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France is in deep, deep trouble. Hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic and just a few months before the presidential election, the country or rather, the French language is under threat. Whos the culprit? The terror of political correctness imported from across the Atlantic, also known as wokeism. We know too well that America exports its culture to the whole world: movies, music, Anglicisms and now its obsession with gender-neutral language too.

There seems to be no other explanation why the esteemed French-language dictionary Le Petit Robert has included the gender-neutral pronoun iel (pronounced yell) in its online edition. This combination of the male pronoun il and the female pronoun elle can be used for people who dont identify as male or female, or whose gender is unknown. These three small letters have been causing a ruckus in France for weeks now.

While transgender organisations have welcomed the decision, there was little enthusiasm to be found elsewhere. First Lady Brigitte Macron explained that there are two pronouns: il and elle and on Twitter Franois Jolivet, a member of Frances governing party La Rpublique en Marche (LREM), in his outrage, denied Le Petit Robert its status as a reference.

In a letter to the Acadmie Franaise, supreme guardian of French linguistic integrity, Jolivet called on the body to prevent the imminent destruction of the French language by woke ideology. He was applauded for this by his colleague, Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer, who declared that inclusive spelling is not the future of the French language.

Oh well, theres hardly any better place on Earth to argue about language and its future than France! The venerable Acadmie Franaise keeps a close watch on compliance with grammar rules to in the country, contesting anything that appears to be too English or modern. Conversely, the literary group Oulipo is trying to modernise French through playful writing exercises, for example by writing an entire book without the letter e. A variety of the language spoken by young people known as verlan joyously swaps the syllables of a word to create something new. And there has been a debate going on for years about whether the French language is sexist or too male, and if so, to what extent.

Positive discrimination, quotas, inclusive language... France says non, merci.

This criticism is not unfounded. There is a rule in French that the male form takes precedence over the female. It was invented in 1676 by Jesuit priest Dominique Bouhour, who proclaimed: When the two sexes meet, the more noble must prevail. And the more noble is, of course, the male. There can be 99 women and one man in a group and, grammatically speaking, this group would be classed as male, taking the male plural form ils. Because the male takes precedence over the female.

At the moment, though, American-style political correctness seems be taking precedence, brazen enough to not even stop at the French language and all of its beautiful centuries-old rules. This isnt the first time wokeism has rubbed conservatives up the wrong way, though. For them, woke represents a left-wing ideology, identity politics, and a victim mentality. It means pandering to the interests of individual groups, which they claim is unwarranted and incompatible with the French principle of universalism that states that all people are equal, have the same rights, and should therefore be treated exactly the same. Positive discrimination, quotas, inclusive language... France says non, merci.

The dispute about iel is causing such a stir because this goes beyond language alone. The French language is seen as an expression of French values too, an expression of what constitutes the Rpublique. As early as 2017, Blanquer said, there is only one French language, one grammar, one Republic. Incidentally, the word Rpublique is female in French. So too is Marianne, its personification, seen on the French government's official logo, French euro coins and on French postage stamps. And apparently thats good enough for Blanquer to demonstrate the inherent feminism of the French state and its language. Poor Marianne must get used to being portrayed as a feminist symbol for absolutely everything.

Perhaps those politicians who are so easily triggered by three little letters should take a leaf out of Charles Bimbenets book, the director-general of publishing house Le Robert.

But yes, its about more than language it's about the future of the country! And who can save the country? Only the Acadmie Franaise of course, whose verdict on the iel dispute is eagerly awaited. Its long been clear where the Acadmie stands on trying to make the French language more inclusive and more gender-neutral: in May 2020, it published a statement declaring that inclusive spelling is harmful to the usage and comprehensibility of the French language.

The Acadmie is not entirely wrong: inclusive spelling makes a Romance language with two genders like French more difficult to write, speak, and understand. Gender-neutral language may have its place in social circles where its not only what is said thats important, but also how it is said. But everywhere else, no. Well, not yet... because language is alive, it is constantly changing. And also, language is a matter of habit. The more often you say something, the easier it rolls off your tongue. Feminist organisation Nous Toutes commented that it is not for ministers or dictionary authors to decide the future of a language. Those who can change the language are those who speak it: you, us, everyone.

