European funding for Catholic aid agencies based in the UK could be withdrawn if the British people vote to leave the EU in late June, according to an English bishop. Auxiliary Bishop William Kenney of Birmingham said groups such as Cafod, the overseas aid agency of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, and Sciaf, the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund, would lose grants following a victor for Leave in the referendum on June 23. “Caritas Europa, to the best of my knowledge, always negotiates for funding from the EU, and the UK. Should it decide to leave, it will be outside of that, and it won’t get any of that [money] any longer,” he told the US Catholic News Service in a telephone interview. “In that sense it would no doubt affect Cafod and others, but to what extent I don’t know,” said Bishop Kenney, spokesman for European affairs of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales and a former president of Caritas Europa. Representatives of Cafod and Sciaf said that they were taking neutral positions on the referendum. Bishop Kenney said that he would prefer Britain to remain in a reformed European Union. “The EU is very much in need of reform, but we have got to reform every organisation from the inside; you will never reform it from outside,” said Bishop Kenney, who also serves as the English bishops’ representative on Comece, the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community. Bishop Kenney’s comments came after Caritas Europa called on European governments to “strengthen the role” of the Council of Europe, the organisation responsible for harmonising human rights laws across the continent. Caritas wants the council, which has power to enforce the European Convention on Human Rights through the European Court of Human Rights, to ensure the “social rights” of citizens, including “the right to be protected against poverty and social exclusion”. Supporters of the campaign to remain in the European Union, who include the Prime Minister and the leaders of other major political parties, argue that a victory for Leave would have severe economic consequences for Britain. Recent opinion polls have indicated that the referendum may be a close one. Some polls indicate that a narrow majority of Britons will vote to leave the EU after more than four decades of membership. The English and Welsh bishops have been careful not to direct the electorate how to vote, but speaking individually, the bishops have revealed a range of opinions. Cardinal Vincent Nichols of Westminster, president of the bishops’ conference, told journalists that Britain would face “complex problems” if it left the EU and that the path of division “almost inevitably leads to further division”. His predecessor, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, went further by making the case for Remain in an article for the Spectator magazine. But Archbishop Peter Smith of Southwark has said the warnings about dire consequences for Britain’s economy following Brexit are “ludicrous”.