For many students, it is as much of a weekly ritual as sneaking beer into the dorms. The collection basket gets passed to us on Sundays at Gesu and we throw a few dollars in and forget about it, feeling good that we’ve done our part and knowing our mothers would be proud of us. Well, that was my approach until late last month when Gesu gave out a list detailing the 54 charities it gives our money to.

I was surprised to find out where my money is going and I guarantee you too will be surprised when you hear some of the things these groups advocate.

Milwaukee Innercity Congregations Allied for Hope sounds wonderful, but in reality, it is one of the more questionable groups on the list. According to its Web site, MICAH claims that its mission is to “be engaged in creating neighborhoods and communities where justice reigns; where lives are honored and people can live free of violence and fear and in the peace that God offers to us all.”

Well, that sounds peachy if you ask me. But digging a little deeper, I found that the group is fighting for drug offenders to not be given prison time. “We need to demonstrate that it really hurts families and wastes people’s lives to send them off to jail when what they really need is a chance to get better by getting treatment for their drug problems,” the Web site states. I was shocked. Why was any Catholic Church donating money to a group with such abhorrent ideas? When did allowing drug offenders to walk the streets begin to help establish communities where “justice reigns?”

It gets worse. MICAH also openly lobbies against what it calls the “draconian immigration law of 1996” that President Clinton signed into law. Whether or not you agree with this law, should the Catholic Church be donating money to a group with such blatant political biases?

But MICAH is just one 54 charities Gesu gives funds to. There are others, such as the Benedict Center that wants to “challenge misperceptions about why women prostitute” and openly advocates for “restorative justice” – as do many others, including Interfaith Conference of Milwaukee and DISMAS Ministries.

Another interesting group is the Legal Aid Society of Milwaukee which provides legal assistance for people “who are at risk of infection [with AIDS] due to behaviors…”

It’s not all bad. One group that seems praiseworthy is the Pregnancy Help Center of Milwaukee, whose Web site clearly illustrates alternatives to abortion for future mothers.

These are just a few of the groups on the list and what they advocate. I sincerely hope that some of these groups were not added to the list of organizations Gesu gives to as an endorsement of their mission, but rather because of laziness on the part of the Endowment Advisory Committee to look into their real missions.

I am not saying to stop donating money to the Church. I am merely saying that it does not go far enough to simply drop money into the basket and forget about it. We have to pay attention to where that money is given.

I, for one, will not be giving my money to Gesu’s endowment fund any longer; I will give my money straight to the Catholic organizations whose principles are clearly not at odds with Catholic teachings or, worse, dogma.

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