An international coalition representing LGBT Catholics and an Irish reform group which supports women priests and gay Catholics have both failed to secure space for their stalls at the World Meeting of Families.
This is even though organisers continued to offer select groups free space until recently.
In a statement, the Global Network of Rainbow Catholics (GNRC), which represents 32 organisations around the world, explained that their application, which was made in April as well as follow-up correspondence, had met with silence from World Meeting of Families organisers. Last week they were told that their application was unsuccessful.
Brendan Butler of We Are Church Ireland told The Tablet that they made their application in February and paid half the fee of €2,500 as required. They too failed to get any response over a period of six months from the WMOF2018 office in Dublin.
Leaked documents seen by The Tablet have shown that a letter dated 24 July, which was after the closing date for applications for stands, was sent out by Paul McCann, the WMOF2018 exhibition coordinator, to specific groups offering them a free exhibition space. We Are Church Ireland said this exposed the double standards of WMOF2018 because it means no reform groups will be represented at the congress.
He said the “whistleblower” who leaked the document “felt that we were treated with great disrespect by the WMOF and felt obliged in conscience to publicly expose how the WMOF were offering free exhibition stands while at the same time ignoring our paid application for such an exhibition stand”. The WMOF theme “All are welcome” is, he suggested, “a contradiction and a public relations slogan”.
WMOF spokesperson, Brenda Drumm told The Tablet that a number of groups were on hold “because they did not meet our stated criteria which was provided to them at the time of their application”. Priority was given in allocating exhibition spaces to those who immediately met the criteria.
Loading ...
