Yesterday, I noticed on Twitter that @CRSnews was making an effort to respond to the criticism, continuing to defend its contribution to CARE. Engaging in the "tweeting", I was told by @CRSnews to read a statement by John Haas (stressing "in his own words") of the National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBS), which did an ethical analyses of the grant for CRS. Although helpful, I did not (and still do not) believe that the statement was a ringing endorsement of the transaction(s) in question.
In fact, in John Haas' "own words";
The NCBC concluded that great care was taken by CRS to see that funds were used only for the purposes designated, i.e., assisting the poor, the malnourished, and the starving.
However, there is another dimension to the Principle of Material Cooperation: the consideration of the risk of scandal. Even if cooperation with an evildoer to achieve some great good were morally legitimate it still could not be done if the action of the Catholic would lead others to believe that the Catholic Church were indifferent to the evil, such as, for example, contraception.
He goes on to say that some clarifications were made to the CRS Mission Statement and concluded with "CRS obviously assumes the responsibility for the grants which it awards."
Later, I was directed by someone (whose opinion on such matters I respect) to review an article by Brandon Vogt (no known relation).
Later, I was directed by someone (whose opinion on such matters I respect) to review an article by Brandon Vogt (no known relation).
While I had already seen the documentation which Brandon presented in the article, he certainly offered a thorough review of such.
I strongly encourage you to read his article and the comments and follow-ups as well.
However, I am personally still having a hard time buying the whole fungibility argument. Maybe CARE can't transfer funding directly, but the analogy given (in Brandon's article)of the $10 to the street guy who uses the money for alcohol instead of food does not seem fit (in my opinion).
A more accurate analogy would seem to be someone (CARE) who receives $10 in food stamps. They use the $10 food stamps for food. However, now they have this $10 that someone else gave them. They were trying to decide if they would use the $10 (or some of it) on food and the rest on alcohol. Now they don't have to make the choice. They can have both.
Maybe I'm too dumb for my own good, but it sure does not smell good when the bishops are fighting Obama on a comparable subject.
If you are smart enough to convince me that there's no way receiving funds from CRS helped CARE in other areas, please take a shot. Really. I would love to make my wife happy and admit publicly that I was wrong.
However, I am personally still having a hard time buying the whole fungibility argument. Maybe CARE can't transfer funding directly, but the analogy given (in Brandon's article)of the $10 to the street guy who uses the money for alcohol instead of food does not seem fit (in my opinion).
A more accurate analogy would seem to be someone (CARE) who receives $10 in food stamps. They use the $10 food stamps for food. However, now they have this $10 that someone else gave them. They were trying to decide if they would use the $10 (or some of it) on food and the rest on alcohol. Now they don't have to make the choice. They can have both.
Maybe I'm too dumb for my own good, but it sure does not smell good when the bishops are fighting Obama on a comparable subject.
If you are smart enough to convince me that there's no way receiving funds from CRS helped CARE in other areas, please take a shot. Really. I would love to make my wife happy and admit publicly that I was wrong.
