembled by Boston Cardinal Sean OMalley in early 2006, that worked with the Archdiocese and its financial staff in pulling the report together. This work combined Jacks decades of experience in financial accounting and auditing for nonprofit organizations with his understanding of the functioning of the Catholic Church as a nonprofit in Boston. It is also consistent with the Hauser Centers interest in both the governance and accountability of religious denominations and organizations as nonprofit institutions. Jack will have an opportunity to speak in several large cities around the country regarding how to guide a diocese through the process of full financial disclosure, and to codify a methodology. The report and Jacks work in it received extensive media coverage, including The Boston Globe, The Boston Herald, The New York Times, Washington Post and WGBH Boston. For an article about the disclosure click here.

Back to top

This edition of the Hauser Center E-News highlights activities and events from February-March 2006.

The Hauser Center E-News provides bi-monthly updates of Hauser Center events, activities, people and publications. Past issues of the E-News can be found here. The Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations is a University-wide research center based at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government (KSG). The Center is not a degree granting institution. Please email Laura Ax with E-News questions and feedback.

The Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations
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