The Catholic Campaign for Human Development persistently claims to thoroughly review each grant applicant and that it never provides funds to organizations that act against Catholic moral or social teaching. Most recently, Bp. Timothy Senior, the current chairman of the CCHD subcommittee, told his brother bishops that the reports of the Lepanto Institute on CCHD grants are “unfounded” and that:
All of the initiatives that are supported with CCHD funding have undergone a thorough application process, which includes the approval by the local bishop, and the national subcommittee of bishops, and are closely monitored throughout the length of their grant to ensure that the terms of the grant agreement are strictly followed. Catholics can be confident that the Catholic Campaign for Human Development does not fund organizations that violate the moral or social teaching of the Church.
But if, as Bp. Senior claims, CCHD grantees “have undergone a thorough application process” and are “closely monitored,” then the CCHD must have either knowingly provided a grant to an organization that admitted to praying to demons, or the CCHD did not “thoroughly review” the organization as it claims it does. Either way, the fact remains: The CCHD provided over $100,000 to an organization actively promoting sexual perversion and praying to demons.
Planting Justice has been a recipient of local CCHD grants from the diocese of Oakland, California, since 2018 and appears to have received its first-ever national CCHD grant of $50,000 in the 2021–2022 fiscal year.
According to the November 2022 edition of The Catholic Voice, the official publication of the diocese of Oakland, Planting Justice received another $50,000 national grant for “this year,” meaning 2022–2023.
In 2018, Planting Justice received a local CCHD grant for an unknown amount. The CCHD of the diocese of Oakland held a lunch wherein the grants were awarded to the individual grantees for that year. This is the video of Planting Justice receiving their award:
In 2020, Planting Justice received a “national” grant of $20,000, as is indicated in this Oct. 19, 2020 issue of The Catholic Voice.
What’s odd about this, however, is that Planting Justice is not mentioned on the national CCHD grants list for 2018–2019, 2019–2020 or 2020–2021, leaving us to wonder if the CCHD failed to report it as a national grant or if it was misreported as a national grant in the diocesan paper.
Whatever the case, what we know for sure is that this organization should never have received a dime from the Catholic Church. Any organization that would erect an altar with an idol and pentagram on it and publish actual prayers to demons should be on a permanent ban list, perpetually forbidden from Catholic funding.
On Nov. 21, 2013, Planting Justice published a tweet saying, “Remembering our Dead on the International Transgender Day of Remembrance,” linking to an article on Planting Justice’s website.
The link in the tweet no longer works because it is pointed to a blog version of the Planting Justice website. However, the current Planting Justice website carries the same article, and it is still there. The Nov. 21, 2013 article titled “Remembering Our Dead,” was written by Chris Hughes, who (at the time) referred to himself as “Planting Justice’s Secular Priest/ess“
At the top of the article is a photo of a Guy Fawkes mask with a plaque underneath. On the plaque are a pentagram, a sword, two cups and a dagger. To the left of the plaque is a golden apple, and to its right is a Jhika hand cymbal. All of these are prominent symbols in witchcraft.
The article opens with these lines:
Hello again. My name is, among other things, Chris Hughes. You may remember me from such blog posts as “A Recipe, Because Cooking is Important”. I also identify as transgender, specifically genderqueer. Today, November 20, 2013, happens to have been our Planting Justice staff meeting. It is also the International Transgender Day of Remembrance 2013. … To commemorate this day, … I asked the Planting Justice staff if I could set up an altar before our meeting. I also read the names of the dead, inviting them to sit in with our staff. Pictures of the altar follow.
The picture of the “altar” contained a pagan idol of unknown origin, a document titled “A List of All Trans People Killed in Hate [indecipherable] That We Know Of,” sitting on a platform with a pentagram, a couple of books and an assortment of other items.
Followed by this image is a closer picture of the document, the pentagram and the books. The bottom book is a copy of the book titled Inanna, Lady of the Largest Heart: Poems of the Sumerian High Priestess Enheduanna. The book on top of it is titled All-Soul, All-Body, All-Love, All-Power: A Trans Mythology.
Inanna is the ancient Sumerian name for the more commonly known Ishtar, the goddess of love, sensuality, political power, fertility and war. In a mocking prefigurement of Our Lady, one of her titles was “Queen of Heaven.” Clearly, this “altar” was established for the actual worship of pagan gods, which we know to be demons. And to confirm this, the article then proceeded to include actual prayers to demons.
Read the rest of the article at the Lepanto Institute.