Does Catholic Church Help the people in distress?

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Hello All,

I might sound like a sceptic if you look at the Title. But I AM NOT.

I am sure CC helps people who are in distress in many ways. I know for a fact that CC runs innumerable healthcare , educational vocational training institutions. Catholic religious spend their lives by helping people in different ways.

The reason why I am asking the question if CC helps people in distress is that there were a debate on BBC sometimes back on if CC is force for good or not! I am of course on CC’s side.

It got me thinking, I was trying to understand the humanitarian efforts that church undertakes. May be Church is not seeking any media attention nor any awards or praises from people who cries foul all the time.

But , forgive me if I am wrong on this, as a Catholic I want to know what are the Humanitarian efforts are done by the church at any given time? What did we do for Haiti ? What do we do for Africa ? What do we do in Middle east ? What do we do when huge natural calamities occur ?

Where I can get the info ? What do you know of Church’s efforts ?

Hope I will be enlightened here!

with prayers,
Joe
 
Seriously? Catholics pretty much invented charity as we know it today. Ever been to a hospital? Invented by catholics. University? catholics. Food pantry? catholics.

Ancient Romans used to deride the early christians for saving abandoned children, feeding cripples and tending the sick. That was seen as a sign of weakness in the culture of that day.

If you are big on BBC, you might be a victim of a heritage of British slurs on catholicism. Heard of Mary Tudor the English queen who attempted to use force to return England to catholicism? Most Brits know her as “Bloody Mary” for the executions she committed against protestant nobles. The same Brits call Elizabeth I “Good Queen Bess” though she slaughtered 10 times as many catholics as Mary did protestants. History works that way.

If you’d like an antidote view to the anti-catholic history typical to English speaking countries (mine included), try reading “How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization.” Yeah, it’s an advocacy piece, but it IS a scholarly one.
 
joeantony said:
Hello All,

I might sound like a sceptic if you look at the Title. But I AM NOT.

I am sure CC helps people who are in distress in many ways. I know for a fact that CC runs innumerable healthcare , educational vocational training institutions. Catholic religious spend their lives by helping people in different ways.

The reason why I am asking the question if CC helps people in distress is that there were a debate on BBC sometimes back on if CC is force for good or not! I am of course on CC’s side.

It got me thinking, I was trying to understand the humanitarian efforts that church undertakes. May be Church is not seeking any media attention nor any awards or praises from people who cries foul all the time.

But , forgive me if I am wrong on this, as a Catholic I want to know what are the Humanitarian efforts are done by the church at any given time? What did we do for Haiti ? What do we do for Africa ? What do we do in Middle east ? What do we do when huge natural calamities occur ?

Where I can get the info ? What do you know of Church’s efforts ?

Hope I will be enlightened here!

with prayers,
Joe
Click to expand...
This is interesting to me because I was involved in a thread on facebook and within all the anti-Catholic gibberish someone said that the Catholic Church lets people die of AIDS and that she also lets 35,000 people die each day from hunger.

Of course this is ridiculous and so I started googling to find out what the Church really does for hungry people, for people who are affected by tragedies, etc. I’ve been told that with all her programs, the Church is actually the largest charitable organization in the world. I don’t doubt this is true, but I haven’t had much luck in finding out exactly what she does.

There have been a couple of threads on CAF about this very subject and I checked them out and found a link. It allegedly provided detailed info about the Church’s efforts.

Unfortunately it was an old thread and the link no longer worked. My search so far has been unsuccessful. Not that it was a complete loss as I made two friends who agreed with what I had posted and that is always nice.

I think the best way to find out is to google actual disasters and see what pops up. I know there is an organization called “Catholic Relief Services.” I know that the Church is involved with Food Share, although that is a community effort and in my town all the churches (and stores and other companies and organizations) are involved.

