Catholic Charities Usa

In honor of Catholic Charities USA's centennial celebration, this masterful work explores the development of Catholic Charities in the United States over the last one hundred years. Featuring contributions by renowned Catholic scholars and respected leaders in the Catholic Charities movement, this work delves into the social and demographic realities that gave rise to the National Conference of Catholic Charities in 1910, the role of parishes in the development of diocesan agencies, the professionalization of social work and its impact on Catholic Charities, and the effect of church-state partnerships on the identity of Catholic charitable organizations. This thoughtful work also explores Catholic social teaching and the theological foundation for Catholic Charities, the seminal self-studies that have shaped the direction of Catholic Charities since Vatican II, the meaning of Catholic mission and identity in a pluralistic society, the relationship between charity and justice in the work of Catholic Charities, and the role of Catholic Charities in fulfilling the social mission of the church. J. Bryan Hehir is the Parker Gilbert Montgomery Professor of the Practice of Religion and Public Life at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He is also the Secretary for Health and Social Services for the Archdiocese of Boston. Prior to assuming these positions, Father Hehir served as President and CEO of Catholic Charities USA from 2001 to 2003. He taught for several years at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service and Kennedy Institute in Ethics as well as at the Harvard Divinity School. He also spent nearly twenty years working at the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Between the Civil War and World War II, Catholic charities evolved from volunteer and local origins into a centralized and professionally trained workforce that played a prominent role in the development of American welfare. Dorothy Brown and Elizabeth McKeown document the extraordinary efforts of Catholic volunteers to care for Catholic families and resist Protestant and state intrusions at the local level, and they show how these initiatives provided the foundation for the development of the largest private system of social provision in the United States. It is a story tightly interwoven with local, national, and religious politics that began with the steady influx of poor Catholic immigrants into urban centers. Supported by lay organizations and by sympathetic supporters in city and state politics, religious women operated foundling homes, orphanages, protectories, reformatories, and foster care programs for the children of the Catholic poor in New York City and in urban centers around the country. When pressure from reform campaigns challenged Catholic child care practices in the first decades of the twentieth century, Catholic charities underwent a significant transformation, coming under central diocesan control and growing increasingly reliant on the services of professional social workers. And as the Depression brought nationwide poverty and an overwhelming need for public solutions, Catholic charities faced a staggering challenge to their traditional claim to stewardship of the poor. In their compelling account, Brown and McKeown add an important dimension to our understanding of the transition from private to state social welfare. Table of Contents: Acknowledgments Introduction 1. The New York System 2. The Larger Landscape 3. Inside the Institutions: Foundlings, Orphans, Delinquents 4. Outside the Institutions: Pensions, Precaution, Prevention 5. Catholic Charities, the Great Depression, and the New Deal Conclusion Sources Notes Index Reviews of this book: [The Poor Belong to Us] raise[s] important questions about American social welfare history. [It] is particularly significant in that it restores Catholic charity to its rightful place at the center of that history. As the authors point out, Catholics represented the majority of dependent and delinquent children in most American cities for much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Their book convincingly demonstrates that Catholic charities' massive efforts to aid their own needy had long-term ramifications for the entire modern American system of welfare provision...The book is an impressive achievement and should be required reading for all social welfare historians. --Susan L. Porter, Journal of American History Reviews of this book: Brown and McKeown provide a richly documented narrative that incorporates the insights and scholarship of American Catholic history and social history...The Poor Belong to Us represents an ambitious foray into territory within the history of Catholic social activism that has been neglected for too long. It provides an important counterpoise and supplement to the burgeoning scholarship on individual congregations of women religious and the Catholic Worker movement, two area adjacent to this study that have received considerable attention in the past three decades...In The Poor Belong to Us, readers gain a new understanding of the complexities and internal tensions within the world of Catholic social welfare during the century of growth and change chronicled by Brown and McKeown...They show us how, for most American Catholics of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, questions of class and social and economic responsibility can only be understood with reference to the faith, a pervasive yet elusive presence that Brown and McKeown illuminate for us in carefully pruned, contextualized examples from archival sources. --Debra Campbell, Church History Reviews of this book: This book documents the role of Catholics in the development of American welfare and shows strong parallels between situations and attitudes prevalent in the 19th century and those common today...Following the enactment of the 1996 welfare reform law, some of these same questions are being raised afresh today...That situation makes Brown and McKeown's historical account timely and relevant...Brown and McKeown neither try to sugarcoat nor to dramatize the role of Catholic charities in American welfare. The story is interesting enough in itself...This is an excellent work...For anyone wanting to better understand the role of Catholic charities in the American welfare system or even the development of charities and welfare in general, it is invaluable. --Diana Etindi, Indianapolis Star Reviews of this book: Thoroughly researched and meticulous in its reasoning...[this book] shows how Catholic charities helped poor people in America between the 1870s and 1930s...[It] remind[s] us how 'Catholic' poverty seemed for half a century, and how effectively a generation of more prosperous Catholics reacted to it. It also shows how the idea of caring for the poor, for centuries a religious duty, was rapidly secularized in America...The Poor Belong to Us takes its place as a study and reference work of permanent value. --Patrick Allitt, Books and Culture Reviews of this book: An interesting history of Catholic charitable institutions in the 20th century. The Poor Belong to Us traces the development of Catholic charities from a collection of ill-funded volunteer organizations in the 19th century into the largest private provider of social services in the country. Crisp writing and a keen eye for relevant detail carries the story along nicely...The authors display a deft hand in assembling their material, and impress the reader with their grasp of the large picture as well as the detail. This is a highly readable account of an important element of the history of the Church in America. --Robert Kennedy, National Catholic Register Reviews of this book: This institutional history is valuable for underscoring the importance of the private sector in American welfare and for adding a Catholic dimension to recent welfare scholarship. --S.L. Piott, Choice Reviews of this book: Historian Dorothy Brown and theologian Elizabeth McKeown analyze the evolution of Catholic Churches between the Civil War and World War II from its local volunteer origins to a centralized and professionalized workforce that played a prominent role in the development of the American welfare system that is now under attack. In this fascinating contribution to contemporary welfare scholarship, the authors' study is grounded in concerns and care for the children of the poor. --Dorothy Van Soest, Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare

