Editors Note: Each year, Catholic Citizens has joined other groups in opposing the annual collection of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development because there has been pervasive and continuing evidence from its inception of promoting and financing issues and groups that are in opposition to the teachings of the church, specifically on abortion and homosexual rights. Now, here is what the opposition is saying about us.

Conservative activists are threatening the social justice mission of the Catholic Church just when the country needs it most, a new report charges, by attacking the church’s flagship anti-poverty program with 21st-century style “Catholic McCarthyism.”

The report, released Tuesday (June 11), says the Catholic Campaign for Human Development is hamstrung by conservative purists who make it impossible for the church to join with other programs or agencies to combat the systematic causes of poverty.

“A small but well-financed network has emerged as a relentless opponent of the bishops’ social justice campaign, which has long been recognized as one of the most influential funders of grassroots community organizing,” writes John Gehring, who authored the 24-page report for Faith in Public Life, a Washington-based lobby of religious progressives.