According to former board chair Bert Wilson, the food bank’s legal and financial agreements prohibit the use of funds for anything outside its mission of feeding the hungry.
“We have stressed the indisputable fact that our agreements with grant-giving organizations and other partners prohibit any expenditures that are non-secular or do not directly align with our sole mission of feeding the hungry,” Wilson said in a statement on Thursday, calling the decision “shocking and short-sighted.”
The organization cited its contract with Feeding America, which strictly limits how funds can be spent.
Wilson says failing to uphold such guidelines could shutter Second Harvest’s operations, leaving more than 400,000 south Louisiana residents at risk of food insecurity.
Predictably, the Archdiocese has released a statement denying this context, but nobody with a clerical collar and answerable to Rome has any credibility with me. Second Harvest responded to the message thusly:
The Archdiocese video statement, released earlier today and its message to donors of late last week, are remarkable for both they convey says and what they don’t.
Regarding the so-called tolling agreement, Archdiocese representatives were fully aware that Second Harvest was reviewing the proposed agreement and that it was only awaiting full executive committee approval. In direct contradiction to the Archbishop’s unfortunate comment is the fact that an existing agreement covering all parties was already in place until May 1, 2025. Clearly, there was no need for a headlong rush to execute a new agreement. That the Archdiocese jumped the gun by terminating three longtime board members and the non-profit’s CEO speaks volumes regarding their motivations.
More tellingly is the church’s cynical pronouncement of late last week that no Second Harvest donations have “been used for the bankruptcy”. That statement is only true because of the resolve of the now terminated CEO and three board members who were steadfast in their opposition to paying for abuse claims that were none of Second Harvest’s doing.
What’s missing of course, from the Archdiocese statements is any commitment to not ever use Second Harvest funds to help settle bankruptcy claims. Concerned donors and others would be well advised to contact the Archdiocese, their local church Deacons, priests and lay leaders to confirm the church’s real intentions in this regard. Getting such an assurance would go a long way toward resolving this unfortunate dispute and healing the many wounds the Archdiocese actions have caused.