I write for Where Peter Is on what's missing from Catholic catechesis on marriage

"When have you ever heard a homilist speak on what marital love is?" I ask that question and speak about the substance of marital love in "Chaste Love Is for Everyone," my reflection published today in Where Peter Is.

New book uses my writings without permission

 Late last year, John Lamont approached me to request permission to reprint writings I composed with Robert Fastiggi, who chairs the department of dogmatic theology and Christology at Sacred Heart Major Seminary. Lamont wished to use my and Fastiggi's article "Critics of Amoris Laetitia Ignore Ratzinger’s Rules for Faithful Theological Discourse," as well as a follow-up letter we wrote to a critic, to represent the "other side"—that is, the pro-papal side—in a book he was editing that would attack the Holy Father's teachings (the same teachings to which every Catholic is expected to give religious submission of intellect and will).

I responded to Lamont that I would check with Fastiggi and get back to him, but I did not commit myself. Fastiggi responded to both myself and Lamont, saying he would not object to the republication. In the meantime, I reflected upon the request and decided not to grant my permission. I then forgot about the matter and did not respond further. Had Lamont written me a second time, I would have told him no.

But Lamont did not write me a second time. Instead, he went ahead without my permission and reprinted my and Fastiggi's writings in his edited volume Defending the Faith Against Present Heresies. I wish to state here for the record that the use of my writings in that book without my permission is illegal and wrong. It does not qualify as fair use and is a violation of copyright law. 

My back pages

So happy to see that librarians and archivists are enjoying this Twitter thread about my rock-journalism past! Click the tweet to see the entire thread.

Thread:

With CDs disappearing, it's hard to explain to people what I did as a rock historian writing liner notes--the booklets that came with CDs & told the artist's history. So I was elated to discover that @internetarchive is now archiving CDs complete with liner notes. ...

— Dawn Eden Goldstein: Wear a Mask/Stop the Spread (@DawnofMercy) March 3, 2021

I write for Where Peter Is on Frank J. Hanna III's "Official Catholic" dark money

Where Peter Is today features my story "Catholic Foundation’s Form 990 Exemption Suggests Lack of Oversight." It is a follow-up to my post last week concerning EWTN donor and board member Frank J. Hanna III. I am grateful to Where Peter Is editor Mike Lewis for recognizing the importance of this story.

An open letter to EWTN President Doug Keck

I sent the following email yesterday to EWTN President Doug Keck (see this post by Deacon Greg Kendra for background on Gloria Purvis's firing):

Dear Mr. Keck, 

In June of this year, I wrote to you at Gloria Purvis's suggestion to express my concern that videos of my EWTN appearances had removed from the network's YouTube archives--apparently in retaliation for my online criticism of the anti-Francis bias of Raymond Arroyo, Dan Burke, and other EWTN personalities. You responded favorably, and most of those videos were subsequently restored to YouTube.

Today I have the sad task of asking you to remove those same videos. I am appalled that EWTN fired Gloria Purvis for no apparent reason other than that she was forthright in fostering the conversations about race that Pope Francis has urged us to have.

Gloria Purvis is on fire for Jesus Christ, his Church, and his Gospel of Life. She is exactly the sort of voice that EWTN should celebrate. But instead you are canceling her while continuing to elevate Raymond Arroyo, who has repeatedly made racially insensitive and antisemitic comments on his EWTN and Fox News shows.

EWTN, by deplatforming Gloria while continuing to showcase Raymond, has thereby taken a stand against anti-racism and thus for racism. I ask therefore that you remove my videos as well as my radio appearances from your archives, until and unless you rehire Gloria Purvis. 

Yours in Christ, 

Dawn Eden Goldstein

UPDATED: Frank J. Hanna's Strange Secret

Update, January 6, 2021: Please see my follow-up article in Where Peter Is for more on this story. 

