By John Jalsevac
April 16, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The editor of the Catholic Insight magazine, Fr. Alphonse de Valk, has penned a lengthy article about the recent scandal involving the Canadian Bishops’ official development arm, the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace (CCODP or D&P), which has been found to be supporting numerous pro-abortion and pro-contraception groups around the world (See bottom for links to extensive coverage).
Published in the May edition of Catholic Insight, the article by Fr. de Valk gives a detailed history of the development organization and charges that the recent scandal is merely the latest piece of evidence pointing towards D&Ps leftist and secularist roots. (To read the complete article see: https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/apr/090416a.html)
“The CCODP has always been driven by political ideology; in fact, by a political ideology of the left, even more so than by its Catholic religious motivation,” writes Fr. de Valk.
After giving an overview of the recent scandal, de Valk observes that D&Ps leftist political ideology arose out of the late 1960s, the same time when the Canadian Catholic Church effectively abandoned Catholic family values by dismissing Pope Paul VI’s encyclical “Humanae Vitae,” which reaffirmed the Church’s opposition to artificial contraception.
De Valk writes: “In September 1968, the majority of the bishops had deleted Pope Paul’s encyclical Humanae Vitae as unsuited for Canadians. That ended all teaching and all preaching against contraceptives; indeed, it ended the bishops’ interest in family morality. They closed the conference’s Bureau of Family Life in 1973.”
At the same time, he says, D&P “took flight on a wave of popularity. Helping the poor in underdeveloped countries was the thing to do.”
“There was no shortage of workers,” he writes. “With priests and nuns leaving their posts in the Church by the thousands, helping the poor was a great substitute. The Church, as many thought, having emancipated itself from narrow-mindedness in family morality, presently offered a secular messianism through economic and political activism.”
The Canadian government had, around the same time, also created CIDA, the Canadian International Development Agency, which “was generously endowed with funds.”
De Valk says that CIDA and D&P teamed up, with the federal government announcing that “it would double whatever D&P brought to Ottawa. This way, CIDA provided 60 per cent of D&P funding.”
However, “There was only one little hitch. CIDA, being a secular agency, could not very well fund Catholic enterprises. No money from Canada, therefore, for Catholic missionaries in Africa and Asia or their parishes, hospitals and women clinics. Only secular projects needed to apply.”
The result of this arrangement, besides the curious phenomenon of a Catholic development organization that could not support Catholic causes, is that, “Throughout the 1970s, D&P literature took its cue from leftist and feminist radicalism and like them, agitated against war. The evil American was the target. Everyone knew that the revolutionaries in South America and elsewhere were noble figures, representing ‘the people’ and the ‘downtrodden.’ So D&P filled its literature with anti-Americanism and anti-war rhetoric.”
However, “not everyone was going along. In the early 1980s, Bishop Gerald Emmett Carter, then archbishop of Toronto, had had enough. He pulled the Toronto Archdiocese out of D&P, replaced Share Lent with Share Life.” Share Life funds would not be funneled to D&P, but instead used to support causes of the bishops choosing and Toronto’s St. Augustine’s Seminary.
De Valk also recounts the 2000 scandal, in which it was revealed by LifeSiteNews that D&P was supporting the pro-abortion World March of Women. The ensuing controversy, “was the first time since Vatican II that Canada’s bishops broke ranks publicly,” says DeValk. In the end D&P was forced to pull its support for the March.
Then, about two years ago, says the Catholic Insight editor, “the Vatican asked the CCCB to join D&P with its own Caritas organization.” However, “that would have meant giving up the matching funds from CIDA … and becoming truly Catholic.”
“Well, it looks as if this may not happen.”
De Valk concludes his article, saying, “Let D&P rest in peace for eternity.” He suggests that one possible solution to the scandal, “would be for dioceses to take the distribution in their own hands.”
To read Fr. de Valk’s complete article see: https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/apr/090416a.html
To contact Development and Peace:
10 St. Mary Street, Suite#420
Toronto, Ontario
Canada, M4Y 1P9
Phone: (416) 922-1592
Fax: (416) 922-0957
Toll Free: 1-800-494-1401
E-Mail: [email protected]
Web Site: https://www.devp.org
Contact information for every Canadian bishop
https://www.cccb.ca/site/component/option,com_wrapper/Itemid
To contact the Canadian Conference for Catholic bishops:
2500 Don Reid Drive
Ottawa, Ontario
K1H 2J2, Canada
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone:(613) 241-9461
Fax: (613) 241-9048
See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
IRONY: NGO Funded by Canadian Bishops’ D&P Battles East Timor Bishops over Abortion
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/apr/09040708.html
“Development and Peace” Funding Sixth Pro-Abortion Organization in Mexico
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/apr/09040611.html
Hundreds of Thousands in Canadian Lent Collection Money Funding Pro-Abortion Groups in Mexico
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/mar/09031210.html
Group Funded by Development and Peace Supports Mexico City’s Abortion on Demand Law
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/mar/09032313.html
Mexican Pro-Life Leader Confirms: Groups Funded by Development and Peace are Pro-Abortion
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/mar/09031710.html
Canadian Catholic “Development and Peace” Funding Two Abortion Advocacy Groups in Brazil
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/mar/09032705.html
Development and Peace Also Supporting Pro-Abortion Group in Bolivia: National Catholic Register
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/mar/09031812.html
Pro-Abortion/Contraception Groups in Africa Receiving Development and Peace Funding
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/mar/09032613.html
“Development and Peace” Supporting Two Pro-Abortion Organizations in Haiti
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/mar/09033008.html
Catholic and International Pro-Life Groups Ask Canadian Bishops to Halt Funding to Latin American Pro-Abortion Groups
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/mar/09031610.html
Toronto Archbishop: Development and Peace Won’t Get Funds if They Support Pro-Abortion Groups
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/mar/09031808.html
Third And Fourth Canadian Bishops Say Development & Peace Funds to be Held Pending Investigation
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/mar/09032716.html
Full Text of LifeSiteNews Interview With Gilio Brunelli of Development and Peace
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/mar/090320b.html