I didn’t continue my search because on facebook threads are born and die within a few days. My search was cursory at best. I did post that the Church was the largest charitable organization in the world, but to be honest, I had nothing to back me up. I also stated that the Church is not responsible for anyone dying from AIDS or hunger. These are universal problems and everyone is responsible for doing what they can to solve them. I was amazed that the Church is attacked for “sticking her nose into non-Catholics’ business and telling them how they should live” and also attacked for “not becoming involved in areas where people are suffering and by doing so, letting innocent people die.”

Catholics are hated. If the pope makes a speech, he is being a hypocrite. Or else he is behind the times. Or else he isn’t sticking to the tradition of the Church. We can’t win when it comes to our reputation and I don’t think we will win until the second coming.

I have some time now and I think if we both use search engines maybe we can find something. I really wish that link was still active. I’ll do my best to help.

I pray that God helps us on our journey.
 
manualman said:
Seriously? Catholics pretty much invented charity as we know it today. Ever been to a hospital? Invented by catholics. University? catholics. Food pantry? catholics.

Ancient Romans used to deride the early christians for saving abandoned children, feeding cripples and tending the sick. That was seen as a sign of weakness in the culture of that day.

If you are big on BBC, you might be a victim of a heritage of British slurs on catholicism. Heard of Mary Tudor the English queen who attempted to use force to return England to catholicism? Most Brits know her as “Bloody Mary” for the executions she committed against protestant nobles. The same Brits call Elizabeth I “Good Queen Bess” though she slaughtered 10 times as many catholics as Mary did protestants. History works that way.

If you’d like an antidote view to the anti-catholic history typical to English speaking countries (mine included), try reading “How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization.” Yeah, it’s an advocacy piece, but it IS a scholarly one.
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I think the OP is requesting info about what the Church is doing today. So am I. For some reason info is difficult to find. I agree with what you’ve stated, but I haven’t been able to find a website which lists all current Catholic charitable organizations, their purposes, the amount of money that is spent, etc. I know that hospitals were started in the U.S. by the Church. I also know that sometimes these hospitals lose their Catholic affiliation.

I would love to find that website if it exists. I’d put it on my cheat sheet so that I could easily respond when people attack the Church for what they see as complete non-involvement with suffering people today.

If I knew what I was doing I might be able to develop a website myself. But I’m basically computer-illiterate. 😦
 
joeantony said:
The reason why I am asking the question if CC helps people in distress is that there were a debate on BBC sometimes back on if CC is force for good or not! I am of course on CC’s side.
Joe
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two problems with this
one, what is your definition, or the BBC’s of “distress”
the worst distress is sin and the Catholic Church was founded by Jesus Christ to save us from our personal sin, from the effects of all sin, and to restore the world to the sinless state our first parents enjoyed. There is no other distress that equates to the distress of sin. The next level of true distress is that of ignorance of the gospel, and the Church exists to spread the good news and does so, and has done for 2000 years, through the work of her missionaries throughout the world.

If you mean material distress, do you mean health-physical or mental, chronic or acute problems, disaster relief, counselling, crisis pregnancy? What do you mean by “distress?”. The larger society exists and should have provisions in face to deal with the common run of human problems. Yes the Catholic Church has in place in all countries means to address the needs of her own members, and those who are not served by the larger society. They have different names and different purposes. But that is not the number one purpose the Church was founded. We see in the Acts of the Apostles that caring for widows and orphans ie those in material need, was a priority in the early Church, to the extent that the office of deacon was instituted to fill that role. And so it has been for 2000 years, that is part of the Church’s mission.

Today in various places Catholic institutions-schools, hospitals, nursing homes and the like exist to meet those needs. Catholic Social Services is the umbrella organization in most Catholic dioceses to offer or give referrals to trusted sources for services that come under that category. Catholic Charities deals more with meeting material needs that are unmet or under provided to certain classes by the larger society, either as ongoing efforts to raise people out of poverty or for crisis situations. That is food, housing, and those types of physical needs.

Catholic Relief Services is a world-wide organization that provides both disaster relief–in areas where it is allowed by governments to operate–in times of war, famine, natural disaster etc. They also support longer term projects to ameliorate and resolve the underlying causes of distress through support of missionas and other initiatives. Like the UN, Red Cross and other secular relief organizations they can operate only where the local governments invite and allow them, and will withdraw if their personnel come under attack or if their work makes their clients a target for attack (the case in the Sudan at some times and places, for instance.

