CAFOD people

Catholic Aid for Oversease Development (CAFOD) is well known for its dissent from the teaching of the Church on the use of condoms to combat AIDS; we have covered that in a dossier here. But as is invariably the case, this is not a case of faithful Catholics struggling with their consciences, but a bunch of very self-confident and well-paid liberals with no more than cultural and institutional links to the Church hi-jacking a once-Catholic organisation.

A former Director of CAFOD, Julian Filochowski, has caused a series of scandals by his public rejection of the Church's teaching. First, he entered a civil partnership with his long-term boyfriend, Martin Pendergast, who happens to be a militant homosexual activist who spoke at a conference which condemned the Pope as a homophobe. Then the happy couple celebrated their anniversary with a Mass, which until the news broke was to have been celebrated Bishop Crowley, then of Middlesbrough. Finally the same anniversary was the occasion of a book attacking the Pope and the teaching of the Church. See our post here.

CAFOD recruited Dermot O'Leary to head a fund-raising drive, despite the fact that this 'celebrity' is living openly in sin and publicly rejects the Church's teaching on contraception.

It seems that the current Director, Chris Bain (picture), shares a house with a Labour minister, Paul Goggins, and the pair have been caught out helping themselves a little generously to the House of Commons allowances, which are coming under increased scrutiny. It would be hard to think of a neater summary of the problems of the gang running so many Catholic instutions: a little too cosy with Labour, rejecting the Church's teachings, and with their snouts in the trough.

From The Daily Telegraph: Mr Goggins shares the house in south-east London with Chris Bain, who is the director of the Catholic aid charity Cafod and a friend since university.

They have lived together for the past 11 years. For the past three years, Mr Goggins, the MP for Wythenshawe and Sale East, has designated the property as his “second home” and claimed almost £45,000 in expenses for it. He did not tell the Commons fees office that he shared it. 

...Mr Goggins sat on the board of Cafod until June 2003 and was Charities Minister in 2005-06, when the size of Cafod’s government grant rose by nearly a third to £5.7 million. It dropped by a fifth the following year when Mr Goggins moved to the Northern Ireland Office but he said yesterday that he had no role in the funding of Cafod, which dealt primarily with the Department for International Development.

See the full story. Hat-tip to the Muniment Room.