Annual Gathering 2012 Opening Address by Rev.

Larry Snyder
Good morning! I am delighted to welcome you to the 2012 Annual Gathering of Catholic Charities USA. This promises to be a meeting filled with thought-provoking discussion, professional development, urgent problem solving, important networking and, of course, some serious welldeserved fun. My friends, we gather every year in the spirit of a common mission to improve the lives of every one of the millions of Americans that we serve. You bring their stories with you here today. You carry their faces in your hearts. And as you do so often, you will be their voice to this assembly as we gather on their behalf. How appropriate that we began this morning by asking Gods blessing on our time together, since all that we do is rooted in our faith and the deeply held conviction that the work we engage in every day is sacred. Sacred because in that work, we become the hands of Christ, reaching out to those who in our time are experiencing overwhelming need and often have nowhere else to go. The critical services that you provide are the bridges of hope and opportunity that help the dreams of those most in need become reality. So let us find renewal and recommitment to this awesome and vital work in our time together here. Individually, we are workers in the human services field, but more importantly we are people of faith reaching out to our brothers and sisters with respect and dignity. At this gathering we unite as a community and find strength and inspiration in our shared dedication to eradicating the challenges facing those we serve. As we come together, I want to recognize some special guests. Cardinal Robert Sarah from the Pontifical Council Cor Unum at the Vatican is with us. You will find that Cardinal Sarah is a man of great faith, of great compassion for the poor, and of genuine humility. Cardinal Sarah, you honor us with your presence and we are grateful for the spiritual leadership that you give not only to Catholic Charities throughout the United States, but also to Caritas organizations and all Catholic charitable organizations throughout the world. We welcome you and look forward to your inspiring words tomorrow morning. I want to thank Archbishop Robert Carlson, the Archbishop of St. Louis, for his kind invitation to serve as the host diocese for our gathering. The hospitality that we have received is outstanding.

Annual Gathering 2012 Opening Address by Rev. Larry Snyder

Would you all agree? I also want to thank Brian OMalley and the Board and staff of Catholic Charities of St. Louis for inviting us here to help celebrate their centennial year. Tonights gala will be a tribute to the incredible contribution they have made to this community and to the Catholic Charities movement over the last one hundred years and we look forward to celebrating with them. Just as we celebrate the longevity of our agencies, we celebrate the dynamic nature of our leadership. Within our network we have many new leaders in our local agencies. So I would like to welcome those who have become Diocesan Directors over the past year. It is your creativity, experience and talent that lead our local agencies to so aptly serve the tens of millions of children and families in communities across the country. Please stand and be recognized. There are also well-known members of the Catholic Charities movement who passed on to their eternal reward since we last gathered. I would like to remember especially Steve Saldana who led Catholic Charities in San Antonio for some fifteen years with passion and dedication, touching the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in need. Steve had a passion for services to military families in the San Antonio area and he was a pioneer in developing comprehensive services to the service men and women and their families who give so much on our behalf. We thank Almighty God for the great gift Steve was to our network. Please join me in praying: Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him We recently had our first glimpse of our Annual Survey that quantifies and aggregates the work of all our member agencies last year. Together we provided some $4.8 billion in services with over 65,000 paid staff and some 300,000 volunteers. But as we look at the numbers of people served from last year we see that, like the rest of our country, our agencies continue to be impacted by the economic crisis that began in earnest in 2008. The latest Census Bureau data shows that over 46 million Americans are still living below the federal poverty line, showing that the historic rates of poverty throughout the nation show little sign of decreasing. Once again last year the Catholic Charities network served over ten million of the people in those poverty numbers. We should be proud of that number. That is roughly one in every four people living below the federal poverty line.

Annual Gathering 2012 Opening Address by Rev. Larry Snyder

Each person behind that number has a name, and each of those names found the life preserver they needed in the services provided at our agencies. But while we stand proud in our ability to answer that call, that number should also give us great pause. That number signals loudly that we are headed in the wrong direction. Our goal and our desire is to reduce poverty. But a legitimate question that we must wrestle with is how we can accomplish that given the economic environment in which we operate and given the bureaucracy and social system in which we do this work. We cannot address poverty in 2012 without addressing this reality. We gather on the precipice of an election with a society more polarized than at any other time in our lives. The issue of poverty exists as a rare political talking point rather than as an issue for our leaders to truly struggle with. That polarization and politicization has immediate impact, if not dire consequences, on establishing both effective public policy and national moral obligations. Is caring for the poor made a priority in our society? What about making education and job training, both vital to achieving the American dream, accessible for all? Looking at the federal budget, the document our elected leaders use to signal our national priorities, you would have to answer no to every single one of these questions. With the gridlock in Washington making even the most obviously beneficial legislation almost impossible to enact, it is easy to place this blame of polarization squarely at their feet. But the truth is, this polarization is not confined to the political. As we look at the social service community, we see that we too are divided in how best to use our energy and resources to improve the lives of those in need. On the one hand, we form an important part of the vital safety net that provides basic services such as food, housing, health care, and job training to millions in need. These services are critical, and without them many people would have nowhere else to turn. We must work to preserve these services, as we will not abandon our commitment to those who seek our services. On the other hand, the safety net in which we operate is dependent upon a system that was designed over fifty years ago. What may have worked then isnt exactly on the cutting edge of innovation

