“The sums collected on behalf of lepers are always used, in their entirety, to finance the campaign against leprosy”. So declares Michel Récipon, president of the Raoul Follereau Foundation, following the controversy that has erupted in France on the presumed illicit use of the donations by the Foundation. It was Radio France International a French radio station very influential in Africa that first published the news accusing the Raoul Follereau Foundation of using donations to finance the Catholic Church in Africa, thus betraying the donors’ intentions. The accusations have been repeated by the French satirical magazine “Le Canard Enchaîné” which has spoken of a “serious lack of transparency in the allocation of the funds”. Interviewed by the Swiss press agency Apic, the President of the Foundation, Récipon, says he learnt “of the accusations made against our association with sorrow” and reiterates that “the aim of the Foundation, established by Raoul Follereau, is certainly the fight against leprosy”. But, for “the apostle of the lepers”, it was also important to liberate man from other forms of “moral evil such as poverty, hunger, selfishness and fanaticism”.
