The Washington office of Catholic Charities USA has contracted with a lobbying firm owned by a noted gay activist, a homosexual-oriented newspaper in the nation’s capital reports.
For the 12-month period ending in April, Catholic Charities USA paid nearly $500,000 to the Sheridan Group, headed by gay activist Tom Sheridan. Although the lobbying group’s work for Catholic Charities did not involve gay-rights issues—it was devoted to anti-poverty campaigns—the Washington Blade story quotes homosexual activists as saying that the Catholic Charities office is sympathetic to their concerns.Sister Jeannine Gramick, the founder of New Ways Ministry—a group whose work was censured first by the Vatican in 1999 and then by the US bishops’ conference in 2010--gave the Blade this assessment of Catholic Charities USA: “I feel they personally are pro-gay but they can’t do this publicly.”