CNS STORY: Canadian bishops find no wrongdoing by aid agency's Mexican partners

WEISGERBER-DANDP (CORRECTED) Jun-24-2009 (550 words) xxxi

Canadian bishops find no wrongdoing by aid agency's Mexican partners

By Michael Swan
Catholic News Service

TORONTO (CNS) -- The Mexican partners of the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace were imprudent when they signed a statement on human rights sent to the United Nations, but Canada's bishops have found no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the aid agency or its partners, said the president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Archbishop V. James Weisgerber of Winnipeg, Manitoba, said the bishops' report based on an investigation into allegations first made on a pro-life Web site will include recommendations for tighter protocols on the development agency's future partnerships. Those recommendations will be withheld until all bishops have read the report, he said.

LifeSiteNews.com reported March 11 that Development and Peace funded Mexican groups that lobbied in favor of legal abortion. The charges prompted several Canadian bishops to say they would withhold donations collected during the agency's Share Lent campaign and the agency to temporarily suspend funding for the groups in question.

Archbishop Weisgerber reversed an earlier decision not to speak about the investigation's findings until all the bishops had read the report, which was written by two bishops. The bishops and senior Development and Peace staff traveled to Mexico April 15-18 to speak to the agency's partners and to Mexican bishops.

"This thing is heating up," he said. "Before we release all the recommendations, I'm just giving an overall impression, given the fact that the group found no difficulty."

The development agency is prepared to review its protocols for engaging partners, said spokeswoman Wanda Potrykus. She denied that the agency provides funding without strings attached.

"Anything we allocate money to, we have written reports that have to be submitted showing how the money was spent and whether it was spent as it was intended," Potrykus said.

Archbishop Weisgerber said it is not necessary that Development and Peace work only with groups that espouse Catholic moral teaching.

"It is also very clear from the direction given by Pope John XXIII and by the (Second Vatican) Council that the church is to work with other people, but not, in a sense, blindly," he said. "We have to work with people whose values we are not necessarily in agreement with."

The archbishop cited the example of yearly Vatican contributions to UNICEF, with which the Vatican has disagreed on contraception and abortion policy. Vatican donations are earmarked for specific programs or projects that reflect church priorities.

In a related matter, the bishops are seeking clarification on a letter sent from the president of the Peruvian bishops' Commission on Family, Childhood and Life to Archbishop Weisgerber. The May 28 letter from Archbishop Jose Eguren Anselmi of Piura, Peru, claims three of the Canadian development agency's partners in Peru are "very committed with the pro-abortion movement."

"For this to come, again from a commission to me and to be released to the public before I receive the letter, there's an agenda at work here," Archbishop Weisgerber said.

He also urged Catholics to turn to their bishops rather than blogs and Web sites when it comes to defining who or which organization is Catholic.

"People are taking interpretations and making them fact," he said. "People are believing these facts as though they were indisputable, when clearly they are very disputable. They are interpretations from a political standpoint."

END

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