In Answer to A Question

Tuesday evening in my comments for USCCB Avoids Complete Meltdown, For Now I had the following question from Patrick Button: "Do you think that a reform of the CCHD could happen soon?" Since I didn't have a lot of time I responded: "Short answer No! I haven't seen anything yet on reaction by the Conference to the report & there are plenty of other factors as well, like all the bureaucracy clean-up, that need to take place. This should speed things up or at least push things in the right direction."

The question was a good one & deserves a longer answer to explain why I said what I did.

As I said I don't expect any real reform soon. It would be nice to think it would but many factors point in the opposite direction. In other words, barring a scandal so big with a group CCHD funded that will force them to do something major, it will be a long time coming & the CCHD bureaucracy will kick & scream all the way.

The CCHD bureaucracy doesn't want real reform. remember, they are the bunch who is behind the scandal in the 1st place by what they did & didn't fund. & there hasn't been any real talk about cleaning the place up. That is basicly what I said in my post Why I Don't Buy the CCHD Claims of Reform!!!!! The document is more cosmetic than geared towards bringing about real reform.

& remember, the bureaucracy are the ones behind the document as well. They are not going to propse anything that would force them into real change. In fact, the CCHD gang is still trying to deny anything like the real number of questionable groups, despite solid evidence given them by Reform CCHD Now!* & why the delay on the list of 2010 grantees that is normally out in September?

It will take a complete housecleaning to get rid of those settled in & I don't see that happenning at this point. It would be nice if they shut down completely & said they were starting from scratch or just shutting down. But I am not expecting that soon either.

Another factor is where a good number of the Bishops are still at. The final vote on Dolan was 128-111. He won by 17 votes. So a shift of 9 votes & Kicanas would have won. Those 111 clearly feel Kicanas' support by dissident Catholics etc was OK. I am also willing to bet that many of Dolan's supporters were voting more to avoid scandal than really wanting to change direction.

So I don't see a strong call from the Bishops even with Dolan in charge, for change. & I don't see Dolan as 1 to force things either. I suspect that that is another reason he got some of the votes that would have gone to Kicanas as well.

& it is interesting that there has been a silence about the discussion of the CCHD review document at the USCCB meeting this week.

I plan on going into this more in another post but if you want to see how things are probably going to play out, look to how the CCCB has been handling the D+P scandal which is their parallel to the CCHD's. & that process has been a similar fighting & kicking all the way.

So, Patrick, much as I wish I could be optimistic, I am not. It is going to take a long time & a lot of work by groups like Reform CCHD Now! (with our support) to see real change.

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* Reform CCHD Now! (RCN) is doing an excellent job of getting the facts out. I can only guess that CCHD fears what they will find with the 2010 grantee list if they put it out & that is why the delay until after the collection. They saw what happenned last year when the facts began coming out. Bishops opted out & contributions dropped elsewhere where the collections still took place. & I suspect they know it will be worse this year should people know in advance despite their claims to already beginning to clean things up.

So don't look for any list until after the collection next week. & when RCN quickly finds the newest scandals, be ready for denial & excuses on the part of the CCHD once again.

& I am sure that is only a part of what will be coming out from RCN about what is really going on at CCHD.