EWTN's firing of radio host Gloria Purvis this week further exposed what many observers have already known about the international Catholic media network: partisan politics plays an outsize role in determining which voices are heard there and which ones are silenced. In the words of Christopher Lamb, "it is Fox News under a Catholic cover."

To better understand what has happened to EWTN and, by extension, to the mainstream of the pro-life Catholic nonprofit world—a world I was part of for many years as an employee of the Cardinal Newman Society and Americans United for Life, and as a frequent EWTN guest—I did a deep-dive into the finances of one of its major donors, Frank J. Hanna III. What I discovered should concern every Catholic and particularly those who, like myself, are appalled by how the Catholic pro-life movement—whose goal of ending abortion I fully support—has been hijacked by people who elevate Trump while deriding the Holy Father. 

A Fortune Made Through Subprime Credit Cards

Frank J. Hanna, a member of the Legion of Christ's lay arm Regnum Christi who is a close associate of Napa Institute founder Tim Busch (with whom he serves on several boards, including Napa's) and a longtime friend and donor to Newt Gingrich, is one of the richest men in Atlanta. His fortune in 2005 was worth more than $500 million; today it is worth perhaps twice as much. 

One can gain an idea of Hanna's philanthropic interests by looking at the boards on which he has served. In addition to EWTN and the Napa Institute, Hanna's current or recent board memberships include the Acton Institute, Catholic University of America, the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS), the Ethics and Public Policy Center, the Federalist Society, the Papal Foundation, the Pontifical North American College, and Sophia Institute Press (publisher of Taylor Marshall's anti-Francis conspiracy screed Infiltration). 

Hanna is not known for simply signing checks and letting his recipients call the shots. According to a 2007 profile in Philanthropy magazine, he has a strong reputation for hands-on involvement: 

Among the organizations he supports, Hanna has made it his constant practice to search for opportunities to leverage the group’s influence. “Frank is one of those board members who continually asks hard questions of us,” [Acton Institute President Father Robert] Sirico explains. “He looks beyond the enthusiasm for a project and wants to know hard facts about how influential an idea or program will be—not how many books we will publish, but how many people will read the information. He wants bang for the buck, and is highly strategic in his thinking.”

Hanna began his career as a corporate attorney before entering the financial world in the late 1980s as an executive at Nationwide Credit, which was founded by his father. He and his brother David in 1996 founded CompuCredit, a financial company that offered subprime credit cards to consumers who had poor credit ratings. Those who sign up for subprime credit cards are often low-income and are disproportionately African-American.

In June 2008, the U.S. government charged CompuCredit with deceptive marketing practices. PBS journalist Bill Moyers reported that the company teamed up with a payday lenders' lobbyist, the Community Financial Services Association, to "[co-opt] several prominent civil rights organizations to bolster their efforts to fend off stricter regulation"—see screenshot at right from a transcript of Moyers's report.

Ultimately CompuCredit agreed to provide $114 million in restitution to consumers, without admitting wrongdoing. It changed its name in 2012 to Atlanticus. Today Hanna is no longer part of its leadership, though he remains a major shareholder in the company. 

The Solidarity Association: Donating to the Legion of Christ and Beyond

Hanna began to exert his monetary influence in the Catholic world in the early 1990s through his involvement with the Legion of Christ and its lay movement Regnum Christi, which he continues to support through donations to such Legion-associated organizations as Divine Mercy University, the Pontifical Institute Notre Dame of Jerusalem Center, and the Lumen Institute. (He made the news in 1999 when he was a key figure in the Legion's hostile takeover of the Donnellan School, a private, independent Catholic school in Atlanta.)

The main philanthropic organ that Hanna uses to make his donations is the Solidarity Association. He founded it as an Association of the Christian Faithful by decree of Archbishop John Francis Donoghue in the early 2000s to fund the now-defunct Solidarity School. At its peak in the late 2000s, the Solidarity School gave an English-language immersion education to about ninety children from Spanish-speaking households whose parents "mostly [worked] in construction or fast food, as maids, or [as] day laborers." 

