And the Poor Shall Be Suckered: Scandals in Catholic Relief

During a fundraising campaign for Ethiopia, Catholic Relief Services (CRS), the official overseas charity of the U.S. Catholic Conference (USCC)—i.e., the American bishops—distributed a poster throughout the United States. The poster featured a single sentence printed more than 25 times: “we will not let them starve.” Noble sentiments, and quite in keeping with the bishops’ pastoral letter on the economy, which announced, “We want to stand with the poor everywhere.” But the road to hunger is paved with good intentions. Over the past decade the USCC’s spiritual and financial commitment to its foreign charity has weakened steadily and perhaps scandalously, so much so that in some cases CRS may indeed have “let them starve.”

For decades, Catholic Relief Services was renowned for its deep religious commitment to the poor, its professionalism, its excellent grasp of Third World cultures, and its consequent ability to provide both immediate relief from hunger and disease and realistic development programs. Today its field people still do great good works. But, encouraged by the bishops’ parsimony and inattention, CRS is being transformed into a wasteful, arrogant secular bureaucracy, run by former State Department officials and other “experts” who often seem to put the organization’s bureaucratic and political needs ahead of helping the poor.

JM

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James MacGuire

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During a fundraising campaign for Ethiopia, Catholic Relief Services (CRS), the official overseas charity of the U.S. Catholic Conference (USCC)—i.e., the American bishops—distributed a poster throughout the United States. The poster featured a single sentence printed more than 25 times: “we will not let them starve.” Noble sentiments, and quite in keeping with the bishops’ pastoral letter on the economy, which announced, “We want to stand with the poor everywhere.” But the road to hunger is paved with good intentions. Over the past decade the USCC’s spiritual and financial commitment to its foreign charity has weakened steadily and perhaps scandalously, so much so that in some cases CRS may indeed have “let them starve.”

For decades, Catholic Relief Services was renowned for its deep religious commitment to the poor, its professionalism, its excellent grasp of Third World cultures, and its consequent ability to provide both immediate relief from hunger and disease and realistic development programs. Today its field people still do great good works. But, encouraged by the bishops’ parsimony and inattention, CRS is being transformed into a wasteful, arrogant secular bureaucracy, run by former State Department officials and other “experts” who often seem to put the organization’s bureaucratic and political needs ahead of helping the poor.