Catholic charity is not mere social work, Vatican dicastery warns

Vatican City, Nov 15, 2009 / (CNA).-

The Pontifical Council Cor Unum, the Vatican dicastery responsible for coordinating Catholic charitable organizations around the world, issued a statement on Saturday recalling that Catholic Christian charity is not merely social work, and that workers in Catholic organizations need to be renewed in their faith.

At the end of its 28th Plenary Assembly, held at the Vatican on November 12-14, the President of Cor Unum, Cardinal Paul Joseph Cordes, said that “two key guidelines have emerged from those responsible of the Church's charitable activity: first, that the ultimate goal of our work is to bear Christian witness by means of helping the poorest, but to witness Christ means to first have encountered him.”

Second, “to evangelize requires first to be constantly educated, otherwise, along the work of charity operators, there is the risk of assuming the priorities established by other international organizations alien to the Church, The Church cannot silence its own foundation in Faith,” the statement ads.

On Friday Nov. 13, upon receiving the members of Cor Unum, Pope Benedict XVI highlighted that “Faith is a spiritual force that purifies reason in the search for a just order, freeing it from the risk of being confused by selfishness, interest and power.”

On Saturday Cardinal Cordes said that Pope Benedict XVI's encyclical Deus Caritas Est "set the agenda" of Cor Unum's future.

"The dicastery will continue to promote, in the varied world of charity and volunteering, the constructive witness of Christian individuals and communities," he explained.