Today, the Solidarity Association's website* states that the nonprofit gives ongoing support to more than two dozen Catholic nonprofits, including not only EWTN and FOCUS but also the Catholic University of America's Busch School of Business (to which Hanna gave $250,000 in 2015).

The Solidarity Association is highly unusual among U.S. Catholic foundations that give to multiple recipients (as opposed to supporting a single hospital or school), in that it does not make its financial information public. Apart from the list of donation recipients that it provides on its website, its activities are completely opaque.

How can a Catholic nonprofit operate so darkly? Isn't it required by law to report its donations as well as other details such as its board members and assets? To understand how the Solidarity Association evades scrutiny of its finances, it is necessary to take a brief excursion into the peculiarities of U.S. tax law for religious nonprofits.

A Means to Avoid Accountability

Normally, a U.S. foundation is required to file an IRS Form 990, which provides the public with information about its financials, their governance, and the recipients of their donations. However, the Form 990 requirement is waived for certain religious nonprofits, which can include not only churches but also official nonprofits associated with them, such as hospitals and schools.

In the case of the Catholic Church, the IRS permits the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to determine which Catholic nonprofits are official and which are not. This permission comes through what is known as the "USCCB group ruling," as detailed in a FAQ on the USCCB website (the screenshot below is from page 3). 

 Upon determining that a nonprofit deserves official status, the USCCB grants the nonprofit a listing in the Official Catholic Directory. If the nonprofit meets certain other qualifications, it may then use its Official Catholic Directory listing to prove to the IRS that it is exempt from having to file a Form 990.  (This 2012 Catholic News Service article sheds light on the relationship between the USCCB and the privately owned OCD.)

Since Hanna founded the Solidarity Association under episcopal decree as a specifically religious association funding a religious school, he was able to gain for it an Official Catholic Directory listing. Armed with this listing, he sought and received an exemption from the IRS from having to file a Form 990. 

A document on the USCCB website gives details (on page 7) on how to file for such an exception—the relevant part of it is in the screenshot at left. It says "a school included in the USCCB group ruling that otherwise meets these requirements [for exemption from filing Form 990] will automatically be considered [by the IRS] 'affiliated with a church.'" 

And so, thanks to the exemption Hanna gained through listing his foundation in the Official Catholic Directory and meeting the additional requirements, Solidarity Association has never filed a Form 990 and so has never publicly disclosed its finances. Its listing on the nonprofit-information site Guidestar (free registration required to view) states, "This organization is not required to file an annual return with the IRS because it is a church." Guidestar further states that the Solidarity Association is listed with the IRS as a "Specialized Education Institutions/Schools for Visually or Hearing Impaired, Learning Disabled." This is apparently because the school's mission included providing special education.

But the Solidarity School closed in 2017, and today it does not appear that the Solidarity Association funds any school whose primary mission is special education. In fact, the Solidarity Association has drifted far from the mission under which it was listed in the Official Catholic Directory and granted its Form 990 exemption. It now funds a wide variety of nonprofits,* including many such as the Cardinal Newman Society, Sophia Institute Press, and EWTN that, although Catholic-run, have ideological biases that at times run counter to Church leadership and even (in the case of Sophia and EWTN at least) Pope Francis. So it is not clear on what basis the Solidarity Association has managed to retain its Official Catholic Directory listing. And since the USCCB historically has failed to police whether organizations listed in the directory have remained on mission, it's possible that the Solidarity Association no longer qualifies to be listed and thus no longer qualifies for its exemption from filing Form 990.

With that said, even if the Solidarity Association does still qualify for an Official Catholic Directory listing, just because an organization doesn't have to disclose its finances doesn't mean it can't do so. There are many official Catholic nonprofits that do not have to file a Form 990 but choose to do so in order to exhibit transparency. Given the Napa Institute's strident calls for the laity to lead the Church in promoting accountability and transparency, it is mystifying that Hanna, as a Napa board member, would take advantage of the same shields that Napa criticizes for enabling financial abuses.

