The donations to Peter's Pence are received in three primary forms:

1. The collection taken up in churches worldwide on the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul. These are subsequently forwarded to the Holy See by Italian dioceses and, via the Pontifical Representations, from overseas dioceses.
2. Direct offerings sent through bank and postal account transfers, checks, or through the website with credit cards and PayPal.
3. Bequests from inheritances.

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On top of that challenge, the Bay Area is home to a rapidly growing immigrant population from a host of countries, whose members are often in need of day-to-day help simply to survive.

Catholic Charities

At the heart of this city's burgeoning demand for social services, ranging from housing and meals to legal assistance and education, is Catholic Charities San Francisco.

In order to affect the lives of its struggling constituents in a meaningful way, the agency has had to dramatically change in some ways.

It's changed the way it manages and delivers a constellation of assistance programmes through its 500 employees and $60- to $90-million annual budget, among the largest in the Catholic Charities USA network.

Training programme

Rising to help meet that formidable challenge to Catholic Charities, not just in San Francisco but in its agencies across the country, is a new nonprofit executive management training programme.

As of this spring, the programme will have brought top-tier business school knowledge and skills to local leaders at nearly all of Catholic Charities' 167 offices.

The programme gives Catholic Charities the opportunity to break from more than a century of entrenched management rules and regulations.

This then enables the nation's largest purveyor of social services to move a new business model characterised by best practices, strategic thinking and, above all, the relentless need for change that nearly every office is now facing.

"The executive-level training enabled me to develop a robust theory of change across our agency, and that's helped us to ensure the sustainability of key assistance programs and services," said Ellen Hammerle, chief executive officer of Catholic Charities San Francisco.

One programme that has already benefited, she points out, is the Center for Immigration, Legal and Support Services.

Traditionally beset by fiscal challenges, that center revamped the structure of its extensive legal services programme to make it more of a business model than a social services model.

The process they use to do this was guided by the innovative thinking and strategic tools that Dr. Hammerle acquired from her nonprofit management training.

The need for advanced, C.E.O.-caliber education is echoed across the Catholic Charities network.

"We have amazing leaders in our Catholic Charities offices, but many don't have the background of running what amounts to an independent business and don't have the financial resources to get that in-depth training," explains Anthony Sciacca.

He's the executive vice president and chief development officer of Catholic Charities USA.

"Our C.E.O.s are thrilled that a course of this magnitude is being offered to them, and at the conclusion, they can't wait to take what they have learned back to their respective organizations for implementation."

Putting the ‘Theory of Change' to Work

Catholic Charities in Green Bay, Wis., is closely following that playbook.

It is deploying theory of change tools that Karmen Lemke, director of Catholic Charities in the Diocese of Green Bay, gleaned from her advanced business training.

These tools aim to target humanitarian services that will have the greatest impact on resource-poor communities in some 16 mostly rural counties of Northeast Wisconsin.

"It's here, beyond the borders of Green Bay, where some of the greatest social needs exist, and where our unique presence can fulfill what God is calling on us to do to serve those most in need," said Ms. Lemke.

She manages a staff of 35 and an annual budget between $4.5 million and $5 million.

"My academic training is helping us to connect our goals with our mission and to draw on data-driven information and resources wherever possible to make those important decisions.

"It will also be helpful in measuring and communicating the impact of our outreach activities."

Laura Deitrick, director of the Nonprofit Institute at the University of San Diego, which designed and delivers the certificate-granting program, underscores its ability to change the mindset of participants.

"These leaders are running very successful organisations, but a programme like this is designed to move their thinking to a more strategic level, which could mean greater engagement with their boards, for example.

"It could also mean for instance, figuring out what measurable outcomes they want to achieve in the community and then writing a budget that will get them there," Dr. Deitrick said. Read more

• Randy Young is a freelance writer in New Jersey.

"We're grateful for the donations from Fresh Direct that enabled us to provide fresh vegetables for the people, and the people were very appreciative," Msgr. Sullivan said in a phone interview with Catholic New York on Holy Thursday, April 9.

"Our staff did a great job preparing things in a way that was absolutely proper according to the requirements of social distancing, and people had protective gear on," added Msgr. Sullivan as he described a Bronx distribution gathering earlier that day. Read more

Once built, Catholic Charities says the 2-megawatt array will be the biggest project approved in DC.

The project's benefits look promising.

Consisting of 5,000-plus panels, the array will provide enough renewable power to offset the energy needs of 12 Catholic Charities' buildings throughout DC.

The array will generate 2.7 million kilowatt-hours per year - that's enough to power about 260 houses.

The array is expected to offset an estimated 3,400 tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually, about the same as is produced each year from energy use in 370 or so houses.

One of the Catholic Climate Change Covenant's programmes, Catholic Energies, provided the expertise and financial resources at no cost.

This is in line with its policy to provide its services free of charge to Catholic organisations wanting to "embrace and install solar power and other energy efficiency equipment to help reduce costs, protect our Common Home, and future generations".

The array project is reportedly the most ambitious Catholic Energies has developed so far.

Catholic Energies will also manage the solar project's construction.

One of the construction companies engaged for the project, IGS Solar, will own the panels and will be selling renewable energy certificates, so consumers can certify their electricity came from renewable sources.

Although the project costs for investors has not been disclosed, Catholic Charities DC says it estimates hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual energy cost savings.

"We are proud to have this opportunity to take up Pope Francis's call to action to protect our environment," Msgr John Enzler says.

Enzler, the president and CEO of Catholic Charities DC, says "Climate change is an urgent issue and we are pleased that this project ...[helps reduce] the consumption of fossil fuels ...[by] generating solar power."

The Sustainable DC 2.0 plan aims to make the capital city, Washington DC, its most sustainable city by 2032.

This will be achieved, in part, by increasing renewable energy use by 50 percent and cutting city-wide energy use by the same amount.

Source

• National Catholic Reporter
• Image: The Business Journals

The campaign is being backed by Catholic Charities school counselors.

Catholic Charities says a variety of factors, including increased screen time and social media usage, more homework and extracurricular activities, along with less recess and unstructured free time, is leaving children "missing out on connection-with each other and with their communities.

"It sometimes seems like we're putting out fires, and we wanted to be proactive instead." Read more

After the Mass representatives from these organisations were presented with certificates.

The mass took place at this time to draw attention to Caring Sunday which occurs on 26 July.

In 1988 Bishop Denis Browne, set up the Catholic Caring Foundation as an independent entity for the long term, with its own volunteer Board of Directors.

Since that time the foundation has allocated over 12 million dollars.

The Foundation helps those in need throughout Auckland, Northland and Coromandel, by providing not only financial assistance, but also mentoring and moral support for families and communities.

When allocating assistance to the organisations it helps, the Foundation adopts a broad view, funding both Catholic and non-Catholic organisations.

Each service the Foundation assists meets a particular need whether in special education for adolescents who are no longer in mainstream schooling, chaplain support for prisoners, or specialist support both physically and spiritually for intellectually disabled people.

The Catholic Caring Foundation also supports programmes supporting youth development, counselling and mentoring services for troubled youths to a specialist psychological service in one South Auckland school, all come under the Foundation's scope.

Each year the Catholic Caring Foundation reaches out to over 40 organisations.

Source

• aucklandcatholic.org.nz
• caringfoundation.org.nz

That's what New York magazine writer Lisa Miller wrote of Archbishop Cupich, who has, she said, a "heart for the poor".

"People who know Cupich say he has a particular genius for bridging gaps between rich and poor," Miller wrote.

He could also "model ways to address the agonising national problem of income inequality".

Archbishop-elect Cupich's fans say his brilliance comes from a deep understanding of Catholicism as a unifying force, and not a splintering one.

As Bishop of Spokane, he took off his collar once a week to work anonymously in a soup kitchen.

He is said to know the names of hundreds of the homeless men and women who live in and around Spokane.

He also celebrated Mass with hundreds of undocumented migrant workers in the wake of the wildfires there last summer.

