Bishop defends CCHD-funded group
January 28, 2015
A New Mexico bishop has come to the defense of Comunidades en Acción y de Fé (CAFé), a faith-based organization that, at his recommendation, receives funding from the US bishops’ Catholic Campaign for Human Development.
On January 18, a lay group, the Catholic Coalition of New Mexico, placed an advertisement in the Las Cruces Sun-News criticizing the funding of CAFé and noting the advocacy of abortion by members of its leadership team.
“The ad intentionally obfuscates the facts: it names the treasurer for CAFé, noting she organizes pro-abortion rallies, insinuating she uses Church funds for these pro-abortion purposes,” wrote Bishop Oscar Cantú of Las Cruces. “CAFé as an institution does not support abortion.”
“I do not want to assume their expressed concern for the unborn was used simply to exact retribution against CAFé for its work on behalf of the working poor,” he added. “Catholics, make no mistake, I am your duly appointed bishop, and I will not be bullied into compromising the legitimate work of social justice of the Church or allowing someone to lead the flock astray.”
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Further information:
- Bishop Oscar Cantu: Bishop Cantu addresses ad criticizing work with CAFé (Las Cruces Sun-News)
- Comunidades en Acción y de Fé
- Close the Café (January 18 post)
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Posted by: james-w-anderson8230 -
Jan. 28, 2015 11:09 PM ET USA
Another example of the Bishops failure to exert proper control over the use of church funds. The rector of the cathedral states "people in the leadership of CAFe are also running pro-abortion events". If this is true how can the Bishop defend giving money to CAFe? If Planned Parenthood set up and ran an organization to help the poor, how could we possibly trust them to not use church funds directly or indirectly to support abortion and contraception?
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Posted by: HKS -
Jan. 28, 2015 9:21 PM ET USA
We are part of the the Diocese of Las Cruces, NM and Bishop Cantu is our bishop. We were very pleased with his letter to the editor here which clarified matters very well.One important thing the bishop mentioned was that this group and its leader did not have the courtesy to contact the bishop in regard to the matter before publishing the ad. Had they gone to him first, they might not have felt the need to spend the money on the ad.
