Father Larry Snyner
“Why does Catholic Charities do what it does? Well, we don’t have a choice.”
That was the bottom line for Father Larry Snyder, president of Catholic Charities USA, in the opening talk Feb. 19 at the charitable agency’s “Partners in Excellence” conference at the Catholic Charities Hawaii campus in Honolulu.
Father Snyder explained his conclusion with a review of Scripture, a walk through the history of the Catholic Church in America, quotes from popes and bishops, and an assessment of the fight against poverty in the United States.
He traced the biblical underpinnings of Catholic charitable work back to Genesis’ account of creation and the Mosaic Law, through the New Testament and the teachings of Jesus.
Father Snyder said that God’s declaration in Genesis that he made human beings “in my own image and likeness” is “foundational and fundamental” to Catholic charitable work.
“If the image of our God lies deep within each human being, then every human being is worthy of dignity and respect,” he said. “That influences the work we do every day.”
Father Snyder said the Old Testament’s imperative to care for “widow, orphan and the stranger among us” is translated today as a “preferential option for the poor.”
The poorest are special to God, he said. “The greater the need, the greater the claim they have on God’s love.”
Charity’s mandate culminates in Jesus’ uncompromising message, Father Snyder said, that “if you don’t love your neighbor, then you don’t really love your God.”
Jesus’ description of the Last Judgment and his washing of the Apostles’ feet make his central point, he said. “You will find that at the heart of the Gospel is a command, a mandate of service, especially to those in need.”
Father Snyder traced the charitable labors of the Catholic Church in America back to 1727 and the arrival of 12 French Ursuline Sisters in New Orleans who came to establish Catholic schools for Catholic children.
Encountering much greater needs, the sisters also opened an orphanage and a hospital, and reached out to women driven to prostitution.
The Ursulines’ example was replicated over the years and across the country as the Catholic Church, then primarily a community of immigrants, identified itself with the poor, Father Snyder said.
He quoted the U.S. bishops of 1866 who wrote, “it is a very melancholy fact and a very humiliating avowal for us to make that a very large portion of the vicious and idle youth of our cities are the children of Catholic parents.”
“We were a church of the poor because the immigrants were poor,” Father Snyder said.
While the descendents of European immigrant Catholics are no longer poor, Father Snyder said, a new group of immigrants, 12 million of whom are undocumented, is primarily Hispanic and Catholic.
“We have a very similar situation to what was going on back then,” he said.
Father Snyder quoted Pope Benedict’s first encyclical, “Deus Caritas Est” to describe “what Catholic charitable organizations should do and what they should look like.”
“Employees of Catholic charitable organizations must have professional training and development to ensure that the poor, or those in need who turn to us, are going to receive the best possible service they can, because they deserve it,” he said.
“But just as important, if not more important,” Father Snyder said, “is that those people need a formation of the heart, because that goes much more to the crux of why we do this and how we do the work that we do.
Father Snyder said the so-called “safety net,” the mix of public assistance that keeps the poor from hitting bottom, only perpetuates poverty.
“Our goals should be better,” he said. He called for a “bridge” or a “trampoline.”
“Anything but a net,” he said.
“If our goal is to give people an opportunity to thrive, then we are going to do things very differently,” he said.
Father Snyder said that Catholic Charities USA has concluded through recent listening sessions that there are “three things” that will help lessen poverty in America: changing the social services delivery system, engaging the business world, and relying on proven results.
He said poverty should not be approached by categorizing poor people by their “deficits” but by looking at their “assets, and build on that.”
He said that anti-poverty efforts should tap into the “good will” of the for-profit business world whose products and “tremendous” resources in research and development could go a long way in helping people who are poor.
Father Snyder also said that charitable organizations should switch from measuring success by “outputs” — for example, how many food baskets were distributed — to “outcomes,” how has the nutrition of families improved.
“This is a change of attitude mentality for us,” he said. “We have to be able to look at what works, what doesn’t work and if it is not working, change it or move on.”
Father Snyder said that Catholic Charities Hawaii is one of six national “poverty labs,” a project of the University of Notre Dame studying the effectiveness of charitable agencies.