I still don’t know what particular issue was raised by the BBC, or what your own question really is. care to elaborate?

Is the Church a force for good? Her mission and purpose is to make Christ present in the world first through her sacramental and liturgical life, as He intended, through preaching the gospel, as He ordered, and through actual performance and promotion through her leadership and membership of the spiritual and corporal works of mercy, as he told us is the standard by which we as individuals and as nations will be judged at the end of time.

Just one example, the Catholic Church through her various agencies, missions and outreaches is the largest single provider of services to AIDS victims and their families worldwide, and virtually the only agency to be honest about the causes and remedies of this epidemic.
 
Hi,
Permit me to add my little views on the subject matter. First of all BBC as media house is one of my cherish station but let me err on the side of caution that there are people within the group who may have some (thing) against the beautiful work being done by the church. with this as a premise i therefore think that the church in this part of our world (Africa) is very much concern about people in distress but what we do forget sometimes as Catholics is that we (does in distress) do not avail themselves to the abundance of help from the church. We tend to complain to other (outside the church) we hardly access the opportunities in the church. I think the Church does but it has to do more of individual disposition and thinking.
 
LittleSoldier said:
I think the OP is requesting info about what the Church is doing today. So am I. For some reason info is difficult to find. I agree with what you’ve stated, but I haven’t been able to find a website which lists all current Catholic charitable organizations, their purposes, the amount of money that is spent, etc. I know that hospitals were started in the U.S. by the Church. I also know that sometimes these hospitals lose their Catholic affiliation.

I would love to find that website if it exists. I’d put it on my cheat sheet so that I could easily respond when people attack the Church for what they see as complete non-involvement with suffering people today.

If I knew what I was doing I might be able to develop a website myself. But I’m basically computer-illiterate. 😦
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Look into the various organizations. heres a list of several:

Carmelites (theyre actually a monastic order, but still very important organization)
Shriners (not sure if Catholic, but still do charity work)
Knights of Columbus (world’s largest Catholic men’s organization)

just to name a few

In fact I was inducted into the Knights of Columbus just yesterday. :thankyou:

It really is a great organization. If you are wanting to do charity works yourself, the Knights are definately worth a look.

here’s a link to the Order’s site:

kofc.org/un/en/index.html

If you (or anyone else) has any questions just ask me or send me a PM on here. Also you could ask any number of us Knights. Theres several us floating around on the forums. Just feel free…
 
Here are just a few of the current operations of the Church regarding helping those “people in distress”.

Caritas is the Vatican’s charity arm. More about them here:

caritas.org/

Here’s their 2009 annual report

caritas.org/upload/ar-/ar-eng-lo-res.pdf

In the US, **Catholic Charities **is the centralized organization. They are the funnel for money raised in the diocese of the US but do not focus just on the US in terms of charity work. For example, they were the first charity on the ground in Haiti. Why? Because they have already been working in Haiti serving the sick and poor there for 50 years. They didn’t have to “go to Haiti”; they just mobilized their people and resources already there.

More here:

catholiccharitiesusa.org/NetCommunity/

One of the most facinating, IMO, are the Knights and Dames of Malta. They are an organization that traces its history from 1048. During the Crusades, they provided military protection to the poor and sick. Now they operate charities and schools around the world. While the two charities above are primarily run “by the Church”, the Order of Malta includes many of the world’s wealthiest Catholics who give generously of their own time and fortunes to fund the order’s work.

More here:

orderofmalta.org/?lang=en

orderofmalta.org/?lang=en
 
Also, I think a very large percent of catholic charity is on the very local level. Local visiting of shut-ins, food pantries, ect. This might not seem like a big effort, but when you multiply it by the hundreds of thousands of parishes all of the world…it is staggering. Still, there might not be complete numbers to calculate the combined contribution of all these parishes to the poor and hungry. Calculating that would be a monumental task. There might not be many hard statistics for the media to chew on.

