Catholics probe aid directed to ACORN The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has hired forensic accounting specialists to investigate more than $1 million in church funding to voter-registration group ACORN, fearing the money may have been spent in partisan or fraudulent ways that could jeopardize the church's tax-exempt status.The investigation is "thorough, serious and ongoing," according to a July 11 letter to more than 200 bishops from New Orleans Bishop Robert Morin, chairman of the committee that oversees the Catholic Campaign for Human Development.
The CCHD sent $1,037,000 to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) in 2007, including a $40,000 grant to an ACORN affiliate in Las Vegas that was raided last month by the Nevada attorney general's office in a voter-fraud probe. ...full story
+J.M.J+
(Since this is Election Day, I hope it's okay to post this prayer for our country here. If not, feel free to delete)
Our father's God to Thee,
Author of liberty,
To Thee we sing.
Long may our land be bright,
With freedom's holy light,
Protect us by Thy might,
Great God our King.*
Immaculate Mary, Patroness of the United States, pray for the USA during this dark and uncertain time. Our Lady of Guadalupe, Queen of the Americas and Mother of the Unborn, pray that the pro-life cause prevails in our nation. Terror of demons and destroyer of heresies, crush the abortion industry under your feet to the glory of your Son. O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to you.
O Glorious Guardian Angel of the United States, to whom God has entrusted the care of our beloved country, we honor you and thank you for the care and protection you have given to this great nation from the first moment of its conception. O powerful Angel Guardian, whose watchful glance encompasses this vast land from shore to shore, we know that our sins have grieved you and marred the beauty of our heritage. Pray for us, O Holy Angel, before the Throne of God. Obtain for us, from the Queen of Heaven, the graces we need to overcome the forces of evil so rampant in our beloved land. Help us, our God-given protector and friend, to offer the prayer and sacrifice necessary to bring peace and goodness to our nation. We want to make you known and loved throughout our land, so that with your help we may become once more “one nation under God”. Amen
Saints John Neumann, Frances Xavier Cabrini, Elizabeth Ann Seton, Katherine Drexel and all the saints from the USA, those canonized and those known only to God, please pray for your former homeland in its hour of need. Blessed be God in His Angels and in His Saints. Amen.
In Jesu et Maria,
Rosemarie
*"My Country, 'Tis of Thee" by Samuel Francis Smith, stanza 4
Finally. Something that got the bishops to stop funding ACORN. I mean, it took *embezzlement* to get their attention, but at least something finally worked.
Actually, considering the new backbones many bishops have grown, I hope there will be a considerable review of the dubious organizations CCHD has funded.