What the church taketh away, lay Catholics and others have given back — and then some — to Compañeros, a small Durango-based nonprofit helping immigrants in southwestern Colorado.
Compañeros was stripped of $30,000 by the Diocese of Pueblo because of its participation in a social-justice coalition that includes a gay advocacy group.
Since then, people and groups worldwide have made donations totaling more than $60,000 to help Compañeros, Executive Director Nicole Mosher said.
“A lady from Florida sent us $3. A man in England donated $1,000, and we’ve had everything in between,” Mosher said. “It was totally unexpected and amazing.”
The Gill Foundation, one of the largest funders of civil-rights activism for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, told Companeros it would provide a matching grant of $30,000 if it could raise the first $30,000. Both have occurred.
This morning, in front of the Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Denver, a group called With Charity For All gave Mosher $7,000 collected from Catholics across the country to help sustain Companeros’ work.
More than 2,000 people signed have signed a petition asking Pueblo Bishop Fernando Isern to fully restore Compañeros’ church funding.
“Many Catholics love the charitable mission of the Catholic Church but are increasingly alienated by the conservative politics of the Catholic bishops,” George Burns, Portland, Maine-based founder of With Charity For All, said in a statement released today.
Nobody in the church claimed that Compañeros engaged in advocacy on gay issues, but the Pueblo bishop disapproved of its connection — through the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition — to One Colorado, which supports civil unions for gays.
Compañeros declined to end its participation in CIRC, even after it was threatened with defunding.
Isern had discretion in taking away funds from the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, an arm of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which had provided Compañeros with more than half its annual revenue.
The diocese hasn’t returned the Post’s calls.
James Salt, executive director of Catholics United Education Fund, one of the key groups affiliated WithCharityForAll.org, delivered the $7,000 check to Mosher this morning before traveling to Pueblo to deliver the petition to the diocese.
Salt said he was told the bishop won’t meet with his group.
“It’s bad enough that the bishops are pushing an extreme political agenda that is driving a wedge between them and the Catholic faithful,” Salt said, “but this decision (on Compañeros’ funding) is particularly disturbing because they’re showing that they’ll even throw immigrants under the bus as part of that agenda.”
Salt describes With Charity For All as a nonprofit donation portal dedicated to allowing Catholics and other people of faith to put charity ahead of politics.
Electa Draper: 303-954-1276 or edraper@denverpost.com
