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Pope puts charity at center of church life, USCCB official says
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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- With his encyclical "Caritas in Veritate" ("Charity in Truth"), Pope Benedict XVI "placed charity at the very center of church life, and defines charity in the most challenging, demanding way," said John Carr, executive director of the U.S. bishops' Department of Justice, Peace and Human Development. Speaking Feb. 8 at the annual Catholic Social Ministry Gathering in Washington, Carr said Pope Benedict made justice "inseparable from charity and intrinsic to it." The pope's encyclical underscores the importance of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, Carr said in his talk, "Speaking 'Charity in Truth' to Power." "CCHD is about the institutional path of charity -- empowering people so they can speak for themselves." CCHD is the U.S. bishops' domestic anti-poverty agency. He said, "We need to recommit to CCHD because its work is more important than ever." Carr pointed to a year full of unexpected political developments since the last Catholic Social Ministry Gathering, one of them being the phenomenon of pro-life Democrats, whom he said are viewed as suspect by both other Democrats and other pro-lifers. Yet "they made the difference ... in passing the health care bill" in the House, Carr said. Health care absorbs a lot of the public's interest and the bishops' as well, he added. Carr noted other items on the bishops' legislative agenda, including putting the needs of the poor first; fixing the U.S. immigration system; addressing long-term recovery in Haiti and "the poorest places in the world"; working toward a responsible transition in Afghanistan; and reforming and strengthening foreign development assistance to promote a better and safer world.
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