In
February, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state, confirmed
that the Vatican had declined to approve a second term for Lesley-Anne Knight,
the secretary-general of Caritas International. That announcement triggered
several weeks of maneuvering that ended with a decisive statement by the
Vatican of its determination to promote a more distinctively Catholic identity
for the international consortium of relief agencies.
Caritas
International officials had reportedly lobbied quietly, behind the scenes, to
reverse the Vatican’s decision and gain another four-year term for Knight—to no
avail. Knight herself told the National
Catholic Register that she had been caught completely off guard by the
Vatican’s decision, having heard no criticism of her leadership from Rome, and
having had only “minimal contact” with the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, the
Vatican office with responsibility for supervising Caritas International.
Knight
added that the drive for an evangelical Catholic presence in relief work could
pose problems for international partnerships. “If you’re Caritas-Japan, what
does Catholic identity in Japan mean?” she asked. “It may not be the same for
Caritas in Spain.” Any attempt to make uniform policies, she warned, would run
the risk of leaving local affiliates “disillusioned.”
Although
Vatican officials did not offer any public explanation for seeking a change in
leadership, it was clear that Rome had grown “disillusioned” with Knight—and to
a large extent, with the international organization she led. The Holy See had
granted a formal charter to Caritas International; in exchange the Church
leadership wanted assurances that the organization would be something more than
just another humanitarian agency. The Vatican wanted a change.
The Vatican agenda
Against
that background, the delegates of Caritas International gathered in Rome in May
for their general assembly, to elect a new leadership team and to discuss new
statutes for their organization.
Even
before the meeting began, the Vatican had demonstrated its determination to
exercise greater influence over the organization by seizing control of the
agenda. Father Timothy Radcliffe, the former worldwide leader of the Dominican
religious order, had been scheduled to deliver the keynote speech as the
meeting opened. He was dropped from the program and replaced by Father Raniero
Cantalamessa, OFM Cap, the preacher of the pontifical household.
At a
Mass opening the general assembly, Cardinal Bertone told the general assembly
of Caritas International that the Church’s relief and development agencies must
have a lively Christian identity. “The Church’s charitable activity, like that
of Christ, could never be limited to assisting people’s material needs, however
urgent and immediate those needs might be,” he said in his homily. “A
humanitarian assistance which would habitually prescind from its Christian
identity, adapting a ‘neutral’ approach seeking to please everyone, would risk,
even in cases where it obtained its immediate goals, failing to offer men and
women a fine service consonant with their full dignity.”
Relief
efforts based on the “neutral” approach, Cardinal Bertone continued, could
“eventually foster in those whom they assist a materialistic mentality which
the latter would then bring to other relationships and to their approach to
social issues.” With that sentence the secretary of state came as close as any
Roman official would come to a clear explanation of the Vatican’s
dissatisfaction with Knight. Under her guidance, Caritas International had
frequently collaborated with other relief agencies that would be found in
opposition to the Church on controversial issues such as the distribution of
condoms, the legalization of abortion, or the promotion of contraception. Such
partnerships worried the Vatican.
In
contrast to the “neutral” approach, Cardinal Bertone proposed an unabashedly
evangelical attitude toward charitable work—an approach guided by the desire to
spread the Gospel as well as to provide for material needs. “In a word,” he
said, “the Church must not only practice charity, but practice it as Christ
did.”
In his
address to the opening session, Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodríguez Maradiaga—who
would be re-elected as president of Caritas International during the
assembly—offered a defense of the outgoing leadership:
"We all would have loved to continue our journey with the
current secretary-general, Mrs. Lesley-Anne Knight, whose professionalism, deep
faith, and commitment to Caritas is known and appreciated within the Church and
outside in the humanitarian and development community. In only four years she
has put in place and led an international team of highly skilled and committed
people who serve our confederation in the fields of humanitarian aid and
advocacy. Lesley-Anne has invested her vision, personal energy, and faith into
our work."
"Lesley-Anne will not be with us for the next mandate. The
way she was not allowed to stand as a candidate to be appraised by the incoming
Executive Committee has caused grievance in our confederation, above all within
the many women working for Caritas across the world. They have seen much hope
in her election and achievements. We will not lose Lesley-Anne as a vibrant
Christian and a strong believer. We will lose her as our next general-secretary.
But what she achieved must go on. We need more than ever before a strong
Secretariat and a strong leader. The dialogue with the Holy See about our
common future and way of being Church must also continue."
