Cross Catholic Outreach Ends Relationship with AUSCP

On July 16 of this year, the Lepanto Institute published a report on Cross Catholic Outreach’s financial support of the Association of United States Catholic Priests (AUSCP) through advertising space it took out in the AUSCP’s program booklet for its annual assembly.  Since the publication of that report, faithful Catholics have been emailing, calling, and sending in letters to Cross Catholic, telling  them that they can no longer support the organization as long as it is lending support to the AUSCP.  And now, three months later, Cross Catholic has severed its ties with the AUSCP.

On July 15, the Lepanto Institute contacted Cross Catholic Outreach to alert it of grave concerns regarding it’s financial support of the heretical AUSCP.  At issue was the fact that this was the second year that Cross Catholic was paying to table at an AUSCP event, purchasing both a table and advertising space in the AUSCP program book.  As we noted in the article, tabling at the AUSCP’s annual assembly cost anywhere between $100-$6,000, depending upon the package purchased by the organization.

Any organization which paid for advertising space, tabled a book, or sponsored the event directly contributed to the AUSCP’s work to spread grave errors within the Church.  You can read about these errors in our various articles exposing this group:

• AUSCP Officially Called for Women’s Ordination to the Priesthood
• AUSCP Gives Venue to Condemned LGBT Organizations
• AUSCP’s Plan for Ordained Women and Priestless parishes
• AUSCP’s Idea for Priestly Formation and Info on Conference speakers
• AUSCP’s Desire to Obtain Funding from Unsuspecting, Pew-sitting Catholics
• AUSCP’s Membership in an International Network of Heretical Organizations
• AUSCP’s Alliance with Heretical, Pro-Sodomy Organizations
• AUSCP’s Keynote Address from Notorious Priest, Fr. Richard Rohr
• AUSCP’s Vision of the Church in Relation to the Vision of Bl. Anne Catherine Emmerich

During the phone conversation with Jim Cavnar, the president of Cross Catholic Outreach, we commended Cross Catholic for its faithfulness in its field of work, letting Mr. Cavnar know that we have often recommended Cross Catholic Outreach as a charitable organization in line with Catholic teaching.  Because of the praise we have given Cross Catholic over the years, it was quite painful for us to have to tell people that we no longer recommended them as a safe organization to donate to.  Nevertheless, because Mr. Cavnar indicated that Cross Catholic would continue to table at AUSCP events, we had to include that in our report and remove them from the “Safe” charities list.

But now, we are very pleased to be able to restore Cross Catholic to the list of “Safe” charities due to its official decision to withdraw its support from the AUSCP.  Late last week, a reader of the Lepanto Institute forwarded us an email she received after speaking on the phone with a senior director at Cross Catholic who told her of their recent decision to refrain from tabling at AUSCP events moving forward.  The following is the relevant portion of the email sent by Sandi Pino, Senior Director of the Parish & Community Services Dept. to a supporter:

Dear T….,

Thank you for your interest in Cross Catholic Outreach.  As I explained in my conversation with T…. earlier today, Cross Catholic Outreach will no longer be sponsoring a table at the AUSCP Conference.  I’ve been in communication with Jim Cavnar and share my decision, as Cross Catholic’s Sr. Director of the Parish & Community Services Dept., to refrain from sponsoring a table at the conference in future years.  Our attendance at the conference was for the purpose of recruiting priests for our speakers bureau, but we do not support any doctrinal disagreements that may be endorsed by individual members of any organization, including the AUSCP.

We at the Lepanto Institute are overjoyed at the policy change and ask you to thank Cross Catholic for its decision.

Cross Catholic President, Jim Cavnar: [email protected]