Also, did you know that most parishes have an emergency number, where you can call a priest in the middle of the night if you are in an hour of distress? That is a very real, very local service that is probably not considered in tradition charity calculations.

When there is a localized disaster, the churches open their doors, their resources, and their hearts to those in need. The large donations and efforts made by the Vatican can be calculated in certain dollar amounts and man-hours. But the contribution of catholic charities all over the world can probably never be calculated. That may be why it is difficult to find hard data.
 
manualman said:
Seriously? Catholics pretty much invented charity as we know it today. Ever been to a hospital? Invented by catholics. University? catholics. Food pantry? catholics.

Ancient Romans used to deride the early christians for saving abandoned children, feeding cripples and tending the sick. That was seen as a sign of weakness in the culture of that day.

If you are big on BBC, you might be a victim of a heritage of British slurs on catholicism. Heard of Mary Tudor the English queen who attempted to use force to return England to catholicism? Most Brits know her as “Bloody Mary” for the executions she committed against protestant nobles. The same Brits call Elizabeth I “Good Queen Bess” though she slaughtered 10 times as many catholics as Mary did protestants. History works that way.

If you’d like an antidote view to the anti-catholic history typical to English speaking countries (mine included), try reading “How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization.” Yeah, it’s an advocacy piece, but it IS a scholarly one.
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manualman,

I don’t quite understand the tone… I believe I might have sounded as if " prove it to me if CC does some charity"

I am in India, we have roughly 2 % Christians among this more than 1 billion population. I am from a state in India where approximately 25% are Christians. I did my education till college in Christian run institutions. You can CC institutions support the health care and educational needs of the people in my state. Even in the country as a whole, Catholic schools have the highest reputation, innumerable health care and educational institutions are built and run by CC even in areas where hardly any Christians exist. So I know What I am talking about.

And I am not a victim of British slur on Catholicism. I know my stand and even the most weakest rational stage of my mind hold steadfast against the ignorance of catholic bashing society.

I am also aware how Christianity contributed to the western civilizations, I may not be able to defend it academically. But I am convinced that CC did help.

The question is not whether CC helped the poor and needy in the past, whether it contributED to the civilizations etc but what CC is doing NOW ? How do we know of it’s charitable actions ?

My intentions are clear. I want to know about the sources that lists ,details or inform about the scale of activities of activities towards the poor and the needy by catholic church. The reason it is not easy to find them from our conventional methods of finding information.

Joe
 
LittleSoldier said:
This is interesting to me because I was involved in a thread on facebook and within all the anti-Catholic gibberish someone said that the Catholic Church lets people die of AIDS and that she also lets 35,000 people die each day from hunger.

Of course this is ridiculous and so I started googling to find out what the Church really does for hungry people, for people who are affected by tragedies, etc. I’ve been told that with all her programs, the Church is actually the largest charitable organization in the world. I don’t doubt this is true, but I haven’t had much luck in finding out exactly what she does.

There have been a couple of threads on CAF about this very subject and I checked them out and found a link. It allegedly provided detailed info about the Church’s efforts.

Unfortunately it was an old thread and the link no longer worked. My search so far has been unsuccessful. Not that it was a complete loss as I made two friends who agreed with what I had posted and that is always nice.

I think the best way to find out is to google actual disasters and see what pops up. I know there is an organization called “Catholic Relief Services.” I know that the Church is involved with Food Share, although that is a community effort and in my town all the churches (and stores and other companies and organizations) are involved.

I didn’t continue my search because on facebook threads are born and die within a few days. My search was cursory at best. I did post that the Church was the largest charitable organization in the world, but to be honest, I had nothing to back me up. I also stated that the Church is not responsible for anyone dying from AIDS or hunger. These are universal problems and everyone is responsible for doing what they can to solve them. I was amazed that the Church is attacked for “sticking her nose into non-Catholics’ business and telling them how they should live” and also attacked for “not becoming involved in areas where people are suffering and by doing so, letting innocent people die.”

