Catholic Charities

A century-old faith-based organization founded in the United States of America, Catholic Charities provides social services to vulnerable and marginalized people.

Until the 20th century, Catholic charitable efforts had been undertaken exclusively at the local level through parish-based, person-to-person initiatives performed by volunteers. With the advent of nationalization and professionalization of social services in the United States, many Catholics feared that Catholic charitable work would be stripped of its spiritual significance, no longer undertaken out of love of neighbor, as commanded by Jesus. Critics feared that a National Conference of Catholic Charities (NCCC) would lead people to view charity as a remunerated task undertaken only by professionals, thus relieving the nonprofessional of the obligation to help those in need.

This more traditional view of charity did not hold. Catholics followed the trend of other Americans at the dawn of the 20th century who were concentrating their efforts on the scientific study of society and the professional treatment of social problems. Pioneers in the Catholic Church, such as the priest-scholar William J. Kerby (1870–1936), the first American Catholic sociologist, advocated a nationally centralized charitable organization that would make it possible to coordinate the disparate and at times redundant local services. In 1910, Bishop Thomas J. Shahan (1857–1932), then rector of The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and Kerby hosted an organizational meeting at which the NCCC came into existence. In addition to the clergy, a large contingent of lay people was present at the founding of the NCCC, most notably the Society of St. Vincent de Paul represented by their leader Thomas M. Mulry (1855–1916). Coordination of and cooperation between local charitable efforts among Catholics was under way.

In 1986, the NCCC became Catholic Charities USA. The organization continues to provide leadership for a national network of local Catholic Charities initiatives. In addition to assisting local initiatives to respond to immediate human needs, Catholic Charities USA has become increasingly involved in advocacy at the national level, seeking to create structural change in society. At times, this pursuit of the common good has required the organization to downplay, albeit controversially, its Catholic identity in order to promote a more just society for all.