U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Caught in Grant Warfare

Mikhail Bell
December 29, 2011

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB), founded in 1917, has been at the center of recent battles on Capitol Hill to protect the unborn, as well as the women that carry them. In 2006, the organization received a five-year federal id=”mce_marker”9 million contract to assist survivors of human trafficking. Consequently, their recent public row with officials at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services over new funding allocation procedures seemed odd as they were previously awarded the same grant without incident.

On December 1, an ABC News report revealed that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) had denied a grant to USCCB over concerns about its willingness to provide the full range of contraceptive and abortion services to clientele. “This has never been a problem before,” USCCB spokewoman Sister Mary Ann Walsh told CNN in early December. She later concluded that the grantor was to blame: “HHS has politicized the grant process…”

According to the bishops’ strategic plan, the organization does not have explicit anti-contraceptive directives. Instead it affirms the value of all “human life and human rights” as well as “marriage and family life.” But, in practice, the group has been a vanguard for the unborn on Capitol Hill.

Under the Obama Administration, HHS revised its funding method from a contract agreement to a grant process that includes a blind review by an independent board. According to ABC News, USCCB was rated higher than two grant recipients and lower than one that applied for the $4.5 million grant. Ostensibly USCCB was overlooked because they did not meet grant criteria set out by HHS. But subsequent HHS statements indicated that USCCB’s exclusion was based on ideological differences with HHS administrators.

Speaking to ABC News, HHS official George Sheldon intimated an expectation that applicants would be willing to provide trafficked persons with “the full range of legally permissible gynecological and obstetric care.” This would include various types of contraception — and abortion referrals. To date, HHS has not suggested that the right to conscience by grant recipients will be honored in such situations.

The decision drew inquisitive and direct remarks from both sides of the aisle. In a recent CNN article, District of Columbia representative Eleanor Holmes Norton said, “…I don’t see how congress can be concerned with any but two issues: were the procedures followed, and are we paying attention first and foremost to the victims…?”

Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ) has had prolonged Involvement with anti-human trafficking efforts. In 2000, he authored the “Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act” of 2000, which is this nation’s first law to explicitly outlaw trafficking in persons. As a prominent advocate, Smith commented on the HHS decision saying, “[Any] Catholic or faith-based NGO, or a secular organization[s] of conscience” now has “clear proof” of bias in the grant process.

Perhaps the fate of the HHS posture vis-à-vis USCCB was sealed by the bishops’ adamant and ultimately unsuccessful fight in 2009 for protections against any federal funding, however indirect, of abortion by Obamacare.

In November, Huffington Post reporter Laura Bassett dubbed to the USCCB as “the men behind the war on women.” The seven-page article assiduously chartered the bishops’ increased visibility and staunch defense of life, as well as their purportedly anachronistic opposition to contraception. Despite USCCB’s advisement of both political parties, NARAL Pro-Choice America director Donna Crane, called the group one of its “two biggest opponents.” The other is National Right to Life.

USCCB has positioned its self as a major provider of social services to the needy. Over the past three years, the bishops received “$650 million in grants.” As HHS adopts new funding methods and allows for more discretion in grant allocation, the bishops could become a casualty of ideology. More immediately, temporary disruptions in funding for programs that assist trafficked person could have long-term consequences for survivors who require stability to rebuild their lives.

Here is a video from Love 146, an anti-trafficking organization founded by Rob Morris, about aftercare for survivors: