SPECIAL REPORT: Couples For Christ Crisis

Sunday, December 09, 2007

SPECIAL REPORT: COUPLES FOR CHRIST CRISIS

Gawad Kalinga’s Executive Director, Luis Oquiñena, told The Times he saw no hope of unity and reconciliation between the Frank Padilla and Tony Meloto Couples for Christ factions.

At first reluctant to give a statement, Oquiñena explained that this was because Gawad Kalinga’s “veering away” from the original goals of Couples for Christ  was Frank Padilla’s main complaint against the Meloto faction.

He said the Padilla group has clearly indicated that it is unacceptable to them that GK has forged partnerships with groups that, from Padilla’s perspective of spreading the Catholic faith and adhering to Church tenets as required by Couples for Christ, should not be made CFC-GK partners or even donors.

He added that as far he and the others in GK are concerned they have to be “our brothers, keepers” and it did not matter where donations came from to help the poor.

Among these donors are pharmaceutical companies that peddle contraceptive and abortive pills.  Padilla’s faction charged the Meloto group, in a meeting with Catholic bishops, that there have been instances when Gawad Kalinga fund raisers would hide their being Couples for Christ members.

The Meloto faction, whose people are now running Couples for Christ after the resignation of both Padilla and Meloto from the International Council, have retorted to Padilla’s charges by asking why he tolerated all these things when he was in fact the highest head of Couples for Christ for two decades and chairman of Gawad Kalinga since its inception while Tony Meloto was its executive director.

Padilla’s departure from CFC, of which he was considered the chief moving spirit and principal founder for 25 years, is also based on his belief that the Meloto group that now serves as the elders and executives will not really work to “restore” the old and true Christian mission of the organization.

That is why he has formed the Couples for Christ-Foundation for Family and Life (CFC-FLL). He is also moving to persuade Philippine and global units of CFC to switch from the Meloto faction, being referred to as the FCC-GK by casual observers, to the CFC-FLL.

The Meloto faction holds the official name of “Couples for Christ” and the Securities and Exchange Commission has withheld approval of the CFC-FLL’s application for registration.

But Padilla claims that it was he who originally used the name Couples for Christ in 1983 when he registered the Couples for Christ Foundation Inc.

CFC is a Vatican-approved international private association of the faithful as well as a national association of the faithful in the Philippines.

The idea of having two CFCs, one the Meloto faction’s CFC Global Foundation Inc. and Padilla’s Couples for Christ-Foundation for Family and Life, is actually a principle advanced by Bishop Gabriel Reyes, head of the Catholic Bishops Conference’s Pontifical Commission for the Laity.  This commission holds authority as the Vatican’s deputy over CFC. It is also the official CBCP body that has oversight powers over lay associations.

Bishop Reyes and three other bishops concerned with CFC had ruled that the election of officers be deferred until the problems raised by Frank Padilla and his faction’s withdrawal from the organization are settled.

But the CFC-GK faction went ahead and elected new officers.

Bishop Reyes declared that the election “was not done in the right spirit.”

He and Bishop Socrates Villegas of Balanga, among others, have suggested that Padilla’s FCC-PLL exist side-by-side with DCC-GK, in the same way that the Franciscans have OFM, OFM-Capuchin and OFM-Conventuals and the Carmelites have the Order of Carmelites and the Order of Carmelites-Discalced.
--Rene Q. Bas