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Vancouver's Catholic archdiocese has cancelled a long-standing partnership with VanCity Credit Union because the financial institution actively supports the city's gay and lesbian community.
Archbishop Adam Exner ended a VanCity program operating in four Catholic schools after the giant credit union launched an ad campaign featuring two men sitting cheek-to-cheek, saying, "I want to bank with people who value all partnerships."
Accusing VanCity of engaging in an "objectionable cause," Exner said the credit union's pro-homosexual advertising campaigns and sponsorships display public support for "agendas which are worrisome and harmful to the church and to society."
The archdiocese, as a result, this month forbade four of its Catholic schools to continue to take part in VanCity's in-school junior banking program, which teaches students how to save and invest their money, run a business and develop mathematical and leadership skills.
One of the Catholic elementary schools, St. Helen's in Burnaby, had been active in the VanCity program for seven years. In that time, VanCity official Sara Holland said 600 students had saved their allowances and earnings and together deposited more than $250,000 in the junior banking program.
Exner, who has a PhD in moral theology, acknowledged that VanCity's youth banking programs are a "significant good" because they teach financial responsibility to children.
Exner nevertheless wrote in a four-page philosophy-laden letter to the four Catholic schools that "a good effect must not be produced by the bad effect" of cooperating with an organization that promotes homosexual relationships.
"We're certainly disappointed," said Doug Mowat, chief executive officer of VanCity, the largest credit union in Canada with 250,000 members.
"But it's up to the Catholic church to make its own decision. We are trying to make our services available to everyone out there. We're trying to reduce barriers. But there's always someone who will have a different viewpoint."
Many parents at the four Catholic schools have asked VanCity if they could continue operating the program out of their local VanCity branch, Mowat said Tuesday. "The parents see the thrill the kids get out of the program."
While Exner said he joined the archdiocese's advisers in deciding to ban the junior banking program because of complaints from Catholic parents, other parents at the schools have said they want the program to continue.
The junior banking program was operating until this September at four Catholic schools: St. Helen's, Notre Dame secondary elementary school in east Vancouver, Our Lady of Good Counsel elementary in Surrey and St. Francis elementary in east Vancouver.
The junior banking program, which helps students operate their own part-time credit union during lunch hours, also runs in five other schools, both independent and public, in Greater Vancouver and the Lower Fraser Valley.
Paul Schratz, spokesman for the archdiocese, said the Catholic hierarchy had to "draw the line" after VanCity began coming out strongly in support of homosexual relationships.
Schratz noted that VanCity helped sponsor a homosexual film festival, gave an Ethics in Action award to Little Sisters lesbian bookstore and last year launched what VanCity called a "groundbreaking" effort to "become the first company in Canada" to publicly support the homosexual community.
VanCity's efforts on behalf of gays and lesbians go back to at least 1998. That's when it began a variety of programs to stop discrimination against homosexual employees, end harassment based on sexual orientation and provide benefits to same-sex partners.
"There is often no black and white way to deal with some of these issues," Schratz said, explaining Exner's decision to target the junior banking program.
"Different people will reach different conclusions using the same moral principles. But a line has to be drawn somewhere, and I think this policy probably does a fair job of balancing those competing concerns."
Asked why the archdiocese didn't forbid Catholic school children from also accepting student scholarships and bursaries from VanCity, Schratz said those benefits come from local VanCity branches, which don't set the corporation's pro-homosexual agenda
In his four-page letter to the Catholic schools, the archbishop said the ban against VanCity's junior banking program is in line with an earlier decision by the archdiocese to refuse funding from the United Way. The giant charity supports Planned Parenthood, an organization that advocates artificial contraception and choice on abortion, which are adamantly opposed by Catholic authorities.
"To be consistent," Exner said, "how can the archdiocese now tolerate cooperation with an organization [the United Way] that by policy supports an agenda seriously in conflict with the teaching of the church?"
So what do you think? Will these boycotts be effective, or will they backfire? Should other churches also support the Catholics in their boycotts?
What about the congregations? If the church will not associate, what will the members do?
I believe it has been the best choice I ever made.
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