Perhaps those politicians who are so easily triggered by three little letters should take a leaf out of Charles Bimbenets book, the director-general of publishing house Le Robert. He remained astoundingly calm in the face of the perhaps manufactured outrage that he and his team had instigated.

In a statement, he wrote that although usage of the term iel is still rather rare, it has been sharply increasing for several months, as the in-house documentalists have noted. So, they deemed it useful to clarify the meaning of this term for people to understand and decide whether to use it or not. Bimbenet welcomed the controversy surrounding the French language, its development and its use, as it at least shows how alive French is.

Lets hope so. Perhaps those three small letters dont mean the end of the Republic, and the situation in France isnt as bad as it seems well, linguistically at least.

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France's culture wars are going into the next round - IPS Journal

As summer rolled into fall I had thought the worst of the culture wars on Critical Race Theory (CRT) was over, or that at least it would never make it over the eastern border of California. But I was wrong. In mid-November Asian American leaders demanded that the vice mayor of Cupertino Liang Chao issue a formal apology for saying in an e-mail that the Chinese Exclusion Act was not about race since it only excluded Chinese laborers. She asserted that it was to protect American jobs, similar to the H1B visa process. Chao made this statement to illustrate her opposition to CRT. According to Chao, incorporating CRT in K-12 education would incorrectly reduce the origins of Chinese Exclusion Act to racism.

Ironically, historians have long agreed that the Chinese Exclusion Act was in fact motivated by racism. In fact the very authors of the Chinese Exclusion Act would also have readily admitted that it was to prevent specifically the reviled Chinese from entering the United States, since in the 1880s being racist was de rigueur. For California in particular, being anti-Chinese and anti-Japanese was almost a requirement for a successful career in politics throughout the early 20th century. Indeed the Issei lived through an incredibly difficult time, even in San Francisco.

According to Reuters, opposition against the teaching of CRT in schools first began after May 2020, when white Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd, a Black man in Minneapolis. Four months later, in the midst of mass national outcry against white supremacy, journalist Christopher Rufo went on Fox News to denounce anti-bias training happening in federal agencies as an example of critical race theory, a radical ideology that he claimed sowed racial division through education. Then-President Donald Trump directed federal agencies to cease these trainings which he called divisive, un-American propaganda. And in the year after Trumps executive order, conservative politicians then used CRT as a galvanizing alarm, inciting parents to flood school board meetings to oppose discussions of race that would indoctrinate impressionable children. Critical Race Theory has now been banned in eight states, which notably never had CRT curriculum in the first place.

This past summer as the nation became embroiled in what Time Magazine called the history wars, I finally realized that CRT was being used as stand in for ethnic studies curriculum. It seems all courses discussing race were being labeled as CRT. Critical Race Theory, however, is in fact a very specific disciplinary field that originates in legal studies. While many ethnic studies scholars rely heavily on CRT scholar Kimberl Crenshaws theory of intersectionality that its important to think at the intersection of gender, race and class as consequentially different few of those same academics would actually assign readings from critical race theory in an ethnic studies classroom. Why not? First because critical race theory engages often in legal constructs that are not familiar and therefore less accessible to an undergraduate. Second because CRT focuses largely on how structural apparatuses destroy communities of color. While Ethnic Studies does indeed discuss structural racism, it more adamantly focuses on how BIPOC folks (Black, indigenous and people of color) organized and transformed a society that deliberately sought to undermine them.

Indeed an ethnic studies filled entirely with CRT would be illuminating, but also utterly demoralizing. And, a class that does not empower students would work against the fundamental purpose of ethnic studies as transformative education that inspires people to become change agents.

As arguments against CRT have grown in intensity and efficacy leading to the state bans, there have also been notable advances for ethnic studies in K-12 education. In May 2021 Gov.Gavin Newsom signed AB 101, making California the first state to require ethnic studies courses for high schools. Two months later in July 2021, Illinois became the first state to require Asian American history after Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed the TEAACH Act (Teaching Equitable Asian American History Act).