Catholics are hated. If the pope makes a speech, he is being a hypocrite. Or else he is behind the times. Or else he isn’t sticking to the tradition of the Church. We can’t win when it comes to our reputation and I don’t think we will win until the second coming.

I have some time now and I think if we both use search engines maybe we can find something. I really wish that link was still active. I’ll do my best to help.

I pray that God helps us on our journey.
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Thank you Littlesoldier,

You understood me correctly. I am interested in knowing how in real time my community is practicing what it preaches. I will also do some digging , but I have a very little free times these days.It will be a slow process.

Joe
 
Undoubtedly in the past the Catholic Church has been in the forefront to alleviate pain and suffering. With recent scandals, however, we are reminded that Catholic money has also been used by some organizations to aid in political goals absolutely contra to church moral teaching. Google “Peace and Development and Abortion” or “Catholic Charities and Abortion,” or “Canadian Catholic Relief Services and Abortion” to get just a hint of what’s been happening over the past few years. Do we dare mention again, that $1.3 million was given to a criminal political organization (Acorn?) Also go the the grantees list of the USCCB’s arm to fight the root causes of poverty (the CCHD,) and you will note many of these groups do not directly help the poor, but are deeply committed in lobbying Congress for same sex marriage, women’s reproductive “rights” (code for contraception for the poor) and other dubious pursuits, most normally under the banner of “social justice.”

Unfortunately it appears that our charitable works of mercy have some times joined hands with Foundations such as the Warren Buffet and Bill Gates anti-life movement and even big business such as Planned Parenthood. Sorry, but it’s important to know the truth and which groups are really helping those in distress.
 
first for those who fear money donated to Catholic charities or other social service arms is going to settle abuse claims

that is the reason Catholic Charities national and at the diocesan level are incorporated separately, as are hospitals and other agencies, so that their assets cannot be targeted in lawsuits.

Also, this is the USA so I can’t speak to India, Africa or other countries. My advice is if you want information about how the Catholic Church operates in your own country, contact the office of the nearest Catholic diocese and ask. go the website and browse. Bear in mind also that in any country where Catholics are in a minority, that is mission territory and several Catholic religious orders may be laboring there, independent of local bishops. Mother Teresa’s Sisters of Charity are of course the most widely known, and incidentally one of the strongest and fastest growing orders in the world.

CFCA is one organization active in India, Christian Foundation on Children and Aging, one of the CAtholic child-sponsorship organizations. WE sponsored a child for years in India throug CFCA who is now in university. They have hundreds of projects in India.

Most of the agencies do not advertise, which is why you don’t hear much about them. World Vision and some other widely known charity and relief organizations have huge advertising and fundraising budgets, which makes them famous and visible, but also makes for huge administrative overhead that cuts way, way down on how much donation money actually goes to help those in need.
 
puzzleannie said:
two problems with this
one, what is your definition, or the BBC’s of “distress”
the worst distress is sin and the Catholic Church was founded by Jesus Christ to save us from our personal sin, from the effects of all sin, and to restore the world to the sinless state our first parents enjoyed. There is no other distress that equates to the distress of sin. The next level of true distress is that of ignorance of the gospel, and the Church exists to spread the good news and does so, and has done for 2000 years, through the work of her missionaries throughout the world.

If you mean material distress, do you mean health-physical or mental, chronic or acute problems, disaster relief, counselling, crisis pregnancy? What do you mean by “distress?”. The larger society exists and should have provisions in face to deal with the common run of human problems. Yes the Catholic Church has in place in all countries means to address the needs of her own members, and those who are not served by the larger society. They have different names and different purposes. But that is not the number one purpose the Church was founded. We see in the Acts of the Apostles that caring for widows and orphans ie those in material need, was a priority in the early Church, to the extent that the office of deacon was instituted to fill that role. And so it has been for 2000 years, that is part of the Church’s mission.

