American Life League has made a name for itself in several venues. Our cutting edge Canon 915 Project raised a few eyebrows, but at the same time taught thousands of Catholics what canon law actually is in the context of the Church. It helped people recognize that denying a blatantly pro-abortion Catholic the ability to receive Christ in the Eucharist is actually - and hopefully - a step toward his repentance, as then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger wrote so beautifully in Worthiness to Receive Holy Communion.
Another area where American Life League has carved out a unique identity is in our American Life League Report videos, which are all neatly collected for viewing on our YouTube channel. One of them, "Aborting Poverty," was taken down in May of 2011 at the request of Catholic Relief Services (CRS). It is now back.
LifeSiteNews reported on this video on May 11, 2011. The link however is broken because, at our request, LifeSiteNews took down its report. The site did so because, after CRS raised a ruckus, we felt that attempting to establish friendly relations with CRS was better than "shooting from the hip."
In retrospect we erred.
But as luck would have it, we have in our file the well-written LifeSiteNews report on our video by Rebecca Millette, which is also reprinted here. It is entitled "Catholic Social Justice 'Corrupted' Says Largest Catholic Pro-Life Group: Demands Investigation," and states in part: "In a video released today, American Life League, the nation's largest Catholic pro-life group, has called for a complete investigation of Catholic social justice organizations for embracing population control advocate Dr. Jeffrey Sachs."
Millette describes the infamous Sachs, who has a "history of population control as the primary means for ending poverty": "Dr. Sachs is head of the Earth Institute and the Millennium Project. ALL's concern is that in recent years, Sachs has also been lauded and commended by the U.S. Roundtable Association for Diocesan Social Action, which includes partnerships with Catholic Charities USA, Catholic Campaign for Human Development, Catholic Relief Services, and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops."
Millette touches upon the revelation that caused the CRS uproar: "In 2005, the president of Catholic Relief Services [Kenneth Hackett] wrote a book review of Sachs' The End of Poverty, calling it a 'must read.' In that book, Sachs argues population control through 'reproductive services' and [that] artificial contraception is central to reducing poverty."
Hackett was not so pleased about American League however, writing in his May 13, 2011, letter to me that American Life League launched "inflammatory and inaccurate" attacks. He clearly did not want the truth to get out.
Obviously the pressure put on American Life League in May of 2011 to take down the video was a ruse. The letter and the meetings with lower level CRS staff that followed were nothing more than a power tactic designed to make us succumb to their will as CRS continued to align itself with pro-abortion, pro-contraception "charities" and population control agencies.
In 2012, when CRS aligned itself with CARE, bioethics expert John Haas, Ph.D., warned CRS that scandal was unavoidable. Clearly when an organization needs a dissertation from a bioethicist to explain and justify its actions, and the bioethicist warns them NOT to go forward, the path to error is paved in spades.
In addition, CRS is involved with pro-condom programs and other questionable alliances, which is further evidence that CRS consistently ignores advice in favor of its political agenda.
In light of what we have learned about Hackett, his Obama connections, and so much more, we see clearly now that manipulation is part of the CRS bag of tricks.
While we regret this, we also believe strongly that our integrity in this matter speaks for itself. By attempting to placate a Catholic organization that had no intention of following through with its own efforts to clean up its house, we did what Christ expected of us. We met with our brother in private; we agreed with the demands made of us. In turn, we expected that CRS would examine its alliances and make the needed changes.
Now we know that CRS was just blowing smoke. Isn't that a shame?