In the vital service of helping transform individual lives, the most powerful weapon is the truth, and for Catholic organizations, the moral truths of the Church are the first weapons of choice for those organizations sincere about informing that transformation, and it is tragic when those organizations choose—for whatever reason—to not use those weapons, and in the process, fail at their foundational purpose, the transformative salvation of individuals.
This story from The Catholic Thing examines this situation in respect to two major Catholic organizations,one in the United States.
An excerpt.
“Agencies that promote works of charity on behalf of the Church should be particularly keen on putting Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth) into practice – with courage and without reservation. The British Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD) welcomed it instead by highlighting climate change and ignoring the human ecology – issues of life, sexuality, marriage, the family, social relations, natural death – so threatened today by “the moral tenor of society,” which Benedict plainly asserts is the “decisive issue.”
“That politicized and self-serving reaction glosses over what is at the heart of the encyclical: only conformity to truth – defending moral and ethical positions unpopular in elite circles – can safeguard authentic charity and foster “integral human development.”
“Infidelity to the truth renders “development” work illusory – no matter how vehemently influential governmental agencies or fabulously wealthy donors, whose loveless (i.e. safe-sex, population control) initiatives resemble misanthropy more so than philanthropy, insist otherwise….
“Catholic Charities USA, for example, has been mobilizing in favor of Obama’s ominously nebulous health care bill (urging their members to voice support to their representatives “in the next 24 hours”) despite obvious concerns about its implications for the non-negotiables of abortion and euthanasia, and other major drawbacks….
“Conveniently, Catholic Charities USA just landed a $100 million contract for natural disaster work from the Department of Health and Human Services. We may never know if there was or was not some sort of quid pro quo, but anyone who has read Brian Anderson’s masterful essay How Catholic Charities Lost Its Soul would know that Catholic Charities long ago abandoned confidence in the capacity of moral truth to transform individual lives, only to co-opt the “value-free worldview that has made most government-run poverty efforts a hindrance rather than a help to the poor.”
Lampstand Foundation website, http://www.lampstandfoundation.org/
"The sinner is at the very heart of Christianity. Nobody is so competent as the sinner in matters of Christianity. Nobody, except the saint." Charles Peguy (1873-1914)
About
- David H. Lukenbill
- I am a California native, married, we have one daughter and live close to the American River with two cats and all the wild critters we can feed. I am a management consultant to nonprofit organizations and have an Associates of Arts degree in Administration of Justice from Sacramento City College, a Bachelor of Science degree in Organizational Behavior from the University of San Francisco and a Master of Public Administration degree, also from the University of San Francisco.