"He drove three hours, and said an outdoor Mass at a camp. Then he stayed for hours afterward," a Spokane diocese spokesman said.

But he was also able to get alongside wealthy Catholics, who might not have agreed with all his actions, and convince them to make substantial contributions to good causes.

In Spokane, he also reduced the diocese's debt from US$4million, when he arrived in 2010, to US$150,000.

He played his part by living on a seminary campus and owning no furniture.

In 2012, Chicago archdiocese ran a deficit of more than US$70 million.

In Spokane, he also encouraged local Catholic Charities to sign up as many poor people as possible to the Obamacare health coverage plan.

He said he was chosen for Chicago "to serve the needs of the people", and characterised his role more as "pastor" than as "messenger".

Pope Francis made similar points in a message this month to US Catholic Charities that "No one is to be a ‘leftover' [and] no one is to be ‘excluded' from God's love and from our care".

Pope Francis said that like the Good Samaritan and Innkeeper in the Bible, "we are called to be in the ‘streets' inviting and serving those who have been left out".

The Pope concluded: "We are called to be a Church, a people of and for the poor".

Sources

• Fortune
• Vatican Radio
• Image: National Catholic Reporter

A documentary due to be released in the United Kingdom in October will reveal the identity of the mysterious "Ulsterman", who tipped off the robbers as to which train to target in 1963.

The film-makers claim the Church donation was made by a god-fearing Post Office worker, who was a key player in the 1963 robbery of £2.6m from Royal Mail.

It claims the devout, church-going Ulsterman died without his identity ever being revealed, the Guardian reported.

In the film, A Tale of Two Thieves, the train robber, Gordon Goody, now 84 and living in Spain with his Spanish partner, identifies the Ulsterman as a Post Office worker based in Manchester who told him and the late Buster Edwards which train to rob.

Goody describes how the three men met in north London, and received the inside information that helped them carry out the robbery.

The Ulsterman attended church every week and the film-makers and Goody have come to the conclusion that his share of about £135,000 was probably given to Catholic Church charities.

The Ulsterman retired in 1974 and left no will.

Goody claims that he only found out the Ulsterman's real name when he saw it inside his spectacles case.

He said: "My instinct is that his money went to the Church."

Goody, who is not well and uses an oxygen tank, said he is identifying the inside man now, after so many years, because he is "getting near the time when the shop is going to close".

The gang which undertook the Great Train Robbery took £2.6m from the Glasgow to London mail train on August 8, 1963.

This was the equivalent of £40m in today's money.

Train driver Jack Mills was struck over the head during the robbery and never worked again. He died in 1970.

The most infamous of the Great Train Robbers, Ronnie Biggs, died last year.

Sources

• The Guardian
• BBC
• Image: The Mirror

The Hale Wai Vista Support Housing Services program, launched in collaboration with Prudential Locations, is a 215-unit affordable rental project.

"This is a great example of a nonprofit organisation and private sector company partnering to address a business and a social need," said Catholic Charities Hawaii President and CEO Jerry Rauckhorst.

"The program advances our mission to provide services to the poor and most vulnerable in our community while assisting a private business (to) improve its financial viability."

Source

• Pacific Business
• Image: i.ytimg.com

Perón died in 1974 and within two years the country descended into another military dictatorship and a cruel "dirty war". Guerrilla groups sprang up, specialising in bombings, kidnappings and assassinations; the military waged firefights with them and arrested thousands of innocent people suspected of fellow-travelling. The military death squads imprisoned, tortured and killed an estimated 30,000 people. Under the leadership of General Leopoldo Galtieri, the junta eventually fell apart only after the Falklands debacle, signalling Argentina's return to a uneasy form of populist, corporatist-style "democracy".

Meanwhile, Father Bergoglio climbed the Catholic hierarchy steadily. Known for his "option for the poor" (he ate in soup kitchens and took the bus), he nevertheless distanced himself from the liberation theology movements associated with left-wing Jesuits elsewhere in Latin America. Had he not done so, he would never have risen to the episcopate under John Paul II's papacy; and he might well have been found dead in a ditch - just one more clerical victim of the dirty war.