As conservative whites and apparently some people of color oppose CRT, the overwhelming evidence in countless publications on education illustrate how ethnic studies courses boost student engagement. A study at Stanford University concluded that students enrolled in an ethnic studies course had improved attendance by 21% and an increase in GPA by 1.4 grade points. At San Francisco State University our Office of Institutional Research found a correlation between taking ethnic studies courses and a rise in a students graduation rate by 70%. Notably, ethnic studies courses appear to have the biggest positive impact on white students who have less often thought about race than BIPOC students, according to Christine Sleeter of the National Education Organization.

Amy Sueyoshi is dean of the College of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University with a joint faculty appointment in Sexuality Studies and Race and Resistance Studies. She holds a Ph.D. in history from UCLA and has authored two books titled Queer Compulsions and Discriminating Sex. She is also the founding co-curator of the GLBT History Museum in San Francisco. She can be reached at sueyoshi@sfsu.edu. The views expressed in the preceding column are not necessarily those of the Nichi Bei Weekly.

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Nikkei Q: The CRT Culture Wars - Nichi Bei Weekly

Have you seen Dont Look Up? Surely youve watched that hilarious work of biting satire studded with earthly stars such as Streep and di Caprio as Trumpish gargoyles, grinning cable news idiots, billionaire tech narcissists and everything else that stands between the common man and his understanding of man-made apocalypses or in this case, a gigantic asteroid plunging towards earth as metaphor for climate change?

Or perhaps you remember the movie as that two-and-a-half-hours you can never retrieve, the clunker in which the targets are set up like a coconut shy whose in-your-face demolition will astonish absolutely no-one familiar with the culture wars and the cesspits of Fox News over the past 20 years?

Nothing about Dont Look Up is surprising or thought-provoking beyond raising the question about whether a single one of them deserves to be saved from the apocalypse. And yes, thats partially the point. Characters are set up to be sneered at and despised, most of them plotting their own survival at the hoi pollois expense of course.

But its just a movie in the end, so stands or falls on its merits right ? Nope.

For a few days over Christmas, Dont Look Up became another grenade rolling around the Christmas slippers, opening up an odd new flank in the culture wars. There was Us (after bingeing on the extraordinary, genuinely eye-opening Dopesick) anticipating the promised laughs wrapped in some hard-hitting satire about an extinction-level event, performed by a glittering assembly of Hollywood A-listers.

And there was Them who possibly anticipated something similar but mistook the movie for the gospel on climate change, the definitive doctrine that would finally force people to sit up and care.

Somewhere in between were the knotty issues of whether anyone should be looking for laughs from such serious-minded art in the first place and whether it was actually as funny as publicised. Those who thought it extremely funny (as some did) also tended to take it extremely seriously as socio-political commentary.

Movie critics who heartily disliked it for the most part were accused of panning it because it attacked their kind, who could only have been the TV presenter clowns masquerading as journalists. Or maybe they panned it, someone suggested, because it made them feel uncomfortable. Clearly, the accusers had never met an actual movie critic or stumbled over some of their frankly weird and depressing viewing (apologies to Donald Clarke).

Trumpier than Trump

Then again, its satire, much of which comprises gross caricature and decent mimicry but not a lot of laughs. Some viewers enjoyed the movie in an uncomplicated way how often do you get to see Meryl Streep as Trumpier than Trump? while others were maddened by the waste of that remarkable array of talent and a worthy theme.

Will it open up a single recalcitrant mind to the money-grubbing, short-sighted, instant gratification culture speeding us to our destruction? The people depicted as regular folks the parents of a distraught scientist refuse to let their daughter in the house without first informing her that they are in favour of the jobs the comet will create. Its stupidly funny of course but what are the chances they will recognise their stupidity in a movie and undergo an epiphany? Are climate scientists giving it standing ovations, just grateful that someone cares enough to satirise their frustration?

Art is subjective by definition and thrives on opinion and commentary. What distinguishes this one however is the binary attitude of some fans: that the artists intention is all that matters, not the art. That if you agree with the worthy points made in the movie and you will because youve chewed on them for years you must also believe in the greatness of the movie itself. To do otherwise is to be a useful idiot or enabler in the climate denial industrial complex. In short, as one commentator put it, never before had he seen such a response to a film where those who didnt think it was great were assumed to have missed the point by many who did. Quite ironic, he added, given one of the themes in the film.