An Unaccredited "University"

If Hanna were willing to enact the transparency and accountability that Napa promotes, he could shed some light on how he uses the Solidarity Association to fund the online-only Pontifex University, of which he is vice chancellor.

Pontifex University is unaccredited, a not-insignificant fact that its website buries under paragraphs boasting that it is approved by Atlanta's (now-former) archbishop and recognized by a Georgia state commission (which has nothing to do with accreditation). It charges students $9,175 for a “Master of Sacred Arts” degree and, “depending on exemptions for prior credits or qualifications,” up to $16,800 for a “Th.D.” The university's website also notes that its master’s program “may be audited for 30 monthly payments of $100.”

In 2019, Pontifex University used its “doctoral” program to give Christopher West, president of the Theology of the Body Institute, a seemingly appropriate qualification to oversee Pontifex’s “Masters of Sacred Arts with Specialization in the Theology of the Body.” Its website now lists the popular speaker and author as “Dr. Christopher West, Fellow and Professor of Theological Anthropology who earned his doctorate in theology (Th.D.) at Pontifex University.”

If visitors to Pontifex’s website are inspired to support the institution, the site accepts donations through the Solidarity Association, which it says it applies to “scholarships for prospective and existing students.” The donation page emphasizes that “Solidarity Association is recognized as having charitable status … by virtue of its inclusion in the Official Catholic Directory.”

Hanna is thus using the Solidarity Association's listing in the Official Catholic Directory to legitimize what is effectively a diploma mill. Pontifex University manufactures its own unaccredited "ThD"'s such as "Dr." Christopher West and then employs them to lead courses that result in degrees that are not worth the paper they are printed on. I say this not to discount the genuine expertise that West and other Pontifex professors (many of whom have legitimate doctorates) possess, but rather to point out that Pontifex, on an institutional level, fails to meet the standards of academic integrity that a Catholic university should meet.

The Secret Purchase of a Top Catholic Property

Given how prominently the Solidarity Association's Official Catholic Directory listing features in Pontifex University's marketing, it is clear that the listing—and the freedom from transparency that it provides—is very important to Hanna. This brings me to the most curious part of his story—a strange secret that has remained hidden from the public eye until now.

Normally, Hanna openly publicizes his connections in the Catholic world. His business website* lists thirty-six organizations that he supports. He started a YouTube channel to share a clip of him meeting Pope Benedict XVI. In 2014, however, Hanna, through lawyers, used a pair of shell companies, Honeycomb Ventures LLC and Treasured Works LLC, to acquire the most important data set in the American Catholic world—and he shielded the purchase from the public eye. Even more surprisingly, he has not to this day revealed his ownership of the data set.

He bought the Official Catholic Directory.

Given that Hanna has never publicized his ownership of the directory, discovering the truth requires a bit of digging. But the trail of ownership is clear:

• The president of Official Catholic Directory’s parent company, NRP Direct (formerly National Register Publishing Direct), Brett Grayson, works as Hanna's business lawyer.

• Until recently, a GoDaddy WhoIs search (see screenshot at left) showed that Hanna's company, Hanna Capital, owned NRP Direct's website. Today that same search yields only a private registration (meaning that the owner chooses not to be known); however, there remains online evidence that Grayson owns NRP-associated websites in association with another Hanna company, HBR Capital.

• Addresses for Treasured Works, which owns NRP Direct, and for Honeycomb Ventures, which purchased the Official Catholic Directory's trademark, trace back to Hanna Capital’s office.

