Voices from CST Giants: Msgr. John Ryan on Charity

“The Place of Charity in Present Society”

Before the Reformation all charities were administered by the Church; today most of them are under the control of the State.  Nevertheless the field still open to Catholic charity is neither small nor likely to become smaller.  The limitations and defects of public charity are well known; it is almost inevitably more mechanical and less sympathetic than private charity; it is more wasteful, not only because it is less carefully administered, but also on account of the readiness of many persons to claim public relief as a right; and, inasmuch as it supplants appeals to the individual conscience by the imposition of a tax it inflicts a mortal injury upon the spontaneity of charity and the sense of personal responsibility towards the unfortunate.  The inferiority of state-administered charity, so far as outdoor relief is concerned, has received striking illustration in the achievements of Dr. Chalmers in Glasgow more than a half century ago, in the experiment of substituting voluntary for public relief in Whitechapel and Stepney, London, and in the policy of refusing public outdoor relief which prevails in Brooklyn and Philadelphia (cf. Bliss, Encyclopedia, s. v. Chalmers; Mackay, The State and Charity, pp. 164 sq; and Warner, American Charities, pp. 162-176). 

The general principles underlying the whole problem of state charity would seem to be these:  instead of assuring every person a living, the State ought so to regulate economic conditions that every person able to obtain a livelihood by labor should have that opportunity; that it should have charge of certain extreme forms of distress, such as a virulent disease and insanity; and that in general it should cooperate with voluntary charitable agencies, and stand ready to relieve all serious want which is not met by them.  At any rate, students and workers in the field of charity seem to be practically unanimous in the belief that the scope of private charity ought to be extended rather than restricted.  In this field Catholic charity should occupy the foremost place, and do by far the largest and most effective work.  The principles of Catholic charity, concerning the ownership and use of goods, the true equality and brotherhood of men, spontaneity in giving, and the motives for giving, are supremely great.  Especially is this true of the motives.  The neighbor ought to be assisted out of love of God.  As the highest form of this is to love God for His own sake, so the highest form of fraternal charity is that which is motived by the thought that the neighbor is the creature, the image, the child of God, and the brother of Christ.  Inasmuch as this motive points to a worth and sacredness in this individual which is higher than anything that he possesses when considered in himself, it is more effective and more comprehensive than the motive which is restricted to love of the neighbor for his own sake.  Many needy individuals are in themselves repellent rather than sympathy-compelling.  While the second form of fraternal charity for love of God, namely, to obtain the spiritual rewards which God has annexed to this form of good works, is lower than the first, it is entirely natural, entirely praiseworthy, and has the approval of Christ Himself.  This motive appeals to multitudes who would rarely be able to rise to the higher one, and is occasionally effective in the case of the least selfish.  Warner declares that ‘of all the churches the one that still induces the largest amount of giving in proportion to the means of those who give is no doubt the Roman Catholic” (op. cit., p. 316).  To a large extent this fact is due to the Church’s practice of insisting upon both motives, and thus touching all the springs of charity in men’s complex nature.  At the same time it is a patent fact that large numbers of men and women devote themselves and their means to works of charity solely out of love for the neighbor regarded in himself.  This motive is likewise in harmony with the promptings of human nature.  It is particularly effective in lofty souls who, lacking any positive religious faith, find in works of charity satisfaction of the desire to serve and worship something outside of themselves.  While the number of such persons will in all probability be largely augmented in the near future, neither in numbers nor in achievements will they be worthy of comparison with those who come under the influence of the motives supplied by Christianity.

The second advantage possessed by Catholics in the work of charity lies in their ecclesiastical organization.  Relief can be individualized by means of the parish, and centralized by means of the diocese.  In many places Catholics are, moreover, cooperating with non-Catholics through the charity organization societies.  This is entirely fitting, for two reasons:  First, because the methods and purposes of what has come to be called organized charity – namely, investigation, attention to causes, specific treatment, self-help, record keeping, and cooperation among the different charitable agencies in order to eliminate duplicated and mission directed effort – are entirely sound.  Second, because Catholics have a prior claim upon all these principles and practices.  The general principles were first formulated by the theologian Vives in 1526, and received their first application about the same time in the Catholic cities of the Netherlands and Germany.  They were developed and applied along the specific lines of present practice by Frederic Ozanam in 1833 (cf. O’Meara, Life of Ozanam).  The first non-Catholic to exemplify these modern methods was Chalmers in 1850, while the first charity organization society did not come into existence until 1868 (cf. Warner, op. cit., p. 377-392).  True, these methods are liable to abuse – the work may become too formal, too mechanical, too much given to investigation, and the results may be waste of money, lack of sympathy, and unnecessary hardship to the deserving poor.  Nevertheless, time and experience seem, in most places, to have reduced these evils to the lowest proportions that can reasonably be expected in a human institution.  In many localities it is desirable that Catholic charitable agencies should make a fuller use of these methods, agencies should make a fuller use of these methods, and in general become better organized and better systematized.  Where the St. Vincent de Pal Society lives up to the standard set by its founder in this matter; it is the most effective relief society in existence.  Some of the American conferences of the association have in recent years begun to employ paid agents with gratifying results.  This is a wise feature, inasmuch as voluntary workers cannot always be obtained in sufficient numbers who possess the time, ability, and experience essential to the largest achievement.  Again, Catholic charity workers will follow the best traditions of Catholic charity by cooperating with the tendency, which is every day becoming stronger in the circles of organized charity, to attack the social causes of distress (cf. Proceedings of the Thirty third National Conference of Charities and Correction, pp. 1-10).  This is of course the wisest, most effective, most difficult, and, therefore, most meritorious form of charitable effort.  In the Middle Ages the social causes of poverty were much better controlled than at present, because the Church had infused into all classes the doctrine that social power carries with it social responsibility.  Today the chief social causes of poverty are the worship of money, and the lack of social responsibility in those who possess social power, i.e. economic power.  Only within the Catholic Church can be found the principles, resources, organization, and authority through which these causes can be repressed.

Finally, the opportunities of private charity, the direct assistance of individuals by individuals, are still and will continue to be large.  This form of charity has always been encouraged by the Church, and when wisely administered it has advantages which are not attainable by the organized form.  It makes possible that exchange and that equalization between giver and receiver spoken of by St. Paul, and promotes that mutual understanding and mutual sympathy which are especially necessary in our day, when the gulf separating those who have and those who have not has become so wide and so ominous.  Individual charity also increases vastly the total amount that passes from the more to the less fortunate, thereby producing a more equitable distribution of the earth’s bounty than would take place if all cases of distress were referred to the already overburdened organizations.  Dr. Devine, who is one of the foremost authorities in the field of organized charity, speaks in the highest terms of rightly administered individual charity, and declares that “it is a question whether the unmeasured but certainly large amount of neighborly assistance given in the tenement houses of the city, precisely as in a New England village or in a former settlement, does not rank first of all among the means for the alleviation of distress” (The Principles of Relief, p. 332, and the entire chapter).