The frustrating aspect of the Us vs Them skirmish is the futility of it. It could be a metaphor for all the time and energy squandered on tiny, bad-tempered battles, snarky comments and offensiveness just for the hell of it. As is often the case, they are probably on the same side in the things that matter (assuming its not all about personal brand-building). All the rest is self-sabotage.

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Kathy Sheridan: Don't Look Up opens odd new flank in the culture wars - The Irish Times

Making predictions about looming social and political catastrophes is adicey business, because most of the exciting things in history did not happen predictably. You can try to draw historic parallels based on broad economic or cultural trends. In America, in 2022, we have avicious and spiraling culture war combined with an enormous asset price bubble fueled by two years of stimulus money, all resting atop an incredibly tenuous pandemic-wracked real economy. If you think the Angry White Men were scary during the Trump years, just wait until the crypto bubblepops.

Lets think this through. The foundation of everything happening now is asort of late capitalist nihilistic politics fueled purely by culture warsan almost primitive flight from rationality driven by ahalf century of rising inequality and crumbling faith in ineffective public institutions. The American dream is dead: Children no longer do reliably better than their parents. The dream of aone-income supported household is over. In its place have sprouted the gig economy, crushing student debt, the death of unions and generalized precarity. The rich are unimaginably richer, and everyone else is spinning their wheels. The Republican response has been the culture wars, in lieu of actually redistributing wealth. This has been effective, ironically, because the sort of healthy institutions that would prevent culture war politics from being so powerful are the very institutions that are withering away. Technological changes and the atomization of mainstream media have intensified our division into warring political camps, identity-based tribes that further radicalize electoral politics, and are in turn radicalized by it in anon-virtuous cycle.

That is the soil of America today. And sprouting from that, in the spring of 2020, was the pandemic. The economy briefly shut down, and there was apanic, and then there was aton of government stimulus money, which has successfully staved off another Great Depression. That is good. An effect of that, however, is that there is simply alot more money in America than there was before. That money has flowed into every sort of assetstocks, real estate, you name it. Its enormity is fueling weird bubbles, the kind of bubbles that happen when people are searching desperately for salvation. Booming meme stocks like GameStop soared then fell, their up-and-down stock charts standing as stark illustrations of the fact that it is impossible for pump-and-dump schemes to replace afunctional social safety net. Even more significant is the rise of cryptocurrency (and, to alesser degree, NFTs, the ephemeral online artworks whose value is now approaching that of the entire traditional U.S. art market). Crypto is now worth trillions of dollars. All of that value is premised not on some fundamental utility, but rather on the idea that there will always be someone else who will come along and pay you more than you spent on your crypto. This is going to endbadly.

They are called crypto currencies, but clearly they are not currencies. Their value fluctuates far too much to be auseful medium of exchange. So what are they? They are collectibles, pure speculative objects with zero intrinsic value. If you buy astock, you own aportion of abusiness; if you buy ahouse, even if the price goes down, you still have ahouse. If you buy aBitcoin, you have nothing but the title to apiece of computer code that can do absolutely nothing for you except to the extent that someone else can be induced to pay you money for it. In the midst of amania, as we are now in, the price of these imaginary assets tends to rise, because the collective public sentiment is that the prices will rise. When that sentiment changeswhether due to fear, or some event that causes crypto holders to need to cash outthe price will plummet. This basic dynamic has been demonstrated azillion times in financial history, often by assets with far more substance thancrypto.

Crypto, like meme stocks, is apoor replacement for the American dream. Afunctional nation would end gerrymandering, pass campaign finance reform, end the filibuster, abolish the undemocratic U.S. Senate, tax great wealth, institute public healthcare and build asocial safety net to ensure that no one in our very wealthy country slipped all the way through the financial cracks of life and was ruined. But thats not the American way. The American way is to cheer on the few lucky ultra-rich people, and fete them as heroes, and look for away to emulate them, although such athing is mathematically impossible. Instead of socialism, we have given people crypto. They buy crypto, for the most part, not because of lofty beliefs in techno-futurism, but because they think it is away to get rich quick for alow entry price. Crypto is just amodern lottery ticket. But whereas lottery tickets only cost you alittle at atime, crypto will inflate to the moon and then crash into the gutter in afar more devastating way. The bitterest irony, perhaps, is that while the regular folks flock to crypto because they think its autopian land of opportunity for the little guy to make abuck, it is, in fact, largely controlled by asmall cartel of rich investors. Just like everythingelse.

