Within recent years there has risen, understandably, a feeling that because of increased governmental assumption of responsibility for the unfortunate and afflicted, the need for the voluntary welfare agency has diminished. On the contrary, the historic role of private social services must be strengthened lest the quality of love be taken out of the means and hearts of people and it becomes only a cold function of bureaucracy.

Today, more than ever before, the quality of love must be emphasized,. The massive social problems of our times call for a persona to person responsibility that can never be delegated to government. Only the pooling of all available resources, church, government, individual, public and private-is capable of fully achieving the aims of modern society. It is the especial role of the Department of Catholic Social Services and its divisions to help provide the humanizing cushion between the distressing human problems of life and the sometimes cold and often inhuman legislated programs designed to help to alleviate their needs.

The Department of Catholic Social Services, which is located at 329 Ivy Street, N.E., was founded on December 8, 1966. As the central coordinating body for the network of charitable activities in the archdiocese, it bears the responsibility for the administration, planning, development, and unification of its divisions. The priest secretary directly responsible to the Archdiocesan Board of Catholic Social Services, a group of elected members chosen from the parishes of the archdiocese. Father James F. Scherer is the priest-secretary and Mr. John A. Ferguson is the chairman of the board. The board reviews the incidence of need as it now exists for the purpose of planning changes and future expansion of services and facilities.

Moreover, the department represents its division before government and assists them in meeting their operating expenses and initiating needed new programs.

Recognizing that the department, through its divisions, must embrace every phase of human life that has been the quality of love must be marred by conflict, poverty, penury, illness, and other human trials, it has under its scope the following-Catholic Family Services of Atlanta, Inc. The Division of Resettlement, the Central Office of the Saint Vincent de Paul Society, the Village of Saint Joseph, the Office of Urban and Rural Concern, The Agency For Exceptional Children, and The Franciscan Sisters Project. Each of these divisions will be discussed separately in this series of articles.

There are no instant cures for today’s difficult social problems. The first step is to care. To care enough, in the words of Pope Paul VI, to build “a world where every man, no matter what his race, religion or nationality, can live a fully human life, freed from servitude imposed on him by other men or by natural forces over which he has not sufficient control.”

The business of helping people in our day is so gigantic that it entails working with other people of all walks of life, of varying creeds and races, toward a common goal-the solution of community problems on a community level.

The department represents the archdiocese and its people to many other agencies and institutions in our great city of Atlanta.

The department attempts to be a people to people organization. People and their problems are the reason for its being and it is on people-the people of our archdiocese-that we depend for the means to carry out our mission.