There are tales that as a senior Jesuit priest he failed to intercede with the junta to free two slum-worker priests from prison and torture. One family that lost a daughter and granddaughter accuses him of lying when he told a tribunal that he had no knowledge of the "stealing" of children from suspected dissidents. The allegations are unsafe, but no one can doubt that he came safely through those dark years by weighing every word and action with consummate care. Continue reading

Sources

• New Statesman
• Image: The Guardian

I sigh. When I turn to my daily newspapers, I sigh further, at the stereotyping, the false assumptions, the hostility in some quarters, the focus upon protocol rather than substance, the obsession with fiscal laxities at the Vatican rather than the proclaimed mission of Christ. Much of this criticism is boringly predictable; I may be wrong, but I suspect it might be hard to find a month, for example, when New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd does not launch an attack upon the papacy and the Catholic Church. And when the College of Cardinals announces the successor to Benedict, there will be fervid speculation about the new pope's attitude toward divorce, abortion, the Jews, secularism in Italy, and so on.

That is one view of the Catholic Church, the church of hierarchy, tradition, formalism, its bursts of reform soon restrained by a return to conservatism. It is the church so familiar to the minds of secularists, pagans and anti-Catholics everywhere. It is the church of the 19th-century popes. It is the church of infallibility, incense, candles, and of Latin masses. Pushing it further, it is the church of financial corruption and sexual abuse. It is the church of stereotype, which is not wise.

In the early 1790s, as Europe reeled under the shock of the French Revolution, the great English politician and philosopher Edmund Burke warned against condemning an entire nation, a France of about 30 million souls, for the troubles and wars. Shouldn't we be wary of condemning a church of roughly 1 billion believers? Continue reading

Sources

• Paul Kennedy in The New York Times
• Image: Stuff

Paul Kennedy is Dilworth Professor of History and director of International Security Studies at Yale University.

The Pope said it is the duty of diocesan bishops and parish priests to see that the faithful "are not led into error of misunderstanding" through charitable initiatives.

He said bishops and parish priests "are to prevent publicity being given through parish or diocesan structures to initiatives which, while presenting themselves as charitable, propose choices or methods at odds with the Church's teaching".

In a motu proprio — a letter written on his own initiative — Pope Benedict said: "I intend to provide an organic legislative framework for the better overall ordering of the various organised ecclesial forms of the service of charity."

He gave these rules:

• A charitable group may call itself "Catholic" only with the written consent of Church authorities. If a particular outfit is deemed to be no longer "in conformity with the Church's teaching", the bishop should make that known and take steps to prevent it from using the title "Catholic".

• Personnel must "share, or at least respect" the Catholic identity of Church-affiliated charitable organisations, and must also "give an example of Christian life" beyond their professional competence.

• A Catholic charity may not take money "from groups or institutions that pursue ends contrary to the Church's teaching".

"Above all it's important to remember that practical actions are never enough," the Pope said. "Charity must express a genuine love for people, a love animated by a personal encounter with Christ."

He cautioned that Catholic charities must avoid becoming "just another form of organised social assistance".

The Pope gave specific praise to Caritas, saying this international agency has earned the esteem and trust of people around the world for its "generous and consistent witness of faith and ability to respond to the needs of the poor".

He said every bishop should encourage the creation of a local Caritas service or a similar body in every parish.

Sources:

The Holy See

Catholic News Agency

National Catholic Reporter

Image: Reuters

In a recent article, Joan Chittister writes that the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, Catholic Charities in the US, Caritas, and now the Girl Scouts, have 'been curtailed, "investigated" or put in some kind of canonical receivership because of their reputed lack of orthodoxy on sexual issues or because of association with other groups that, according to the bishops, have the same problem. And all of that in the face of the sex abuse debacle of the church itself, still to be resolved, never monitored, and totally closed to outside investigation.'

• Read Joan Chittister's article in National Catholic Reporter
• Image: CBS News