Catholicism, the DFL, and Omar Fateh: The Roots of Disillusionment

Once corruption takes hold, abandonment soon follows

In June 2018, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis reached a $210 million settlement agreement with 450 victims of clergy sexual abuse. At the time, it was estimated to be the second-largest payout by the Catholic church in the U. S. In 2024, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles took the top spot with a $900 million settlement.

The Way of the Catholic Church

These staggering settlements seem justified to many—perhaps even too small—given the likelihood that other victims remain too ashamed to come forward. Nearly everyone knows someone whose life was upended by clergy abuse. The Catholic grade school I attended in Kansas City had its own scandal: altar boys were molested by priests. Friends and family sent me articles about the incidents, knowing I had once assisted priests during early morning Mass, surrounded by the scent of mystical incense. Fortunately, I escaped their grasp. My uncles weren’t as lucky.

All the families I knew contributed to the church weekly. If you missed a week or two, a friendly reminder call would come from a kindly woman in her 70s, her swirling gray hair and grandmotherly voice making the request feel gentle rather than demanding. Families like ours joined the church for education, community, and moral guidance. But the scandals shattered that trust, leading to mass disillusionment. People left in droves. Those weekly donations now felt tainted, as if we had been complicit in what was happening. We weren’t supporting the church—we were funding the cover-up. Instead of removing predatory clergymen, church leadership often shuffled them to another diocese. Like so many families, we felt abandoned, and with each new story of abuse, our belief that the church was irredeemable only grew stronger.

Of course, not everyone left. Many couldn’t bring themselves to abandon their faith or their community. They still believed in God and vowed to stay and fight for reform. But those who did leave found themselves unmoored. The anchor of morality and belonging severed, they searched for an alternative. If their primary source of information had been the church or the local paper that often highlighted its good works, they now sought different voices. Left to their own devices, many turned to social media and the internet, where they discovered smaller churches—ones without the stain of scandal.

Such is the human need for community that they might have found themselves in a strip-mall church, sitting on uncomfortable metal folding chairs, welcomed with open arms. These new congregations offered social outings, bake sales, and volunteer opportunities that aligned with their values. Over time, returning to the big church—the one they had supported for 20, 30, even 50 years—became less and less of a possibility.

Politics as Church

Many people now approach politics with religious fervor. It offers community, shared values, and a common purpose. There are volunteer activities, motivational speakers, and social gatherings. And, like the Catholic Church, money keeps the entire apparatus in motion.

Our previous newsletter, The DFL Crime Problem, has received over 30,000 social media views. It would be easy to take credit for the attention, but we believe it has more to do with growing disillusionment with the DFL than with our writing. Many former supporters have begun to suspect corruption. Now, every story exposing improprieties or failures demands their attention. Confirmation bias kicks in: See? They can’t be trusted. The leaders say one thing while quietly protecting the corrupt.

Before we had even finished writing our previous newsletter, another story of possible DFL corruption surfaced in the Minnesota Reformer. Zaynab Mohamed, the DFL State Senator for our district in South Minneapolis, was found to be on the board of the nonprofit WE WIN Institute, which was set to receive $15 million under bill SF1140, authored by Omar Fateh. For context, the organization’s previous annual expenses totaled just $756,272.

According to the bill:

• WE WIN Institute provides “academic, social, and culturally specific programming and food services for Black students in the city of Minneapolis.”
• The intended use of the $15 million appropriation was to renovate its facilities and purchase additional property in Minneapolis “for a meeting and gathering space to work with and support community-based organization partnerships.”

We’d like to interview Omar Fateh and ask why he decided to direct such a large sum to this particular nonprofit. The state legislature regularly allows members to direct funds to specific nonprofits through a process called “legislatively named grants,” and Fateh is not alone in this practice. However, his case stands out—particularly as he is now running for Mayor of Minneapolis.

The political players among his donors include:

• Jamal Osman (City Council, Ward 6)
• Aisha Chughtai (City Council, Ward 10)
• Soren Stevenson (Ward 8 City Council candidate)
• Doron Clark (DFL Sen District 60)
• Samakab Hussein (DFL Rep District 65A)
• Chelsea McFarren (Mpls for the Many)

What is most unsettling about this situation is that the connection between Mohamed and Fateh was uncovered not by the DFL, but by a Republican group called Data Republican, which we had never heard of before. If the DFL wants to keep voters like us, they need to be the ones stepping forward to put the brakes on these type of deals.

Team Mohamed and the nonprofit now claim it was a mistake—that she was not actually on the board. Meanwhile, Fateh has reportedly pulled back the bill. But were it not for the public scrutiny and poor optics, we assume this deal would have gone through without a single news story. Notably, this $15 million would have been in addition to the $3.5 million Fateh already appropriated for WE WIN Institute in 2024.

The Uncomfortable Folding Chair

The DFL must clean up its own house if it cares about its reputation. Leadership cannot continue protecting its own for the sake of the party. That tactic hasn’t worked for the Catholic Church, and cracks are beginning to show in voter allegiance to the DFL. The party’s arrogance is off-putting.

Of course, candidates are still lining up for the Minneapolis-DFL caucuses on April 8th. They’ve been convinced that securing the party’s endorsement is essential. The DFL provides donations, logistical support, name recognition, and legitimacy to any candidate who earns its imprimatur. We understand the motivation.

However, we now consider ourselves unmoored. We are not Republicans—despite the backlash we receive whenever we critique the DFL and city officials. We want a home, a community, a common purpose. But thanks to DFL leadership’s failure to root out fraud, waste, and abuse, we find ourselves searching social media and the internet for an alternative.

For now, we’re withholding our DFL party donations. Instead, we sit in those uncomfortable folding chairs in a run-down strip mall, hoping to find the community and common purpose we once had. And the room is filling up.

Reprinted with permission of Better Minneapolis