The crash of crypto is bound to happen for the same reason that all Ponzi schemes eventually crumble: There is not an infinite supply of new people willing to pay ever-increasing prices for the stuff that you currently own. The more interesting question is not whether many small-time investors will lose alot of money on their crypto investments, but what will happen when theydo?

Here is what will happen when hundreds of thousands of younger investors are smashed by the crypto crash: They will be radicalized. This will not be experienced as simply adecline in prices, because crypto represents much more than asimple investment to its most fervent adherentsit represents away out of the American trap. It represents the existence of opportunity, the possibility of economic mobility, the validation of the idea that you, aregular, hard working person without connections, can go from the bottom to the top, thanks to nothing but your own savvy choices. When that myth is shattered, disillusionment with the American system will follow. Unfortunately, given the realities of the moment, these newly disillusioned and radicalized and angry and broke people are far more likely to turn to fascism than tosocialism.

Crypto, aportfolio of inherently worthless online tokens, is already sustained almost entirely by myth. Its value proposition is so inscrutable that when it melts down, almost any narrative could be crafted to plausibly explain it. It was the Fed! The government! The leftists who hate entrepreneurialism! It was the dark and devious forces of the shadowy deep state! Anything will do. It will enforce the priors of those who placed their faith in crypto as agood substitute for the American dreama crowd of Barstool Sports readers and tech libertarians and the types of people who used to buy silver bars from Alex Jones before they turned to Bitcoin. The crypto-evangelist population skews heavily towards asort of New Age libertarian, anti-government right wing-ism, and when they see their financial dreams evaporate, they will likely set their sights for revenge on the things they already despise. The broad effect will lead to alarge number of newly angry, bitter, disillusioned, hopeless people who are too steeped in the culture wars to turn towards working class solidarity, and instead turn towardshate.

So, if you want to amuse yourself during these end times, think about how much the timing of the crypto crash might end up affecting the basic existence of American democracy itself. If the crash strikes, say, six months before the 2024 presidential elections, it could be sufficient fuel to propel Donald Trump or one of his acolytes back into the White House and to further poison the national dialogue with rage and aspirit of vengeance. Afun thing to speculateon.

The specifics of these changes, of course, are unpredictable. But Ifeel safe saying that, when history looks back in hindsight, it will see crypto as agargantuan bubble thatas capitalism always doeswiped out the finances of tons of small people who could not afford to be wiped out, and left the rich mostly intact, all because it was able to convince regular people to believe that this time was different. The delusion that salvation from capitalism can be found in new, more clever capitalism is incredibly seductive, and always wrong. Lets hope that we snap out of it before its toolate.

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The Ticking Bomb of Crypto Fascism - In These Times

Broken glass is seen on the floor of the U.S. Capitol in Washington Jan. 7, 2021, after supporters of then-President Donald Trump occupied the building the previous day. (CNS/Reuters/Jonathan Ernst)

An organization that provided hefty sums of money to nonprofits that spread misinformation about the 2020 presidential election and organized the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the U.S. Capitol building has also funneled millions of dollars in anonymous donations to right-wing Catholic nonprofits and official Catholic groups.

The organization, known as Donors Trust, has been described as a "dark money ATM" for the political right and has provided funding to groups linked to white supremacist and anti-democratic elements, as the Daily Beast reported on Nov. 22.

"This is really dark, scary money connected with some of the most radicalized extremists on the right. It's really just appalling," said Stephen Schneck, a national Catholic political activist who recently retired as executive director of the Franciscan Action Network.

Among the recipients of Donors Trust funds were traditionalist Catholic parishes, dioceses headed by conservative bishops, pro-life organizations, religious liberty law firms, a free-market think tank, and academic groups at Catholic colleges that advocate libertarianism and constitutional originalism.

Included in those receiving funds were the Diocese of Spokane, Washington; the Thomas More Society; the Acton Institute; and the San Francisco Archdiocese's Benedict XVI Institute for Sacred Music and Divine Worship.

