United Interfaith Action of Southeastern Massachusetts
UPDATE OCTOBER 2025: Our previous investigation of United Interfaith Action of Southeastern Massachusetts (UIASM) revealed that this CCHD funded organization was an affiliate of the Faith in Action Federation, a radically pro-abortion and pro-LGBTQ organization. That information will follow this update.
Our last report revealed that UIASM had received CCHD grants totaling $155,000 since 2018. Since then, the UIASM has received a total of $242,500, including its most recent grant of $32,500 from the 2022-2023 fiscal year.
As of 2025, UIASM has amped up the intensity of its Catholic moral teaching (and CCHD grant guidelines) violations by virtue of the following:
- Directly engaging in LGBTQ activism.
- Maintaining its affiliation with Faith in Action.
- Collaborating with organizations that support abortion, LGBTQ, the transgender ideology, and socialism.
On February 28, 2023, UIASM shared a post from The South Coast LGBTQ Network, which was made to promote a “de-escalation training” session for LGBTQ activists to “talk about ways to manage and de-escalate tense situations that may present themselves at South Coast LGBTQ+ events.”
The UIASM has maintained its position as an affiliate of Faith in Action, which has promoted abortion, LGBTQ and transgender ideologies, and anti-semitism. The Lepanto Institute has reported on Faith in Action and multiple affiliates who are also CCHD grantees. You can read further about Faith in Action in our report on it, here. You can also read more about its CCHD funded affiliates and members in our Faith in Action archives.
Faith in Action also promoted an article on their website which celebrated a march for several progressive causes, including Transgender “rights.”
The UIASM is also a “supporting organization” of the Massachusetts Voter Table. According to their page, supporting organizations are “Supporting groups that mobilize voters from specific constituencies and/or geographic areas.”
The Massachusetts Voter Table expressed support for LGBTQ, transgender ideology, and abortion access in a Facebook post from June 24, 2022. They called the Dobbs Decision an “affront to people across our country” and claimed that “abortion is healthcare.” They also stated that “trans and queer folks…across the U.S. continue to have our needs and right to autonomy denied.”
Furthermore, the executive director of the Massachusetts Voter Table, Shanique Spalding, was, according to her LinkedIn profile, previously the Manager of Mobilization and BIPOC at Planned Parenthood.
Spalding is an abortion activist who has attended many pro-abortion campaigns and events and has made and been mentioned in numerous Facebook posts, vocalising her abortion support, such as in this post from May 21, 2019.
Below is a Facebook post from March 3, 2024, where Spalding posted about a Planned Parenthood event that was in favor of the ROE Act. The purpose of the ROE Act was to protect and expand abortion access.
Another organization that UIASM is an affiliate of is the Massachusetts Communities Action Network (MCAN). Not only is MCAN also a Faith in Action Federation member, but it has also openly promoted Socialism, as seen in a Facebook repost from January 19, 2021.
Updated Conclusion
The United Interfaith Network of Southeastern Massachusetts is an organization that has promoted LGBTQ, and has maintained its position as an affiliate of multiple pro-abortion, pro-LGBTQ, and socialist organizations. There is absolutely no excuse for the CCHD to be funding this organization, which clearly has no desire to comply with the CCHD’s guidelines, very similar to the CCHD’s own negligent attitude toward its own rules and the moral teachings of the Catholic Church. In light of this information, the Lepanto Institute renews its call for the USCCB to shut down the CCHD permanently.
The previous Report: United Interfaith Action of Southeastern Massachusetts
NOTE: To download a PDF version of this report, please click here.
United Interfaith Action of Southeastern Massachusetts (UIASM) has received $155,000 from the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) since 2018, including its 2020-2021 grant of $55,000.
The CCHD absolutely forbids organizations from membership in organizations that act against Catholic teaching. In an FAQ on the USCCB website, the CCHD directly answers the question about whether grantees may be members of coalitions that oppose Catholic teachings. In answer, the CCHD firmly stated, “CCHD will not fund groups that are knowingly members of coalitions that have as part of their organizational purpose or coalition agenda, positions or actions that contradict fundamental Catholic moral and social teaching.”
Despite this requirement, however UIASM is an affiliate of the radically pro-abortion Faith in Action, as can be seen here.
Faith in Action is a coalition of 49 members, many of whom receive funding from the CCHD. Faith in Action itself received $500,000 in 2016 from the CCHD, when it was called the PICO Network. However, Faith in Action publicly supports abortion, its leaders openly slammed the overturn of Roe v. Wade, and FIA participated in electioneering activities in support of President Joe Biden and other Democratic candidates. The organization also supports LGBTQ+ ideologies. All of the pertinent information regarding Faith in Action on the whole is contained in the fully detailed report on FIA (see here), but the most important point is this:
On the day of the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Dobbs v. Jackson case which overturned Roe v. Wade, Faith in Action took a formal position condemning the ruling, while vowing to “stand with women” calling it “oppression” to deny a woman the right to murder her child through abortion.
In an official press release, published on Faith in Action’s website, Faith in Action said:
“Clergy and organizers with Faith in Action, the largest grassroots, faith-based organizing network in the United States, are speaking out against today’s Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, following a leak of the Supreme Court opinion.”
FIA’s executive director Rev. Alvin Herring called the decision, “a huge blow to women in this season of despair,” and declared that ”[w]e must speak out against dangerous policies that chip away at having agency over their own bodies.”
Rev. Dr. Cassandra Gould, FIA’s Senior Strategist at FIA’s Washington, DC office, claimed that the “SCOTUS decision to overturn ROE” was “legalized, judicially enforced oppression” that “shows contempt for the Creator.”
Rev. Kamilah Hall Sharp, member of FIA’s Organizing Clergy Board, said that the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade was “deadly,” and that she was “enraged at the injustice, the lack of care for women and that most people who voted to take this right away will never have to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term in their bodies.” She then had the audacity to claim that “As a follower of Jesus,” her rage about the overturning of Roe “aligns with [H]is.”
This is the entire statement as it appeared on the Faith in Action website:
Conclusion
United Interfaith Action of Southeastern Massachusetts is a member of a radically pro-abortion organization in direct violation of CCHD grant guidelines, and is therefore ineligible for CCHD funds.
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