Tuesday 24 January 2012

CAFOD's Remit...

Fr Ray Blake raises some interesting points about CAFOD leaping on the anti-Boris Island bandwagon.  I think he makes a good case.

The Thirsty Gargoyle responds, linking CAFOD'S concerns to the Holy Father's words about concern for the environment relating closely to concern for people.  I think he makes a good case, too.

However, I would have less sympathy for the first and more for the second if CAFOD were to:

a) Align its teaching and praxis more closely with the teaching of the Church in all other areas;

b) Support the pro-Life movement in this country (as well as be proactively pro-life overseas), as after all, our country's record on these issues undermines our ability to offer moral leadership abroad - indeed leads to us exporting a culture of death to many of the countries CAFOD is meant to be helping.

Follow tags at the side for CAFOD if you want to understand my prejudicial approach to this...

3 comments:

Patricius said...

I am sure the holy father's take on environmentalism is quite canny but I agree that CAFOD's involvement looks a bit odd.
On the other hand "Boris's Island" sounds quite a wheeze! I sort of envisage folding palm trees, a moving cliff face that reveals a hangar... and swimming pools that move aside to reveal a launch pad.

Mrs. Malaprop said...

A bit worried about where the money I am donating to Cafod is going...can anyone recommend another Catholic overseas development charity that they think is doing a good job?

ORA PRO NOBIS said...

It is highly unlikely that the average Catholic believes that their money should be wasted on these issues when Catholics naturally assume that their donations are being focused in on poverty and famine in the Third World.

How can we be so sure that Cafod wasted money from donations on this initiative?

1. They did not get a paper published from the conference in a peer edited journal so there would be no lasting record that could be used in future research in to the issue.

2. The only serious access point to lobbying they had was with the UK Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Chris Huhne. They could have done this in London at no expense to Catholic congregations.