In total, nonprofits affiliated with the Catholic Church or that have worked closely with church officials on anti-abortion advocacy and other policy and legal matters received at least $10 million from Donors Trust, a donor-advised fund that in 2020 doled out more than $182 million in grants to organizations like the VDARE Foundation and New Century Foundation, which the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League consider to be white supremacist groups.

Stephen Schneck (CNS/Tyler Orsburn)

"We're not talking about the moderate right here. We're not talking about the usual conservative financial interests. We're talking about real creepy stuff here," Schneck told NCR.

Other observers raised concerns about Catholic organizations receiving money from groups like the Donors Trust, which over the last 20 years has provided hundreds of millions of dollars to nonprofits that lobby against labor union protections, climate change mitigation policies, economic regulations, voting rights and immigration reform.

"People with economic interests have figured out that they can use the cultural antipathies that have grown out of the abortion debate to combat climate change [mitigation measures], COVID regulations, to do all these things that serve a libertarian agenda, which is inimical to Catholic social teaching," said Steven Millies, director of the Bernardin Center at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.

But others say the fact that conservative Catholic-affiliated organizations received money from a group that supports far-right political movements and causes in some ways mirrors situations in which Catholic nonprofits have accepted funding from and worked with left-leaning groups and nongovernmental organizations to provide charitable and relief services.

"Part of living in a world where things are morally messy is that to do good, you have to cooperate with people and organizations that are doing some things that you disagree with," said Melissa Moschella, a philosophy professor at the Catholic University of America.

Meanwhile, one Catholic organization that received financial donations from Donors Trust in 2020 pushed back against suggestions that the money would politicize or unduly influence its operations.

"The donations in question are within a normal tithing range of some of our parishioners and would not stand out as unusual or influence our decision making," said Mitchell Palmquist, a spokesman for the Spokane Diocese.

The interior of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Lourdes in Spokane, Washington (Wikimedia Commons/Antony-22)

The Spokane diocese led by Bishop Thomas Daly, an outspoken conservative prelate received $10,000 for its annual Catholic appeal and $500 to support a local Catholic school. The Cathedral of Our Lady of Lourdes in Spokane was given $15,000 for general operations.

Palmquist told NCR that donations are routed to the diocese through "a variety of means," including checks from financial institutions on behalf of donors.

The term "dark money" is often used to refer to political spending by nonprofit organizations that are not legally required to disclose their donors.

As a donor-advised fund, Donors Trust essentially is a clearinghouse it receives funds from outside groups, and then uses those funds to make contributions to recognized charities. People who donate to donor-advised funds can recommend where their money goes, but the funds themselves have final say over how the money is allocated. The donors may get a larger tax write-off than they would giving to other charities or foundations.

Steven Millies (CNS/Courtesy of Steven P. Millies/Mark Campbell)

Individual contributors to Donors Trust are mostly anonymous, but tax documents indicate that charities and foundations bankrolled by major conservative benefactors like the Koch and Mercer families have given tens of millions of dollars to the organization in recent years.

Millies told NCR that the church's involvement in the nation's culture wars has made Catholics "very exploitable" for wealthy and powerful interests with political agendas.

"As the culture wars now have their own momentum and their own life, it's not hard to imagine that Catholics look like an interest group that can be deployed if someone's got enough money to do it," Millies said.

First obtained by CNBC, the Donor Trust's 990 tax return for 2020 details the network of right-wing groups that received hefty donations: Tea Party Patriots Foundation, Turning Point USA, American Enterprise Institute, the Federalist Society, the Second Amendment Foundation, the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation, among other nonprofits.

The Tea Party Patriots were one of the groups that helped organize the Jan. 6, 2021, rally preceding the attack on the U.S. Capitol. Turning Point USA helped transport busloads of Donald Trump supporters to the rally and participated in the "March to Save America" ahead of the event.

Supporters of President Donald Trump attend a rally in Washington Jan. 6, 2021, to contest the certification of the 2020 presidential election. (CNS/Reuters/Shannon Stapleton)

Donors Trust is the major donor-advised fund for the political right. On the left, organizations like the Tides Foundation dole out hundreds of millions of dollars every year to progressive groups in the United States and abroad. Left-of-center organizations that received $457 million in funding from the Tides Foundation in 2019 included nonprofits that advocate for abortion rights, LGBTQ equality, anti-racism initiatives, environmental protections and get-out-the-vote drives.

