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By ReGAIN staff and contributors
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Calling all Catholics! FRAUD ALERT! “Catholics Come Home”!
Please, do come home,
but don’t get mugged by the Legion of Christ on the way to the Church or your home!
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One of our researchers opened up the email today and there was a newsletter from “Catholics Come Home”. Here is a link to the “Catholics Come Home” email blast letter; it can be found advertising in the bulletins of the wealthy parishes across the USA: Our May News Brief & How You Can Get Involved! Right next to an unctuous appeal to “God’s Grace and YOU” for money and the “please support us” button, there is this boast: “We are excited to announce that Catholics Come Home has won another Telly Award, which honors the very best film and video productions as well as TV commercials.” It goes on to merrily state that out of 13,000 entries, “Catholics Come Home” was chosen for the honor.
But before you donate to these evangelizing (and sentimental) infomercials, there are double fraud alerts that you should know: 1) “Catholics Come Home” is a of Legion of Christ front, founded in Regnum Christi-country, Roswell, Georgia, by a Mexican woman named Yolanda, and 2) the Telly Awards are bogus, they are awards-for-cash, not merit. But there is a pretty statue that your “winning company” can get (if you’re willing to pay for it); it looks very much like the Emmy Oscar. It should be similar because the same company that makes the Oscars, also makes the Telly Award statuettes. The Telly Award works like a vanity press; it is a money making scam and publicity stunt that requires up to $400 to enter, and if you enter you win — gold, silver or bronze — and then can get a “Telly statuette” for an additional $250 and a certificate (that you will need to frame yourself) for $45. Their site claims to get @ 20,000 applications and also states that the funding for the statuettes comes from donations. If this is so, then the Telly Awards is raking in $10,000,000 (20k x $500 = $10,000,000). Not bad. Type in “Telly Awards, scam” there are plenty of Caveat emptor warnings about this “image-laundering” scheme that has become a common-place phenomenon as the Internet marketing has expanded. There are also “religious wars” where, as in this site, the ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses are blasting the “Watchtower” magazine of the JWs for purchasing a Telly Award. http://jwsurvey.org/general-information/watchtower-stoops-to-new-low-purchases-telly-awards-statuettes-and-publishes-phony-quote-on-jw-org/comment-page-1
Although the Catholics Come Home organization does not do direct harm — any more than Matthew Kelly or Christopher West — all tend to have less-than-right intention; they are trying to persuade people to trust the package, the advertisement/storefront. And the “package” gets paid well; Matthew Kelly makes between $20,000 and $50,000 per speaking engagement, and Christopher West has received a princely percentage of the Ascension Press (backed by Legionary money) which has advertised widely in Catholic parishes, publications and media. They are — all of them — in the pocket of a financial power using religion and good will as a respectable cover for a discredited entity; all are funded either by affiliates of the Legionaries of Christ/Regnum Christi or funded directly by the LC/RC directly. “Catholics Come Home” is fraudulent on several levels — the most obvious is the “come home” appeal is like a fox inviting the chickens into the den. It is nothing but a way to get information on a new market of needy people and to channel these people and their resources to other covert LC/RC fronts within the parishes, which are usually wealthy.
And the deceit goes even deeper into a network of fraud: most are interconnected with the Ave Maria Mutual Funds, which had the financial backing and investment of Tom Monaghan, which is common knowledge, but what is less known is that Tom Monaghan (founder of Legatus as well as Ave Maria University) was a part of the original Integer business consortium that was founded by the disgraced, late founder of the Legion, Maciel himself, along with several Monterrey,Mexico and American businessmen — including Luis Garza (Previous Legion of Christ Superior General) ‘s family. It is a network of phony philanthropy. The Telly Awards serve the same function as the Acton Institute and the Cardinal Newman Society do for one another. Both Acton Institute (founded by Alejandro Garza La Guera) and Cardinal Newman Institute are also LC/RC fronts/affiliates; they give mutual image-laundering and probably money laundering as well. The Cardinal Newman Society and Acton Institute offer recognition to the top colleges and top 50 Catholic high schools. The REAL purpose of both is to give credibility to shady activities and to spotlight the Legionary/Regnum Christi schools. There may be 40 other non-LC schools on the list and 10 that are LC/RC, but the whole exists for the recognition of the ten. The fraud-line gets even longer in the school department. The Regina Caeli Academies (hybrid home-schools) are Regnum Christi educational foundations; the director is a Regnum Christ woman. Moreover, Regina Caeli Academies toot their horns as being accredited and approved by NISAC. http://www.homeschoolaccreditation.com/ NISAC is nothing but a dude and a shack in California. NISAC is to the Regnum Christi Schools what the Telly Awards are to the Catholics Come Home organization; NISAC is not a legitimate and respected accreditation organization. It is a paid-for company that is meant to look like NAPCIS (National Association of Private Catholic Independent Schools), which is legitimate. This is what the LC/RC schools do — they create a fraudulent entity for “authority” and most people do not bother to find out if that is a legitimate organization or not — especially when ALL of the LC/RC creations copy-cat and look very much like other organizations that really are legitimate.
Universally, however, you can be sure that the little “donate buttons” are on ALL the LC/RC websites, including “Catholics Come Home”. The existence of “Catholics Come Home” is to go after the un-churched market that knows nothing about Maciel. While we’re at it, if we are making a list of fronts, we might do another article in the future on the fraudulent missionaries, FOCUS, which belongs there too; FOCUS originated in Regnum Christi and continues to be administered and backed by Regnum Christi/Legionary members and money. Using unpaid student labor, FOCUS charges upwards of $50,000 to come to one location, and the FOCUS 990 tax information reports millions of dollars in assets. Thirty million is not bad for a grass-roots effort. Those who are supporting and promoting organizations like FOCUS, Cardinal Newman Society, Acton Institute, and Catholics Come Home usually do not know what they are doing or to whom or what this organization is connected. However, thieves tend to keep their own company, even if they try to look respectable, even likeable — rather like the “homeless” guy with a cardboard sign at the side of the road.