European funding for Catholic aid agencies based in the UK could be withdrawn if the British people vote to leave the EU in late June, according to an English bishop.
Auxiliary Bishop William Kenney of Birmingham said groups such as Cafod, the overseas aid agency of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, and Sciaf, the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund, would lose grants following a victor for Leave in the referendum on June 23.
“Caritas Europa, to the best of my knowledge, always negotiates for funding from the EU, and the UK. Should it decide to leave, it will be outside of that, and it won’t get any of that [money] any longer,” he told the US Catholic News Service in a telephone interview.
“In that sense it would no doubt affect Cafod and others, but to what extent I don’t know,” said Bishop Kenney, spokesman for European affairs of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales and a former president of Caritas Europa.
Representatives of Cafod and Sciaf said that they were taking neutral positions on the referendum. Bishop Kenney said that he would prefer Britain to remain in a reformed European Union.
“The EU is very much in need of reform, but we have got to reform every organisation from the inside; you will never reform it from outside,” said Bishop Kenney, who also serves as the English bishops’ representative on Comece, the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community.
Bishop Kenney’s comments came after Caritas Europa called on European governments to “strengthen the role” of the Council of Europe, the organisation responsible for harmonising human rights laws across the continent.
Caritas wants the council, which has power to enforce the European Convention on Human Rights through the European Court of Human Rights, to ensure the “social rights” of citizens, including “the right to be protected against poverty and social exclusion”.
Supporters of the campaign to remain in the European Union, who include the Prime Minister and the leaders of other major political parties, argue that a victory for Leave would have severe economic consequences for Britain.
Recent opinion polls have indicated that the referendum may be a close one. Some polls indicate that a narrow majority of Britons will vote to leave the EU after more than four decades of membership. The English and Welsh bishops have been careful not to direct the electorate how to vote, but speaking individually, the bishops have revealed a range of opinions. Cardinal Vincent Nichols of Westminster, president of the bishops’ conference, told journalists that Britain would face “complex problems” if it left the EU and that the path of division “almost inevitably leads to further division”.
His predecessor, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, went further by making the case for Remain in an article for the Spectator magazine. But Archbishop Peter
Smith of Southwark has said the warnings about dire consequences for Britain’s economy following Brexit are “ludicrous”.
Cardinal: families have noble mission
Cardinal Raymond Burke has told a meeting of Catholic families at the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham that their strength comes from the Blessed Sacrament.
Speaking on the feast of Corpus Christi, at a Mass attended by families on the National Association of Catholic Families (NACF) pilgrimage, the cardinal said: “Your noble mission of giving moral, spiritual and social support to Catholic families in a totally secularised culture finds its pattern and its strength in the Most Blessed Sacrament. Placing your hearts in the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, you will be purified of sin and will be strengthened with the very body of Christ for your own daily conversion of life and for your service of the transformation of the world.
“The conversion of life and transformation of the world, in fact, begin in the family.”
NACF describes itself as “an association of Catholic families who give one another mutual moral, spiritual and social support in today’s culture which is so threatening to our Catholic family values”. It organises family days for Catholic families “to support and encourage one another in the faith”.
NACF is dedicated to helping families support each other: it is against their rules to criticise other Catholics on the family days or to use the event for any external purpose. NACF also organises the pilgrimage to Walsingham each year.
Cardinal: don’t compromise
Cardinal Vincent Nichols has held up St Thomas Becket as an “inspiration” for priests because of his unwillingness to compromise. In his homily for the Jubilee of Priests at Santa Maria Regina in Rome, the cardinal said St Thomas “knew when compromise was no longer an acceptable path” in his dispute with Henry II. The cardinal added: “For us the risks are less dramatic. They creep up on us as we slowly compromise and lose our distinctive identity.”
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