Catholic affiliated nonprofits that received money from the Tides Foundation in 2019 included Catholic Charities in the San Francisco Archdiocese; a homeless shelter in Venice, California; the Laudato Si Challenge Inc.; Catholic Partnership Schools in Camden, New Jersey; Mount St. Mary's University in Los Angeles; and the University of San Francisco.

"This cuts across both left and right. There are dark-money organizations on the left as well," said Moschella, who mentioned Arabella Advisers, a nonprofit that serves as a hub for a network of progressive dark-money groups. "This happens on both sides."

Melissa Moschella (NCR screenshot/Catholic University of America)

Moschella told NCR that she didn't see any ethical problems with Catholic organizations receiving money from nonprofits like Donors Trust if the money does not come "with strings attached." (Tax documents and other available public information do not indicate whether donations to charities are made with expectations for specific actions to be taken.)

"If accepting funding from this group would mean that they're only going to support you if you advocate for certain causes that are contrary to your mission or contrary to Catholic teaching, then obviously you would have to say, 'No, we can't take funding from you,' " Moschella said.

"But if it's just a matter that this group happens to support my position because I'm pro-life but they also support other things that I don't agree with, then fine, I can work with them because we share a common pro-life commitment even though I disagree with them on other things."

In 2020, Donors Trust directed $20 million to the 85 Fund, another dark money group formerly known as the Judicial Education Project that helps finance various conservative groups. The 85 Fund was founded by Leonard Leo, co-chairman of the Federalist Society who was critical in advising Trump to appoint conservative judges to the federal judiciary.

Founded in 1999 with the goal of "safeguarding the intent of libertarian and conservative donors," the Donors Trust also directed donations in 2020 to organizations that lobby for the decriminalization of sex work, as well as the legalization of recreational marijuana and physician-assisted suicide.

"It's clear that pure libertarianism cannot fit under a Catholic umbrella," said Schneck, who is also a former director of the Institute for Policy Research & Catholic Studies at the Catholic University of America.

"Everybody should realize that by taking this money, they're opening the door to the far right's efforts to further politicize our church," Schneck warned.

Millies argued that Catholic organizations and leaders should be wary of accepting money from organizations with stated partisan goals and hardline political ideologies that run counter to Catholic social teaching principles in some cases.

"Taking the money can seem like it's rather helpful in the sense that it supports Catholic organizations," Millies said. "But in the long run, it's actually quite destructive because the tendency of polarization is to drive people toward the extremes."

Despite those concerns, several nonprofits affiliated with or having close ties to the Catholic Church in the United States received substantial donations from Donors Trust in 2020. Among them:

The Denver-based Little Sisters of the Poor speak to the media outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., in 2016. The Becket Fund represented the sisters in their fight against the Affordable Care Act's contraceptive mandate. (CNS/Reuters/Joshua Roberts)

A view of Wyoming Catholic College's campus in Lander (CNS/Courtesy of Wyoming Catholic College)

NCR contacted each of the organizations named in this article for comment about the donations they received, but only the Spokane Diocese responded.

Moschella said the criticisms that Catholic groups compromise their integrity, or risk damaging their reputation or independence by accepting money from groups like Donors Trust are unfair.

"If they can prove you took money and the money had strings attached and those strings actually compromised your ability to fulfill your mission with integrity, well then that's a fair criticism," she said. "But if the money doesn't come with strings attached that involve compromises on matters of principle, then it's not problematic."

Millies, of the Bernardin Center, argued that taking money from an organization like Donors Trust misrepresents the church and "positions it badly" in the public square while making it more difficult to fulfill the Great Commission's mandate to "make disciples of all nations."

"In the public mind, we have reduced Catholicity in the U.S. to a set of political positions or a side in the culture war," Millies said. "Taking money from an organization devoted to libertarian ideas continues and deepens, worsens that trend. In the long run, it's not a strategy for building the church."

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Right-wing Catholic causes got millions from group that funded some Capitol rioters - National Catholic Reporter