Aid to the Church in Need: What does it mean to be a Catholic charity? Part Two

What does it mean to be a Catholic charity? Part Two

Posted by Information Report on 1/11/2002, 10:08 am
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Part Two: TEXT OF THE SPEECH OF ARCHBISHOP CORDES, PRESIDENT OF COR UNUM, TO THE
ACN DIRECTORS CONFERENCE Sept 2002
His Excelleny Archbishop P.J. Cordes
President of "Cor unum"
Part Two
What does it mean to be a Catholic charity?
Materialism and pragmatic efficiency.
In the commitment to charitable work another pitfall lies ahead for those who see only the material aspect of their neighbours' need. However important it may be to have bread on the table and a roof over one's head, clothing and warmth around us, if we, as Christians, were to restrict ourselves only to the kind of helping that state and society approve today, then we would be turning man into a "beast among other beasts" (Darwin). We would be cheating him of his capacity for transcendence, of a response to his religious sense.
You all know as well as I do that the danger of such a reducing of our fellow men to the “animal” aspect is no mere illusion. In many Western aid agencies the concern of the Good Samaritan for his battered brother has produced vast institutions. And these have developed into impressive service organisations. Throughout our lives, from the kindergarten to the retirement home, such public assistance accompanies us. When I gave a talk in Cologne to mark the centenary of the German Caritas association, I could not believe my ears when I learnt that this body employs 480,000 full-time staff, thereby making it the largest single employer in Germany after the State. And already before this I had seen figures that brought home to me the sheer scale and influence of such Caritas institutions. For example, CRS, the organisation of the US bishops for Church aid activities abroad, had a budget in 1998 of over 400 million dollars.
Indeed, one is astonished simply at the enormous sums of money, the vast number of employees and the unique contribution that such charitable institutions are thereby making to the smooth running of the social process. Such powerful forces do not remain inevitably integrated within their ecclesial mission. But, on top of this, there are other things that give one pause for thought. For instance, the operation of Church groups demands a high level of professionalism. Where public funds are involved, precise technical and professional competence is indispensable. From this there follows the creation of new institutions and their upkeep. One is compelled to introduce contracts of employment and legal insurance. The tapping into such aid monies and their administration seems to include the setting up of a full-scale bureaucratic apparatus.
That is in no way to say that all of this should be objected to out of hand, for it helps to ensure that the aid really attains its objective. Public awareness guarantees greater interest and readiness to give, moreover. Finally, it increases the incentive to apply the resources correctly, for misuse would sow mistrust and thereby damage the reputation of the institution concerned.
This professional approach implies the striving for effectiveness. But this can lead to a decisive change in the motivation of the staff involved. When effectiveness alone is what matters, then the deeper meaning of the charity and its mission can be obscured. Its symbolic value becomes blurred. The significance of Church aid for the spread of the message of Salvation recedes into the background. But when Church charitable activity is no longer transparently derived from the Gospel then the Church loses a fundamental dimension of her mission. In such an event the charitable work of the Church would be, broadly speaking, indistinguishable from the work of the Red Cross or of any NGO; indeed, it might even lose its Christian meaning altogether.
Secularised DIAKONIA
Such a secularisation of this DIAKONIA - this service - leads to regrettable consequences. Since our dicastery, Cor Unum, represents the papal voice in relation to the international foundations and initiatives, we unfortunately encounter the resulting confusion in a very real fashion. Permit me to list one or two examples.
1. Following the most recent earthquake in El Salvador, the Holy Father sent me there. Here I met together with the bishops, with the volunteer helpers and with many of those who had been afflicted by this disaster. Included on my programme was also an audience with the president of the country. He had, I was told, for a long time been a member of an Indian sect. As to whether he still shared its convictions, this was not clear. At any rate he did not practise the Catholic faith. Imagine my surprise when he began to speak on the very topic that had earlier been the subject of my discussions with the bishops. He said quite plainly that the aid envisaged must not be restricted to the material necessities alone. Support for religion and emotion were likewise necessary for the attainment of a happy life. Hence we should set about rebuilding the churches and religious symbols too. Up to this moment, in fact, the Catholic agencies had refused to include the pastoral centres on the list of their projects. They had insisted: "We are responsible only for food and homes for the afflicted people." And so it took the president, who was certainly no man of the Church, to remind them that man does not live by bread alone.
Sadly, such clouding of the nature of charitable activity by Church-sponsored bodies is no isolated instance.
2. In its own definition of its role, one Catholic fasting initiative in another country, which annually gathers in very large sums of money through collections and donations, makes the following stipulations in regard to its activities in Latin America: "In fidelity to its proper task our agency respects the pluralism of its partners and of their projects. It endeavours not to subordinate the objectives of social development and justice to the institutional interests pursued by the Church..." Thus this organisation defines the pastoral objectives of the bishops as "internal Church interests". It is thereby clearly distancing itself from the Church's mission and choosing to work together with State bodies instead of with the local Church - even though it has again and again suffered unfortunate experiences with corrupt states and their own "internal interests".
3. I have personally seen the official list of funding applications that were submitted to the Caritas association of a small European country. Among them is registered an application for support from the "Fifth Congress of Lesbian Feminists of Latin America and the Caribbean". Although I never sought to discover whether this application was approved or not, the very fact that it is even being examined by a Catholic agency is shameful enough.
4. One of the biggest Catholic aid agencies in the world has set up branch offices in the poorest countries, manned by their own staff. Many local bishops in these countries are now protesting that these offices are scarcely working together with the local Church. Indeed, sadly, they are hampering the local Church instead of supporting it. For example in the Balkans, where Cardinal Puljic from Bosnia has informed me that some 10 out of the 11 staff of this particular agency are Muslims. Their activities reflect the strategy of their religion, which is to make the country Islamic. In their campaigns they have been constantly pursuing the secondary aim of forcing Christians out of the country.
Such activities by Catholic aid agencies stand in sharp contrast to the Scriptures, which for us Christians and for the Church are the compelling basis for all our being and doing. Our Lord has left us a twofold commandment: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. (...)You shall love your neighbour as yourself" (Mt 22:37,39). Christ underlines the indissoluble bond between the two aspects of this twofold love. And more than this - he makes this commandment the sole principle of action for his followers. Love of God and love of neighbour are interrelated; each is bound up with the other. The law and prophets "depend" on this, and all the other rules are likewise dependent upon it.
It may well be that our age has fatefully disturbed the balance between these two aspects. For some people the command to love God has obviously become so remote from daily life and so unimportant that they regard it as a waste of time even to refer to it. And it is not only philanthropic and humanist groups who are silent on this. Even in the concept of service of some Christians it is disregarded. Their concept of the charitable mission of the Church often enough ignores both in theory and in practice the importance that Jesus assigns to the love of God. The first part of this double commandment simply does not figure. Often enough all trace of it is lacking in the projects of these agencies, and not infrequently it is left out even in the self-assigned remit of these charities.
In its teaching on the Church, theology explores what are the basic ecclesial functions. It lists these as MARTYRIA, LEITURGIA and DIAKONIA. It explains that these three domains, while undoubtedly distinct one from another, should never remain unconnected, side by side, in the daily life of the Church but, rather, that they "belong most closely together and, both in this unity and also in the relationship by which they reciprocally determine and distinguish one another, form the one expression of the Church's self-realisation" .
Continued in Part Three

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