Annual Gathering 2012 Opening Address by Rev. Larry Snyder

now. While the safety net is successful in helping people survive, it was never designed to actually get people out of poverty and enable them to thrive. But that is what our goal should be. Our goal should be reimagining our safety net as a ladder that helps people out of poverty. That requires redesigning systems and re-setting goals to measure not simply how many people have received a warm meal or given a place to sleep, but how many people were actually led on a path out of poverty. Unfortunately, that conversation has become polarized between these two camps of thought. I tell you today that it is essential that we have a foot in both camps. We must maintain our commitment to the urgent need we see around us every day, but we must be bold enough to imagine a future for those in need where they are afforded the opportunity to live with dignity through achieving sustainable self-reliance. Even as we are pushed to pick one side or the other, I am convinced that Catholic Charities can demonstrate for our peers that it is not only possible, but essential, to do both. Paul Martodam makes remarks of how Catholic Charities in Phoenix re-prioritized the agency. As part of our centennial year we held ten listening sessions, Poverty Summits, around the country, where we asked people to reflect on what is working locally and what needs to be fixed in the safety net. One fundamental need we heard echoed repeatedly was for a realistic measure of poverty in this country. How can we adequately address this issue if we are incapable of sharing an honest appraisal of the magnitude of the problem? Beyond that fundamental concern, we consistently heard feedback related to three core strategies that came to form the National Opportunity and Community Renewal Act legislation and continue to serve as the principles that govern our strategic goals in addressing poverty reduction. We heard voices across the country call for a strategy that is systems changing. We have already talked about the challenges of addressing poverty today with a system that was developed some fifty years ago. You would be hard pressed to find another industry still using a system today that had

Annual Gathering 2012 Opening Address by Rev. Larry Snyder

been designed in the 1960s. After all, the telecommunications industry has migrated pretty far from carbon paper. While we must be employing a strategy that is systems changing, we also heard across the country about the need to engage the corporate sector in a different way. We all depend upon the philanthropy of business and corporations in their support of the work we do. They underwrite our events, send teams of volunteers to do timely projects and give us grants to improve the quality of community life. This is vital engagement and we appreciate it, but that is not enough. Imagine if we could actually tap into the creativity and market development of the corporate world to strengthen our own work as a community. We have seen the development of B-corporations, or benefit corporations, such as Seventh Generation home products or Newmans Own. That kind of innovation isnt exclusive to private industry. Several of our agencies have earnestly pursued social innovation projects that have lifted their clients out of poverty and at the same time brought new revenue streams to their agency. Remarks on social innovation by Heather Reynolds of Catholic Charities of Ft Worth. Finally, particularly as we face starker economic realities at the federal and state levels, we heard many people emphasize the need for a system that is results oriented. Now, perhaps youre one of the few who love crunching numbers, but if youre like me, you couldnt wait to get through Statistics class in college. But when I speak with folks on Capitol Hill about the important work we are here to discuss today, Im often greeted with one question: Do I have data or a study that will back that up? And more often than not, I have to answer no. Without substantive, independent research, it is difficult to make the case for how effective and efficient our programs are, particularly in contrast to a system that is supported by a series of constituency groups invested in maintaining the status quo, never mind to identify exactly which components of our programs are the change makers. Remarks about the Laboratory for Economic Opportunity by Prof. Jim Sullivan.

Annual Gathering 2012 Opening Address by Rev. Larry Snyder

All of these observations have enabled us to develop important guidance as we wrestle with difficult questions related to social policy. But they lead us to a more important over-arching question. Where do we want to be in ten years as an organization? As a nation? Studies show that if the country simply continues doing what we are presently doing, the future will be grim for those living in poverty. The Economist magazine places the long-term projection of poverty in this country at 15.6%; others place it at around 14%. More disturbing still is a 22 to 26 percent projection for the rate of poverty for children. I refuse to accept that. That is not a reality that we can live with. We must have the courage to forge a different path. A path that will find the way out of poverty for millions. We have no choice. Look around the room. We have the experience, the expertise, the creativity, and most of all, the passion and moral calling to demand a better plan to serve the poor. This is not an easy path, and there will be those who say that it is futile. But to them I would say: can we do any less? Can you look into the eyes of the people you serve and tell them we cant do any better? The status quo is simply not acceptable. Even as we pursue this with a laser focus, we have to recognize that there are emerging issues that we must also address. In the coming months the national office will be championing service to veterans and military families. Many of our agencies are very engaged in serving this often overlooked population to whom we owe so much. We will create a forum in which those agencies can share their experiences and ideas and we will assist agencies new to this work in assessing the need in their own local communities, offering successful programs and ideas that can be put in place. All of this work builds to one ultimate goal: to reduce poverty by providing quality services to children and families in need. We strive to build healthy communities where all are able to realize their dreams. But above and beyond all of those goals is our goal of transformation. This goal is rooted in the Gospel mandate of building up the kingdom of God; of building a society and world based on the values inherent and explicit in our faith. We are not simply social workers. We are called to be the hands of Christ in our world today and we eagerly and with great conviction, answer that call in the work we do every day.

Annual Gathering 2012 Opening Address by Rev. Larry Snyder

When we greet those who come to our doors with dignity and respect no matter what their external appearance may be, we are simply doing our job. When we go the extra mile with someone who requires more assistance than the work day has hours, we are simply doing our job. And when we speak up when someone denigrates the economically challenged out of misunderstanding or fear, we are simply doing our job. My friends, you are doing a phenomenal job. You are changing our society for the better, one life at a time. I stand in awe at your commitment and compassion. As Archbishop Romero reminded us, we are only the workers. We may not always see the success of our efforts, but we are faithful to the sacred trust that has been given to us of serving our sisters and brothers. May God bless you every day for your efforts. And, may God who has begun this great work in us, bring it to fruition. Amen.