CONCHO, Ariz. (AP) — The village of Concho in the Arizona high desert is home to about 50 people — barely a dot in a sprawling, dusty landscape speckled with clumps of grass, scrub oak and juniper. Concho, about 200 miles northeast of Phoenix, has one restaurant, a Dollar General and a gas station that closes at 7 p.m.
But this remote hamlet is now at the center of a Catholic Church controversy.
Over the last six months, several members of this tight-knit community have been speaking up in support of a lay group of young Catholics who call themselves the League of the Blessed Sacrament. They say the group has revitalized this ignored, poverty-stricken region.
However, leaders at the New Mexico-based Diocese of Gallup, which oversees the region, contend that group members misrepresented themselves as a religious order and engaged in activity not sanctioned by the Catholic Church. Bishop James S. Wall ordered the group to leave parish housing and stop leading liturgy and teaching in the region’s Catholic school.
Group members — Giovanni Vizcarra, Edward Seeley, Eric Faris, Anthony Ribaya and Lisa Hezmalhalch — maintain they have represented themselves truthfully and followed the diocese’s orders. They believe the diocese, the poorest in the nation, asked them to leave because leaders are worried about potential liability stemming from the group taking three boys, victims of alleged domestic abuse, into their care.
Diocese spokesperson Suzanne Hammons said Wall and the diocese are “not afraid of liability” and are accustomed to dealing with sensitive situations in their parishes and schools. The diocese has a duty to pr …