Those
immigrant advocacy groups that lost funding from a Catholic charity in a
tussle with Cardinal George and the Archdiocese of Chicago over gay
marriage may get their money after all — but from somebody else.
I’m glad to see that somebody has got these folks’ back.
As you’ve read here
previously, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, a program of
the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, cut off funding to those
organizations this summer after the coalition endorsed same-sex marriage
legislation pending before the Illinois General Assembly.
The cutoff included funds
to such worthwhile programs as Bikes N’ Roses, an initiative of the
Albany Park Neighborhood Council, which operates a free bike repair
clinic that trains young people as bike mechanics. Punishing them was
just plain senseless.
Now coming to their rescue
will be the newly-formed Solidarity Fund, which will be operated through
the Crossroads Fund of Chicago — with involvement from Fred Eychaner’s
Alphawood Foundation, Chicago Foundation for Women, the Gill Foundation
and the Pierce Family Foundation.
Jeanne Kracher, executive
director of the Crossroads Fund, said the common denominator among the
funding groups is that “we’re all interested in social justice issues.”
Eychaner and the Gill
Foundation have been particularly active in leading the fight in favor
of LGBT rights in general and marriage rights for gays and lesbians in
particular.
Kracher said all the groups
planning to donate to the emergency replacement fund are united in
their belief that the community groups who lost funding — organizations
such as United African Organization and Chicago Workers Collaborative —
have been doing good work in the city for many years, as witnessed by
their prior funding from the Catholic Church.
She said none of them deserve to be victims of “guilt by association” over gay marriage.
Cardinal George has blamed
the funding cutoff on leaders of the immigration coalition, saying the
church was left with no choice after the group got involved in the fight
over gay marriage. The church staunchly opposes gay marriage, of
course, just as it staunchly supports immigrant rights.
Some might consider the
Church’s heavy-handed enforcement efforts in this situation exactly the
sort of obsession with “small-minded rules” that Pope Francis recently
suggested was interfering with the Church’s pastoral mission.
But, hey, I’m just a
heathen, and I have to be more careful about interpreting the Pope,
although I’m darn certain Cardinal George got it wrong again over the
weekend when he tried to tell us that it was society’s obsession with
certain hot-button issues, not Church leaders’ emphasis on enforcing its
doctrines, to which the Pope was referring in his latest
headline-grabbing interview.
“If the society is obsessed
with those issues,” George said, “then the church will respond. If the
society doesn’t bring them up, the church won’t respond.”
Instead of arguing the
point, though, let’s just agree that gay marriage is one of those issues
that some of us are going to keep bringing up.
I know that some people
don’t see any connection between immigration and gay marriage, and
indeed, the groups who are being punished here are not particularly
active in LGBT issues at all.
But I’m sure some of you realize there are
many gay and lesbian immigrants who are in relationships that aren’t
recognized under current U.S. immigration law. Same-sex married couples
might at least have an argument to make in the future.
Jenny Arwade, executive
director of the Albany Park Neighborhood Council, said the organization
is “very excited” about the prospect of new funding for the Bikes N’
Roses program, which is facing a “make it or break it period” at month’s
end when a state grant expires.
After that, the group has
been planning to operate a severely scaled-back program relying on
donations that generous Sun-Times’ readers contributed after my previous
column.
For most of its history,
the Catholic Campaign for Human Development has been a very progressive
group that did not get bogged down in “small-minded rules.”
As the Solidarity Fund
raises money for this year to fill the funding gap for CCHD’s longtime
community partners, the question arises as to who will step up in the
future.