By Steve Weatherbe

PARKSVILLE and Qualicum Beach newspaper readers were recently treated to visions of secret vaults beneath St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, stuffed with the hard-earned pennies collected from area bingo and lottery players.

But the visions were erroneous.

In a letter to the Oceanside Star, local septuagenarian William Radelet blamed two organizations, the Catholic Women's League (CWL) and the Knights of Columbus, for grabbing funding from the provincial lottery fund while Radelet's own Community Arts Council was starving.

“I find it unconscionable that the richest religion in the world would stick its mitts into the community pot and prevent other worthy groups from receiving money that is essential to continuing operation,” wrote Radelet. “And how much did the Catholic church receive in other communities throughout B.C.? What is the total? Millions?”

Radelet went on to blame, not local Oceanside Catholics,  but the “bureaucracy of the church that does not fund  parish organizations to a sufficient extent, despite having the means to do so. I hope you agree that the church's organizations do not need community funds.”

What had set Radelet off was the provincial government's announcement of $224,000 in community grants to 12 local organizations, only two of which were religious – the CWL at the Church of the Ascension,which received $15,000, and the same church's Knights of Columbus council, which netted $19,000.

“Perhaps,” Radelet finished his letter, “the Knights of Columbus should decide to make the Arts Council a subject of their benevolence in the amount of $5,000, and distribute the rest of their grant to other organizations that got the chop.”

Perhaps, except the provincial government has decided to make adult artists ineligible for community grants this year – the real reason for Radelet's concerns.

And then, as the Knights told the Oceanside Star in response, the organization already has donated its lottery money to 11 non-Catholic, non-sectarian organizations – supporting air cadets, stroke victims, mentally and physically challenged adults, high school students and so on.

“All religious affiliations, including the Catholic church and its ministries, are specifically excluded from receiving any of these gaming funds,” stated the Knights' unsigned letter.

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The CWL had much the same tale to tell: its beneficiaries included cancer and stroke victims, school parent advisory councils, the local search and rescue group, battered women and so on.

Neither letter took a shot at Radelet. The CWL letter, written by Tina Hanlon, expressed sympathy for the Arts Council, “as we know how hard it is to raise funds and keep afloat in these difficult times.”

The CWL even took some responsibility for Radelet’s mistake, writing, “The CWL has been remiss in not being more public about the donations they make in the community.”

“I was a nurse for many years,” Hanlon told Island Insight. “I learned to be diplomatic. If you take shots at people, you just give them ammunition to take shots at you.”

But given Radelet’s assumption that a church organization would spend the money on itself, why did the CWL and Knights bother to apply for the funds at all, since they couldn’t keep any of it?

In fact, corrects Hanlon, “we can keep seven percent of it. But, on the other hand, some of the money we raise at our own bazaars and other fundraisers we also spend on these community organizations. The rest goes to Catholic charities such as Development and Peace. We do it because we have to follow what Jesus told us to do. God just put it out there that we are supposed to help the less fortunate. God doesn’t look at what religion you are. He made us all – even those we don’t agree with.”

Mr. Radelet told Island Insight he had seen the letters from the two organizations but this hadn’t changed his views in the least.

“What gives them the right to distribute this money?”  he demanded. “Why has the government given them $34,000 when the organization I’m part of is on its knees because it’s lost $5,000?” He said it would be better for the community organizations now receiving funds from the CWL and Knights  of Columbus to get the grants directly from the government.

Mr. Radelet admitted he held very negative views about the Catholic church in general: “They would still be burning people at the stake if they could get away with it,” he said, and complained of being brutally treated by the Christian Brothers who used to own and teach at Vancouver College.

Hilary Bedigan, vice president of the Oceanside Community Arts Council, told Island Insight the organization had seen its government funding chopped to zero, had been forced to let its artistic director go and would shut down its art gallery for a month over the winter. She had not seen the letters from the Knights of Columbus and CWL explaining where their public funding went.

November 2010