Written in preparation for the 2010 centennial of the national organization Catholic Charities USA, Faith. Works. Wonders. introduces the mission, scope, and impact of Catholic Charities agencies in communities across the nation. This book also describes the work, motivation, and spirituality of the three hundred thousand staff, board members, and volunteers in local Charities agencies; this network composes the largest voluntary social service network in the country. In addition, the author draws on the broad experience of Catholic Charities and his long association with Charities to explain the sometimes-surprising positions of the organization and its leaders in our continuing national discussions on social welfare, faith-inspired organizations, and the appropriate roles of the private and public sectors in promoting the common good and caring for the least fortunate. Within the framework of the registered slogan of Catholic Charities of the archdiocese of Washington DC, the nine chapters in turn lay out Faith-the mission, identity, and power of Catholic Charities rooted in the Scriptures, experience, history, and Catholic thought. Works-the focus of agencies and people on service to people in need, advocacy and empowerment for justice and compassion, and "convening" religious and civic partners to create a better society. Wonders-the who, what, and why of volunteers; the quest for quality and innovation; the stance of determined pluralism in the Church community and public square; and the miracle of virtue and spirituality born in the service of others. Appendices provide 1) an outline of the history of Catholic Charities in the USA dating back to 1727 in the author's hometown of New Orleans, and 2) the principles developed by Catholic Charities and other voluntary-sector leaders for the protection of the sector in this country.

Presents an encyclopedia of religion and politics in America including short biographies of important political and religious figures like Ralph Abernathy, civil rights leader, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer, and synopses of religious entities like the Branch Davidians and the Episcopal church as well as important court cases of relevancy like Epperson et al. v. Arkansas having to do with evolution.