Investigation Yields Disturbing Findings on Catholic Relief Services

 By Patty Knap

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An exhaustive investigation by two Catholic organizations into Catholic Relief Services (CRS) in three African countries has revealed pervasive contraception promotion and abortion referrals.

Joint research by The Lepanto Institute and the Population Research Institute (PRI) into CRS projects focused on Cameroon, Zimbabwe, and Lesotho.  The investigation was prompted by learning that CRS had led the implementation of a PEPFAR program called “Determined, Resilient, Empowered, AIDS-Free, Mentored, and Safe women” (DREAMS) in several African countries, and that in this context was promoting condoms and contraception as well as implementing health referral networks that included abortion and contraception promoters and providers.

Field investigators in the three countries obtained thousands of pages of documents, recorded conversations, and photographs that reveal that CRS has, “referred girls as young as 10 to abortion and contraception providers, been the “prime implementer” of projects that, through a network of partners, is designed to spread and promote contraception and condoms, and has even corrupting the good morals of young girls with its own materials.”

A detailed 120 page report by Lepanto and PRI was released at a press conference on March 6th. The troubling findings, “led the organizations to conclude that CRS is morally complicit in the promotion and spread of condoms and contraception through federally-funded and Catholic laity funded projects,” the joint press release states..

Recognizing the gravity of the report, the organizations point out that CRS has previously been criticized for going against Church teaching while maintaining the Catholic title. Over the past decade, Lepanto and PRI, both separately and together, have repeatedly raised concerns about CRS’s involvement in projects that promote pornographic sex education, condoms and contraceptives.

CRS is the recipient of $1 billion in U.S. government funding, as well as Catholic laity donations of about a third of that from an annual parish collection.  The annual USCCB collection for CRS takes place in all U.S. parishes the weekend of March 10th.

The report states that Archbishop Gerard Lerotholi of Lesotho, “echoed the concern of many African bishops we have spoken to over the years when he told our investigators that he couldn’t “vouch for CRS” because CRS neither informs him about its activities in his archdiocese nor takes the views of the local Church into account.”

“Based on our field research in Lesotho, Zimbabwe, and Cameroon, we can see why CRS would want to shield its activities from scrutiny by the local Church.  Its partnerships with the USAID/PEPFAR projects we investigated virtually requires CRS to make grave moral compromises, not to say completely abandon its Catholic identity, in favor of a pose as a secular NGO.”

Among other disturbing findings, the report found evidence that CRS:

• Implemented a sex education program, with its own logo on the front cover, that promoted masturbation as a form of “safer sex.”
• Provided hundreds of thousands of dollars to an organization taking girls for abortions and lobbying for pro-abortion laws. This organization’s logo is a heavily pregnant woman with an “X” through the location of the preborn baby.  CRS’s contributions to this organization between 2017 and 2021 may have violated the Mexico City Policy and Siljander amendment then in force.
• Led the implementation of government programs specifically designed for the spread of contraception.
• Knowingly introduced girls to contraception-providing organizations so they could receive sexual and reproductive health ‘services’ as integral aspects of these projects.
• Permitted at least one organization to promote and distribute condoms in schools under their charge.
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• Read the rest: https://catholicinsight.com/investigation-yields-disturbing-findings-on-catholic-relief-services/