Bishop: Catholics must provide tsunami aid through CRS

As we begin this new year of 2005, we are faced with a global catastrophe of monumental proportions. The December 26th earthquake and the tsunami that swept across the Indian Ocean have claimed the lives of over 140,000 men, women and children, with the total still rising as of this writing. Experts predict some tsunami victims may never be found and counted. Then, there remains the grave danger of the spread of cholera, typhoid and other diseases from contaminated water and decaying bodies.

There has been a worldwide outpouring of compassion and aid in response to this disaster. The needs are both short-term (food, clothing, shelter, medicine and bottled water) and long-term (grief counseling, housing, and rebuilding whole communities and national infrastructures).

Numerous international and national relief agencies have been responding valiantly to this devastating tragedy, and governments and the United Nations have pledged billions of dollars in relief aid.

In response to a request from Bishop William Skylstad, the president of our United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, I asked all the parishes in our diocese to take up a collection to assist in alleviating the suffering created by this natural disaster. All funds collected by our parishes will be channeled to the tsunami victims through Catholic Relief Services, the official International Relief and Development Agency established by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to aid people in poverty-stricken nations of the Third World.

Formed during World War II, Catholic Relief Services (CRS) has responded to floods, earthquakes, hurricanes and droughts over the past 61 years. With a staff of 4,400 in nearly 100 countries, CRS is one of the world's largest aid organizations. We of the Diocese of Albany have special links to CRS, since its second director was my predecessor, Bishop Edwin Broderick, our eighth bishop (1969-'76) and its current chief operating officer is Michael Weist, an Albany native.

What makes CRS somewhat unique among aid organizations is that it has longstanding, semi-permanent relief programs sites throughout the world, unlike many other aid groups which tend to fly in plane loads of supplies once a disaster strikes an area.

For example, CRS provides healthcare programs in Haiti, food for locust-plagued areas of Africa, and HIV prevention services in India, where it has 13 offices which regularly deal directly with Catholic parishes and other churches and charity groups.

As reporter Eric Lipton of The New York Times pointed out recently, this network of services has enabled CRS to allocate funds almost instantly to eight Catholic dioceses in India, "allowing them to buy rice, cooking oil, medical supplies, sleeping mats and other goods needed for the 90 relief camps and clinics set up almost overnight."

By the weekend after the tsunami struck, CRS had supplied disinfectant, cooking utensils and mosquito nets to the people of Sri Lanka and Indonesia.

However, as Mr. Lipton notes, "Catholic Relief's more substantial contribution will come in the weeks, months and perhaps years ahead as it sets up longstanding construction programs, as it did in the Caribbean in 1998 after hurricane Mitch."

Patrick Johns is CRS' director for security and emergency services. His career in relief aid has taken him to Cambodia during the war in the 1970s, to Ethiopia during the famine of the '80s and to the war zones in Somalia, Rwanda and Macedonia in the '90s. He says that this is "the disaster of the decade," and that "we're not just talking about pitching tents; we're talking about something more substantial: building structures that people can call home for the future."

Mr. Johns will be helping to plan CRS' response much as a general would prepare logistically for a prolonged war. Speaking of war, CRS and other relief workers in Sri Lanka will have to contend with the threats posed by the Liberation Tigers of Temil Elan, rebels fighting for independence in that war-plagued country, as well as landmines which might have been unearthed by the floods.

CRS has committed to raise $25 million in private funds in mobilizing its emergency response to this major catastrophe, but, as The Evangelist went to print, had only collected $17 million dollars in donations.

This is where we in the diocese can continue to help. If you have not yet contributed to the relief effort, please send a donation (see sidebar for address). If you have already donated, given the magnitude of this disaster, please consider another contribution. It is hard to conceive of a more worthy or urgent cause.

A silver lining which may emerge from this tsunami disaster is that we in the Catholic community and others may become more aware of the precious treasure we have in CRS. From its beginnings in 1943, the work of CRS has been rooted in the principles of Catholic social teaching, affirming the dignity and worth of all people.

CRS channels substantial, community-based assistance to those in greatest need by building self-sufficiency, providing long term solutions to poverty and promoting social justice awareness.

In recent years, to fulfill these goals, CRS has launched Global Solidarity Partnerships, providing participating dioceses and parishes with a partner diocese overseas. CRS staff in the partner country facilitate linkages with U.S. parishes and their partners so that they can come to know one another, grow in their faith as they share the spirituality of their partner country and take mutually-agreed-upon actions on behalf of the overseas partner to help address pressing needs in health care, education or economic development. Other actions include advocacy efforts in the U.S. to promote political and social change that affects the partner country.

We move into the future knowing that our reach exceeds our grasp, but confident that we can build a more just world. Solidarity will transform the world, and we can be agents of that transformation through our donations to and partnership with CRS.

(To aid tsunami victims, send checks payable to Catholic Charities to Tsunami Relief, c/o Catholic Charities, 40 N. Main Ave., Albany, NY 12203. For more information, or for information about CRS' Global Solidarity Partnership, call Mary Olsen at diocesan Catholic Charities, 453-6650, or email [email protected].)

(1/6/05)