Various reports established that the Open Society Foundations helped fund pro-abortion rights groups to repeal Ireland's pro-life constitutional amendment, seeing this effort as a model for change in other traditionally Catholic countries, such as Poland. The foundations gave at least $1.5 million to Planned Parenthood's damage control efforts to counter the Center for Medical Progress videos appearing to show the abortion provider and other pro-abortion leaders involved in the illegal for-profit sale of fetal tissue and unborn baby parts. As part of a funding collaborative at the Proteus Fund, the foundations helped gay marriage become legally recognized in the U.S.
The foundations funded groups that sought to use Pope Francis' visit to the U.S. to influence the 2016 elections and to cultivate influence within the Catholic Church. These include Faith in Public Life, which foundation documents describe as a partner organization with Catholics in Alliance.
Catholics in Alliance itself received at least $450,000 in funding from the Open Society Foundations, then known as the Open Society Institute, from 2006 to 2010. An internal foundations document from 2009 cited the group's key role in influencing Barack Obama's controversial 2009 Notre Dame speech, and praised its campaigns that "broadened the agenda" of Catholic voters to see abortion as just one of several election issues.
Catholics United effectively merged with Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good in 2015.
The two groups were founded in the wake of then-Sen. John Kerry's defeat in the 2004 presidential election campaigns. This loss was in part attributed to the failure of Democrats to sway religious voters. The two groups engaged in various forms of religious commentary, activist organizing, issue advocacy, and political campaigning.
Ahead of the 2012 election, Catholics United told pastors of Florida Catholic churches they had a network of volunteers monitoring election-related speech in churches for reputed illegal political activity. Local Catholic leaders said appeared to be "an attempt to silence pastors on issues that are of concern to the Church this election season."
The same group criticized the Knights of Columbus for its work to support civil marriage as a union of only a man and a woman.
Its state affiliate Keystone Catholics criticized Philadelphia's Archbishop Charles J. Chaput on matters like his interpretation of Pope Francis' "Amoris Laetitia," his critical approach to LGBT political causes, and his refusal to allow the 2015 World Meeting of Families to be a platform for groups to lobby against Church teachings.
Catholics United received funding from the Gill Foundation, founded by savvy LGBT strategist and millionaire Tim Gill. The group was a partner on the website of the Arcus Foundation, which has funded dissenting Catholic groups and other religious organizations to advocate on LGBT issues, among others.
Ahead of the 2016 elections, the site Wikileaks posted 2012 emails apparently involving Hillary Clinton campaign chief John Podesta, at a time of significant Catholic controversy over mandatory health plan coverage of contraception. His email responded to Sandy Newman's suggestion of a "Catholic Spring" revolution within the Church which, in Newman's vivid words, "Catholics themselves demand the end of a middle ages dictatorship and the beginning of a little democracy and respect for gender equality in the Catholic church."
Podesta, a former chief of staff for President Bill Clinton, replied: "We created Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good to organize for a moment like this. But I think it lacks the leadership to do so now. Likewise Catholics United. Like most Spring movements, I think this one will have to be bottom up."
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He suggested consultations with former Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend.
According to Open Society Foundations internal documents from 2009, the departure of Catholics in Alliance co-founder Alexia Kelley to join the Obama White House left the group "without strong leadership." Kelley is now president and CEO of the influential philanthropy consortium Foundations and Donors Interested in Catholic Activities.
Catholics in Alliance did draw opposition from Catholics for Choice, a pro-abortion rights group not acknowledged by the U.S. bishops as Catholic. In 2015, when surreptitiously filmed videos showed Planned Parenthood's apparent involvement in the illegal sale of aborted baby parts, Catholics in Alliance's then-executive director Christopher Hale voiced strong criticism of the abortion provider.
In various interviews with Hale in late 2016, Hale said his organization had changed emphasis in recent years, speaking out more against abortion than it had in the past. He said that the Podesta email did not reflect the daily work of the organization and rejecting claims his group was concerned with "the internal politics of the Catholic Church."
Hale sought to distinguish the organization's work from its funders, saying "we work with people who disagree with a lot of the work we do."
CNA contacted the Open Society Foundations and Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good for comment but did not receive a response by deadline.