Today in various places Catholic institutions-schools, hospitals, nursing homes and the like exist to meet those needs. Catholic Social Services is the umbrella organization in most Catholic dioceses to offer or give referrals to trusted sources for services that come under that category. Catholic Charities deals more with meeting material needs that are unmet or under provided to certain classes by the larger society, either as ongoing efforts to raise people out of poverty or for crisis situations. That is food, housing, and those types of physical needs.

Catholic Relief Services is a world-wide organization that provides both disaster relief–in areas where it is allowed by governments to operate–in times of war, famine, natural disaster etc. They also support longer term projects to ameliorate and resolve the underlying causes of distress through support of missionas and other initiatives. Like the UN, Red Cross and other secular relief organizations they can operate only where the local governments invite and allow them, and will withdraw if their personnel come under attack or if their work makes their clients a target for attack (the case in the Sudan at some times and places, for instance.

I still don’t know what particular issue was raised by the BBC, or what your own question really is. care to elaborate?

Is the Church a force for good? Her mission and purpose is to make Christ present in the world first through her sacramental and liturgical life, as He intended, through preaching the gospel, as He ordered, and through actual performance and promotion through her leadership and membership of the spiritual and corporal works of mercy, as he told us is the standard by which we as individuals and as nations will be judged at the end of time.

Just one example, the Catholic Church through her various agencies, missions and outreaches is the largest single provider of services to AIDS victims and their families worldwide, and virtually the only agency to be honest about the causes and remedies of this epidemic.
Click to expand...
Hi,

I couldn’t agree more … Especially with the first paragraph. How wonderful it is that church spread the Gospel Message through her works.

About distress, I purely meant the physical distress, caused by famine, floods, wars, economic crisis, victims of social injustice etc. I am not here to criticize the Church, I was just wondering how would I defend the Church if at all I have to using facts and figures. It may be irrelevant for many catholics to get the details with numbers. I also admit it is IMPOSSIBLE to measure the charitable efforts of CC.

“I still don’t know what particular issue was raised by the BBC, or what your own question really is. care to elaborate?”

Issues raised by BBC was quite absurd. It was a completely biased debate. You can always look it up on youtube.

I wasn’t asking any question. I was just asking people to help me understand the act of charity that CC exercise in today’s physically distressed world. Was hoping someone would come and say “according to the report xxxxxxxx 10000 people works in Africa helping the AIDS victims or CC spent x amount of money Last year for building hospitals or school or houses in Haiti” etc rather than just saying that the CC is the world biggest charitable organization without putting any reference.
And please don’t get me wrong. I am not trying to say Church is not doing an extraordinary job. I believe in the statement that CC is the biggest charitable organization both spiritually and materially. But my conviction is not based on facts that I know but I a conviction developed through the trust in CC.I will still continue to have trust in CC even if I don’t have any data or facts substantiated by data.

However your post was truly insightful.
Joe
 
Corki said:
Here are just a few of the current operations of the Church regarding helping those “people in distress”.

Caritas is the Vatican’s charity arm. More about them here:

caritas.org/

Here’s their 2009 annual report

caritas.org/upload/ar-/ar-eng-lo-res.pdf

In the US, **Catholic Charities **is the centralized organization. They are the funnel for money raised in the diocese of the US but do not focus just on the US in terms of charity work. For example, they were the first charity on the ground in Haiti. Why? Because they have already been working in Haiti serving the sick and poor there for 50 years. They didn’t have to “go to Haiti”; they just mobilized their people and resources already there.

More here:

catholiccharitiesusa.org/NetCommunity/

One of the most facinating, IMO, are the Knights and Dames of Malta. They are an organization that traces its history from 1048. During the Crusades, they provided military protection to the poor and sick. Now they operate charities and schools around the world. While the two charities above are primarily run “by the Church”, the Order of Malta includes many of the world’s wealthiest Catholics who give generously of their own time and fortunes to fund the order’s work.

