American Catholicism, Catholic Charities U.S.A., and Welfare Reform

Abstract

In this article I want to give at least a thumbnail sense of the background assumptions, policy contours, and vehicles for American Catholicism in engaging in public policy discussions. To do so, I will eventually concentrate on one major recent public policy discussion in the United States: the debates on welfare reform that led up to, and continue vigorously even after, the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. I do so because American Catholic institutions, including the United States Catholic Conference and Catholic Charities U.S.A., played a crucial and continuous role in these debates about welfare reform. Indeed, New York's Senator Daniel P. Moynihan, a vigorous opponent of the proposed welfare reform bill, in excoriating his fellow liberals for signing on to the bill, could lift up the example of the Catholic bishops' lobbying and exclaim: “The bishops admittedly have an easier time with matters of this sort. When principles are at stake, they simply look them up. Too many liberals, alas, make them up!” This particular debate (which is not, by any means, over) also helps to show some of the unique assumptions behind proposals found in Catholic interventions in the policy sector. In what follows, I will develop, briefly, four sections or subthemes to the paper:1. Catholilc Social Thought: Five Background Assumptions for Policy: Human Dignity; The Common Good; Solidarity; Subsidiarity; Justice2. The Move from Background Assumptions to Policy3. Catholic Policy Proposals: Their Style and Instrumentalities4. Catholicism and Welfare Policy

Comparing Stewardship Across Faith-Based Organizations

“…With a few exceptions (Bane, Coffin, & Higgins, 2005;Coleman, 2001;Demerath, Hall, Schmitt, & Williams, 1998;Jeavons, 1994aJeavons, , 2004Koch & Johnson, 1997;Milofsky, 2008;Schneider, 1999;Wittberg, 2006), the nonprofits literature has paid little attention to faith community culture in FBO resource development and governance. However, their focus on the tangible resources faith communities potentially provide to nonprofits implies that faith communities are interchangeable with any other type of support system.…”

Religious Groups as Interest Groups: The United States Catholic Bishops in the Welfare Reform Debate of 1995–1996 and the Health Care Reform Debate of 2009–20101

“…Jesuit sociologist John Coleman pointed out in 2001 that the Catholic lobbying world was rather small, referring to the two main institutional Catholic groups-what were then the NCCB and U.S. Catholic conference (now combined as the USCCB)-as well as some local groups affiliated with dioceses, national Catholic federations associated with a particular issue, and unofficial agencies associated with Catholicism [8]. His point is certainly true regarding welfare and health care policy, but we hasten to add that the world of Catholic lobbying has grown and is not particularly small in other issue-areas ranging from international human rights to religious freedom to pro-life and marriage.…”

“…Around the first World War, the Catholic bishops established the National Catholic Welfare Conference, which was renamed the U.S. Catholic Conference after Vatican II, when the Pope called for more activism on the part of the bishops, and also gave them more leeway in policy determination [1]. Two documents from Vatican II, The Church in the Modern World and The Declaration of Religious Freedom make clear that the church is expected to engage with society on moral questions and also to provide public explanations for its social teachings [8]. The Catholic bishops, like Catholic Charities, formed in response to economic, political and religious disturbances.…”

“…The very anti-Catholic biases, so strong in America in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, forced the church to make its appeals to public policy in a public, rather than a sectarian language. Otherwise, it would not gain a hearing [8].…”

Religion, politics and social assistance in Turkey: The rise of religiously motivated associations

“…Heclo defines the relationship between religion and public policy as an 'inescapable coupling' due to the 'profound and unavoidable' connections between them (Heclo, 2003: 18). Scholars such as Coleman (2003) and Carlson-Thies (2003) also present faith-based social provision as an outcome of the return of religion to public life. They argue that today's religious organizations are again important parts of welfare provisioning similar to the period prior to the extension of state welfare provisions after the Second World War.…”