World Vision Sues TV Station, Catholic Agency

Stung by separate incidents of criticism regarding their financial practices, the British and Irish branches of World Vision are taking a British TV network and the Irish Catholic Relief Agency to court.

Both incidents, officials of World Vision contend, have undermined the major fund-raising effort of the group, which centers on a 24-hour Lenten fast for famine-struck people of the Third World.

The fast, expected to raise as much as $4.25 million in Britain and $474,000 in Ireland, is “the biggest fund-raising event” of the year, according to Phil Malone, the press officer for World Vision of Britain.

World Vision of Britain filed a libel action in a London court April 2 against Channel 4 and the makers of the TV program “Dispatches,” a March 28 documentary which accused the charity of spending more money for overhead and proselytizing than for relief.

In papers issued April 6, “Trocaire,” the Irish Catholic bishops’ relief arm, is asked to “rescind allegations” made about the “high overhead and proselytizing practices” of World Vision of Ireland, said Thora Mackey, a spokesperson for the evangelical humanitarian aid organization.

World Vision describes itself “as a leading Christian relief and development agency operating in 80 countries. It is non-denominational and has no political affiliation.”

The legal action was taken after the 24-hour fast in Ireland lost a number of sponsors in the wake of the Trocaire criticisms and the Channel 4 documentary, according to accounts in the Irish press.

“An awful lot of people have pulled out,” Ingrid Knapp, director of the Irish World Vision body, told the Irish Times.

The legal action was taken “to protect World Vision Ireland’s reputation and good name,” according to an April 4 release by Knapp.

“We have asked them twice to rescind those allegations. As they haven’t, we are forced to take this legal action,” Mackey said. “We don’t like doing this, but we are left with no alternative. It’s interfering with our fund raising and work in the field.”

Brian McKeown, the director of Trocaire, sent a letter to all Irish bishops urging them to inform their people that World Vision uses funds raised in Ireland to try to turn Catholics in the Third World from their faith.

The “fundamentalist aims” of World Vision and the Catholic Church are in conflict, the letter contends. Reports in the Irish press say Trocaire officials accused the charity of timing its fund-raising campaign to cut into Trocaire’s own Lenten campaign and gearing it to Catholic youth.

Trocaire is “especially concerned that World Vision is actively seeking the cooperation of Catholic schools, which are by nature and tradition supporters of the church’s Lenten campaign,” according to a Trocaire spokesman. Especially upsetting to the Catholic charity, according to Irish press reports, was that “World Vision was approaching Catholic schools without revealing its evangelical and fundamentalist origins.”

On the other hand, World Vision leaders were upset because Trocaire’s letter was “beautifully timed” to coincide with World Vision’s fast, according to press reports.

A segment of the Dispatches TV series titled “In the Name of Hunger” was broadcast March 28 and claimed that less than half the money collected by the worldwide evangelical relief organization reached its charitable goal in the developing world.

“World Vision of Britain made the decision to take legal action with deep regret. However, the results of the program could be seriously detrimental for World Vision’s projects in the Third World,” Malone said in a statement released April 2.

The fund-raising fast has been held in Britain for five years, “and during that time we have built up a great deal of loyalty amongst our supporters. This year an estimated 220,000 people had pledged to take part, of whom 80 percent were teen-agers. We do not know what will happen,” said the executive.

John Swenson, the deputy executive director of Catholic Relief Services in the United States, said he was not aware of the legal action taken against Trocaire. He described relations between the U.S. bishops’ relief arm and World Vision U.S. as “cordial.”