With
that mild protest duly noted on the record, the assembly then heard two other
Vatican officials explain how Caritas should operate.
The
president of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum said that Caritas International
must be an expression of the charitable mission of the Church, and not an
organization that exists alongside the Church. New juridical norms for the
organization, Cardinal Robert Sarah told the Caritas general assembly, would
ensure that the consortium of bishops’ relief and development agencies will
“remain essentially and structurally an instrument of the charity of the
Church.”
I
believe it is important to understand that our charitable organizations are
located within the Church and not alongside her,” said the Guinea-born
cardinal. “A Caritas that wasn’t an ecclesial expression would have no meaning
or existence.”
All
charitable work should be “guided by the principle of the integral development
of the human person,” Cardinal Sarah added. “Therefore, it is not merely
philanthropic and humanitarian assistance aimed at relieving a certain kind of
distress, but also and above all it entails giving back to human persons all
their dignity as children of God, and promoting an anthropology that also
encompasses the religious dimension of human persons, namely their encounter
with God.”
Cardinal
Peter Kodwo Turkson, the president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and
Peace, followed up with a plea to the delegates to recognize their role in the
Church’s work of evangelization. “In testimony to Christ’s charity, through
works of relief and development, Caritas is part and parcel of evangelization,”
the cardinal from Ghana said. Acknowledging that some critics view Catholic
relief efforts as pretexts for encouraging conversions, Cardinal Turkson said
that Caritas International should avoid two opposite extremes: “one, an abuse
of the gratuitous charity we are called to offer; the other, an excessive
caution about proselytism which would block legitimate and necessary
evangelization.”
“We
should not draw a fictitious distinction between ‘professionalism’ and
evangelization,” the cardinal continued. Referring back to the talk by Cardinal
Sarah, he drove home the Vatican’s message for the Caritas meeting, saying that
“the task before us is to re-establish the link between evangelization and
charity.”
A new leader
With
those multiple messages from Vatican officials ringing in their ears, the
Caritas delegates elected Michel Roy, the director of a French charity, as the
organization’s new secretary-general.
In an
interview with Vatican Radio, Roy, who had worked with Secours Catholique,
outlined four priorities for his work:
• “reinforcement of the humanitarian
response of the Caritas network to the victims of man-made or natural
disasters”;
• “the promotion and coordination of
the integral human development work which is the base of all Caritas
organizations”;
• “advocacy for a better and
more just world”;
• improved “coordination, access,
and communication among the members.”
Conspicuously
missing from Roy’s list of priorities was any expression of determination to
strengthen the Catholic identity of the relief effort. He had, after all, been
elected by the delegates who represented the incumbent leadership of the
organization.
The Pope’s message
Still,
when the Caritas delegates left Rome, they could have had no lingering doubts
about the Vatican’s commitment to change in their organizational approach. On
May 27 that message was underlined by Pope Benedict XVI, who reminded them that
Caritas “differs from other social agencies in that it is ecclesial; it shares
in the mission of the Church.”
As the
international aid consortium of Catholic relief agencies celebrates its 60th
anniversary, Pope Benedict pointed to two key moments in the history of Caritas
International. The first was its founding by Pope Pius XII in the aftermath of
World War II “to demonstrate the solidarity and concern of the entire Church in
the face of so many situations of conflict and emergency in the world.” The
second was the decision by Pope John Paul II to give the agency official
canonical status. At that time, the Pontiff observed, Caritas “took on a
particular role in the heart of the ecclesial community.”
Because
of the group’s special status, the Pope continued, “the Holy See is also
responsible for following its activity and exercising oversight.” During this
year’s Caritas assembly, the Vatican made a determined effort to sharpen that
oversight, and especially to ensure that Caritas International preserves its
distinctive Catholic identity.
Pope
Benedict spoke at some length about that identity during his address to the
Caritas delegates. He reminded them that Christian charity is not merely
benevolent work, but also a form of evangelization and a service to God’s people.
“Without a transcendent foundation, without a reference to God the Creator,
without an appreciation of our eternal destiny, we risk falling prey to harmful
ideologies,” he said.
The Pope also reminded the delegates that Caritas is “an organization
charged with fostering communion between the universal Church and the
particular churches, as well as communion between all the faithful in the
exercise of charity.” He encouraged them to work “in close collaboration with
the Church’s pastors” in all their relief efforts.