More here:

orderofmalta.org/?lang=en

orderofmalta.org/?lang=en
Click to expand...
Hi,

Wonderful, Thank you for posting the links especially of caritas. It was an eye opener. This is exactly what i was keen to know. Some information on organization purely catholic that works across the globe for Catholic church. I am sure there are many many more that are making huge impacts around the world.
Joe
 
Catholic Relief Services is the official international humanitarian agency of the Catholic church in the US. I’m sure they have some more info on their website if you dig around a bit more, but just quickly I found a brief summary of some of the things they have done in the past year here.

I think part of your problem in finding a concise list of what the Church does is there are just so many Catholic agencies that are all separate entities so combining all that they do into one report to see what the Catholic Church is doing would be a rather complicated task.

And that doesn’t even include what individual parishes are doing. You mentioned Haiti, and I don’t know specifics about what happened after the hurricane, but I do know that the Church was most certainly already active there. I know a small town up on the northern tip has a hospital and a school and churches and clean water and food for the kids and a women’s center because my parish supports a lay missionary there and helps supply these things. So not only are the big organizations doing things, so are local parishes.
 
KarenElissa said:
Catholic Relief Services is the official international humanitarian agency of the Catholic church in the US. I’m sure they have some more info on their website if you dig around a bit more, but just quickly I found a brief summary of some of the things they have done in the past year here.

I think part of your problem in finding a concise list of what the Church does is there are just so many Catholic agencies that are all separate entities so combining all that they do into one report to see what the Catholic Church is doing would be a rather complicated task.

And that doesn’t even include what individual parishes are doing. You mentioned Haiti, and I don’t know specifics about what happened after the hurricane, but I do know that the Church was most certainly already active there. I know a small town up on the northern tip has a hospital and a school and churches and clean water and food for the kids and a women’s center because my parish supports a lay missionary there and helps supply these things. So not only are the big organizations doing things, so are local parishes.
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oops. CRS is who I had in mind when I wrote about Haiti.
 
I saw that debate. It was on “Intelligence Squared” and featured Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry against Archbishop Onaiyekan of Nigeria and Anne Widdecombe.

The debate really wasn’t fair: Hitchens and Fry are skilled speakers and entertainers who know how to “work a crowd”. The good Archbishop did not have full command of the English language and Ms. Widdecombe, while energetic, is a lay person and had an irritating manner of speech. Basically, it was a trap and the Archbishop and Widdecombe took the bait.

None of the proceedings should cause one to believe that The Catholic Church is NOT a force for good. Hitchens and Fry had their list of typical “church evils” (I’m not denying the evil or sins) from 2000 years of history and had fun entertaining the audience with that list. The Archbishop wasn’t skillful at speaking English and didn’t really debate as such and Ms. Widdecombe’s manner was so irritating that it just about made no difference what she said as far as the audience was concerned.

In the end, The Deceived audience was Deceived by Deceivers while the Truth was left behind mocked and laughed at. The BBC should be ashamed for making such a presentation. It was a tremendous disservice to the public and nothing intelligent was really discussed.

Perhaps the debate should have been: “Is secular society a force for Evil in the world?”. Hitchens and Fry might not be so adept at denying that.
 
If you want to know what your local churches are doing all you have to do is go to the diocesan website.

Here is the Catholic charities description in my diocese.
Catholic Charities
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Serves as the operating agency of the diocese’s community service and human development programs including - marriage and family counseling, Psychotherapy, adoption services, emergency services, services to unwed mothers; intensive counseling to youth; parent aid services; residential facilities; nutrition programs; youth recreational activities; summer camps; child abuse services and volunteer services.
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This is completely separate from the Cathedral Emergency Service, which runs a food pantry, gives furniture and clothing, serve coffee and donuts to the homeless every morning, and each Wednesday serve a nutritional breakfast to the homeless, plus run a health clinic for the poor.

I think the reason you are having trouble is because Catholic services are so decentralized. You have individual parishes, dioceses, Bishops conferences, the Vatican, and Catholic aid organizations (like Catholic Charities and Catholic relief services) giving help to those who need it. This doesn’t even include schools, hospitals and other Catholic institutions helping out those in need. Nor does this mention the money from donations that goes to established charities not run by Catholics.
 
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