Bishops insist on veto rights

Press, 26 November 1982, Page 5

Bishops insist on veto rights

Controversial grants made recently by the Christchurchbased Catholic Commission for Evangelisation, Justice, and Development have caused the Catholic bishops to insist on veto rights over its proposals. The decision, made at the Episcopal Conference, came after a $2OOO donation to the Waitangi Action Committee and a contribution of $2500 to an Auckland film company towards the making of a film about the Springbok tour protest movement. The conference secretary and the Bishop of Palmerston North, the Rt Rev. Peter Cullinane, told the Catholic weekly newspaper, “Zealandia,” that in future the bishops would screen grants before they were made. The commission would continue to assess funds applications, but the final decisions concerning which grants were to be made would be taken by the bishops, he said.

The commission’s chairman and the , Bishop of Christchurch, the Most Rev. B. P. Ashby, was reported as saying that the bishops had the right to insist upon veto

rights and that he looked forward to discussing the. issue with them at the Low Week conference next year.

However, the editor of “Zealandia,” the Rev. Dennis Horten, criticised the decision in an editorial headed “Alas, still stoning the prophets.” The grant to the Waitangi Action Committee, while bound to be controversial, reflected that the young Maori activists had a case which was “quite crucial to the future of justice and peace” in New Zealand, he said.

Father Horten also defended the contribution made to the film company, saying that the tour raised a number of questions which still needed answering. The editorial described the commission and its secretariat in Christchurch as “the cutting edge” of the Catholic Church’s commitment to social justice. “If the bishops move now to turn it into a mere bureaucracy, trusted with administration but not with decision, the whole Church in New Zealand will have lost one of its .more prophetic voices,” Father Horten said.