By Michael Hichborn
Our Blessed Lord, Jesus Christ, is King over all creation. He made the heavens and the Earth, and all other things—big and small. As a sovereign, He has absolute authority and power over all things. But as a good King, He has delegated this authority to man not merely to be administers, but to truly participate in His kingdom. This is a great honor and a great responsibility. Because he has bestowed this upon us, all that is done for His Kingdom must be done with great care, with attention to detail, and with exact accounting. 
Human kingdoms have always had bad administrators, traitors, and those who accept bribes. The punishment for those who gave the king’s gold to the king’s enemies was quite severe. And while corporal punishment for giving our Heavenly King’s gold to His enemies is limited, the eternal implications are too terrible for our minds to fully grasp. Sadly, the fact of the matter is that administrators in the Catholic Church are giving Our Blessed Lord’s money to the enemies of His bride, the Holy Church. One such example is the Catholic Campaign for Human Development.
The CCHD has been riddled with scandalous affairs since its inception. Since 2009, a more focused effort has taken place to expose the errant funding of this organization, and the result was a review and renewal which allegedly resolved any issues. Catholics were told that even though the CCHD had funded “a few” bad organizations, it was now safe to give. This is simply untrue.
In November 2014, I launched the Lepanto Institute for the Restoration of All Things in Christ for the specific purpose of maintaining a thorough investigation of the CCHD and other such organizations. Since that time, the Lepanto Institute has exposed $160,000 worth of funds going from the CCHD to organizations involved with Planned Parenthood, the spread of homosexuality, and Communism. The most recent discovery is possibly the most egregious abuse of Catholic funds found so far for this year’s grants list.
For fiscal year 2014-2015, CCHD granted $40,000 to the Inland Empire Sponsoring Committee. The Lepanto Institute’s profile on this organization proves that the president of IESC, Rev. Michael Fronk, is a Protestant pastor who performs same-sex “marriages” at the First Christian Church in Pomona, California. In fact, much of his church’s focus is on homosexual activism. And even though Bishop Jamie Soto, the current chairman of the CCHD, defunded an organization in his own diocese in 2012 because its leader performed same-sex “marriages” and advocated for abortion, the IESC made it onto the CCHD’s grants list. This kind of funding is abominable on many levels and is simply inexcusable. And while the CCHD may claim that funding IESC does not mean funding the same-sex marriage practices of its president, one has to wonder if the CCHD would then find it acceptable to grant money to an organization whose president is a practicing abortionist or a committed member of the Ku Klux Klan, burning crosses on minority lawns.
The leadership of the CCHD can make whatever excuses or be as silent as it wishes, but the fact of the matter is that there will be a day where silence and excuses will not be an option. What the leadership needs to ask itself is whether it is better to correct the matter now—facing possible embarrassment and loss of credibility—or to own the debt of having given the King’s gold to His enemies and face Our Lord on the Day of Judgment. Choosing the former has temporal implications, while choosing the latter could be eternal. Let us pray and fast for those in leadership positions in the Church.
Michael Hichborn is the president of the Lepanto Institute. Formerly, Michael served American Life League for nearly eight years as the director of Defend the Faith, Host of the American Life League Report, and media director.
