This is the centennial year for Catholic Charities USA, an anniversary particularly special to Catholic Social Services of Montana.

CSSM is a member of Catholic Charities and consults it for professional advice and information about sources of funding.

“You can’t go anywhere else and find this kind of support,” said Rosemary Miller, CSSM executive director. “It really helps to be able to come together and share our expertise with one another.”

Catholic Charities USA’s 100th anniversary culminates on Sept. 25-28 in Washington, D.C., with a schedule that includes liturgy at the Basilica of the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, a leadership conference and talks by a number of Catholic leaders. Among them are Cardinal Josef Cordes, president of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, which is responsible for expressing care of the Church toward people in need; Archbishop Francis George, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops; New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan; and Father Larry Snyder, president of Catholic Charities USA.

Father Snyder is scheduled to speak at Carroll College in Helena on Nov. 10, during the Catholic Social Justice Summit. He plans to share information about Catholic Charities USA programs intended to help address poverty in the United States. The final day of the centennial celebration in Washington will have Catholic Charities representatives visiting Capitol Hill to announce anti-poverty legislation.

Miller said that over the years, CSSM has benefitted from both the policy work and the direct services undertaken by Catholic Charities.

“Catholic Charities does not walk away,” Father Snyder wrote in the summer issue of the organization’s magazine. “For 100 years, we have not walked away, and as we move forward into a new century, we will not walk away from the poor, but will continue to walk with them.”

He has said he hopes Catholic Charities USA never reaches its 200th anniversary. If there’s no celebration marking the second century of the Church’s nationwide charitable network, that would mean the agency achieved its goal of eradicating poverty in the United States, he said.


Published in The Montana Catholic Online, Volume 26, No. 9, September 17, 2010.