What does owning the Official Catholic Directory do for Hanna? At the very least, it gives him proprietary rights to the most lucrative data set in the U.S. Catholic world—including names, locations, and contact information for every bishop, pastor, priest, parish, school, and religious-education director in the country. The directory’s website boasts that its database “is an essential resource for marketers, fundraising campaigns, and new product introductions to this targeted audience.” 

Why the Secrecy?

Why, then, would Hanna keep his ownership of the Official Catholic Directory a secret, given how such ownership only adds to his already formidable influence in the world of Catholic nonprofits?

I don't know.

But I find it disturbing that Hanna owns the very company by which, through his foundation's listing in the directory, he is able to avoid the transparency that he—as part of the Napa Institute—claims the Church should practice.

For more on this story, please see my follow-up article in Where Peter Is.
_____________________________________

Updated January 2, 2021, 1:50 a.m. EST, to include screenshots from USCCB documents and to make the language concerning the Form 990 filing exemption more exact.

Updated January 2, 2021, 4:55 p.m. EST, to include Hanna's membership in Regnum Christi.

Updated January 2, 2021, 11:47 p.m. EST, to include additional details about CompuCredit.

Updated January 3, 2021, 1:08 p.m. EST, to include a link to the 2012 article on the USCCB's relationship to the Official Catholic Directory.

*Since this article was published, Frank J. Hanna III has revamped his websites to remove the names of organizations he supports. The links to those pages in this article have been updated with links to archived versions to show how the sites appeared at the time the article appeared.

Watch: I speak about "Living Dedicated Celibacy in the World"

My pastor recently asked me to address the young adults of the parish about my vocation as one who makes an annual dedication of my celibacy to God, so I made this short video. The book I mention in it is the Catholic edition of my first book, The Thrill of the Chaste.

A legal matter

Up on the roof, October 26, 2020

This week I have reason to celebrate, as last Thursday I successfully completed the last final of my first semester of canon-law studies at the Catholic University of America. If all goes well, I should have a JCL degree, licensing me to practice canon law anywhere in the world, by the end of the summer semester of 2022.

I waited until the end of the semester to mention my canon-law studies publicly in case the subject proved too challenging or otherwise unsuited to me. Thankfully I enjoyed my classes and performed well, all of which motivates me to press on. As with my doctoral studies, I am the oldest student in my class and the only laywoman.

The idea to study canon law came to me in early June. It was during the lockdown. To make ends meet since my teaching position at Holy Apostles was eliminated last year, I had been doing theological editing. Having a job that requires constant communion with a computer screen is tolerable when one's daily life includes some human contact; without such contact, it can be maddening. It occurred to me that if I became a canon lawyer, I would have the benefit of interacting with other people every day. 

Another motivation for studying law was the research I was doing at the time for my four-part critique of In Sinu Jesu for Where Peter Is. After the first installment of the critique was published, I heard from a couple of people who said they had witnessed or experienced abusive behavior at a monastery mentioned in the article.  I thought about how, if I were a licensed canon lawyer, I could assist those who were seeking to report such behavior or who were harmed by it. 

Yet another motivation was that I have long wanted to be involved in postulating causes for sainthood. My doctorate in sacred theology combined with my JCL would effectively make me a one-stop shop for people seeking someone to help with such a cause.

Over the course of the past semester, I have reflected further on what I would like to do as a canon lawyer and have come around to the realization that working on annulment cases could bring a sense of vocational satisfaction. I'm glad to have that thought, since it is highly likely that, in actual fact, more than ninety percent of my work as a canonist will be assisting one or more diocesan marriage tribunals. What appeals to me about it is that, as a woman and as a layperson, I could be present for people seeking annulments—listening to them and compassionating them—in a manner that a priest could not (granting that a priest may be compassionate in his own way). And the overwhelming majority of canonists are priests.

In other words, assisting with annulments could prove to be a way for me to exercise the spiritual motherhood that I talked about when addressing the Edith Stein Guild last year.

 
Please pray for me as I continue my studies. I pray for you and for everyone who reads my writings. God bless you!