In 2008, only one U.S. Catholic in 10 knew about the international mission of Catholic Relief Services. The devastating earthquake in Haiti may change all that.

In an unprecedented outpouring of care and generosity, U.S. Catholics contributed nearly $40 million to the suffering people in Haiti. Nearly $300,000 came from the people of the Diocese of Helena. More importantly, CRS provided a conduit for ordinary Catholics in America to express prayerful solidarity with our brothers and sisters in their hour of need.

In Haiti, a nation where infrastructure and delivery systems were impaired or nonexistent before the earthquake, the tasks ahead will be daunting. Catholic Relief Services is no stranger to hardship.

CRS is the premier relief agency of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and a remarkable vehicle for U.S. Catholics to make a difference in the lives of the overseas poor.

CRS was founded in 1943 to assist World War II refugees fleeing war-torn Europe. Until the 1950s, the agency was known as War Relief Services.

During the past five decades the mission expanded into Africa, Asia and Latin America. Today, CRS is present across the globe, wherever human need is most pressing. CRS is recognized by peer agencies as a premier first responder in nations impacted by earthquakes, floods, typhoons, civil unrest and mass migration. The worldwide staff of 5,000 is extremely skilled in providing disaster relief, health care, resettlement, emergency housing and expertise in a wide array of other fields.

While the emergency-response efforts of CRS are now known more widely, the organization’s development programs are equally notable. CRS helps impoverished people become self-sufficient through programs in food security, agriculture, peace building, microfinance, education, health care and sanitation.

Various international organizations estimate that between 800 million and 1 billion persons lack adequate access to food. Thus, the fundamental human right of food security remains a key issue for CRS.

It facilitates food security through a twofold program, seeking to alleviate immediate hunger and to change conditions that lead to persistent hunger.

The first objective is met through emergency food distribution, primarily to victims of natural disasters and to refugees, and through safety-net programs for food distribution to vulnerable populations, including children, the elderly and the mentally ill.

The second objective involves medium- and long-term approaches. The medium-term approach advances agricultural development, microfinance and health programming to bolster food security. In the long term, CRS seeks to change conditions that lead to persistent hunger. Education, natural-resource management, peace building, advocacy and human rights work are pathways for this change.

Through agricultural efforts, CRS works to improve the immediate wellbeing of the poorest farming and rural communities in 34 countries across the world. Strengthening local agencies and their ability to guide development for the people they serve are the long-term goals.

CRS’ peace building work includes efforts to identify and address underlying causes of conflict, and emphasizes the power of dialogue and local decision making. The agency’s approaches range from proactive human rights education and microfinance programs, to providing peace education for children in refugee camps and helping to rebuild homes and economies in areas recovering from violence.

CRS’ microfinance activities are rooted in Catholic social teaching. The program serves the very poor, especially women and persons in remote rural communities, with particular emphasis on the self-employed poor who lack access to formal credit or savings services.

In striving to meet education needs, CRS has supported and implemented programs through which students receive meals at school. Helping to meet short- and long-term education, nutrition, and food security objectives has been the goal since 1958.

Recently, the agency has expanded its efforts to improve the quality of education, girls’ access to education, support for teachers, health/hygiene education and services for students. Also expanded were efforts to improve school infrastructure, and to increase parental and community involvement in schools.

CRS provides health care for vulnerable groups—especially those in underserved or unserved communities—through health facility infrastructure, health worker training, medical treatments and prevention work. Health programs focus on child survival, maternal and child health, improved sanitation, access to clean water and HIV-AIDS education. In response to the HIV-AIDS pandemic, CRS offers AIDS programs in 62 countries across Africa and regions of Asia and Latin America.

CRS is motivated by the deep and abiding conviction that every person is made in the image of God, a fact that gives every person inherent dignity and worth. CRS is an expert in humanity, and forms the hearts of its workers first and foremost in the school of the heart.

Pope Benedict, in his Encyclical Deus Caritas Est, captured in few words the essence of Catholic Relief Services as “the programme of Jesus—a heart which sees.” This heart sees where love is needed, and acts accordingly.

The mission of CRS is a grace-filled means for ordinary Catholics to love and live in solidarity with brothers and sisters in need. The people of CRS clearly embody a way of making present, here and now, the love described so compellingly by the Holy Father in Deus Caritas Est.

U.S. Catholics can be proud of the work of CRS, and can have confidence in supporting its mission and ministry.


For more information, please visit Catholic Relief Services’ website at www.crs.org.
Bishop George Leo Thomas serves on the Catholic Relief Services Board of Directors.


Published in The Montana Catholic, Vol. 26, No. 3, March 19, 2010.