Catholic Charities leaders ask Congress to cut poverty

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Leaders of Catholic Charities USA were joined April 26 by two people who have received aid from their local Catholic Charities affiliates to ask Congress to cut poverty in half by the year 2020.

Father Larry Snyder, Catholic Charities’ president, said he found it inconsistent in the United States, which has “more color TVs per capita and more Nobel winners per capita,” that “35 million find it hard to give themselves adequate nutrition every day” and 37 million live in poverty.

Father Snyder told a Capitol Hill audience largely made up of Catholic Charities diocesan directors that requests for help made to Catholic Charities affiliates last year were up 14 percent over 2005 levels; in 2005, he added, aid was given to 6 million people.

“We see the plight of the working family that holds down two or three jobs to make ends meet, but has trouble making ends meet or finding an affordable place to live,” Father Snyder said, adding that persistent poverty too often leads to family discord and divorce.

“I hope the Congress can help assist Catholic Charities and do whatever it can to stamp out poverty in the country,” said Robbie Banner of Baltimore, who has received aid from Catholic Charities affiliates there.

Banner praised Catholic Charities for what it “has done for me the last 20 years of my lifetime.”

“Twenty years ago, at that time, I had pretty much given up on life. I came in contact with Catholic Charities through their soup kitchens -- one of those places that feeds the homeless.” After talking with a Catholic Charities worker there, he added, “I started thinking about my life.”

Catholic Charities, he said, gave him “all the assistance I needed -- and I’m thankful -- physically, spiritually, mentally and morally. ... I’m grateful to them for that today.”

Bobbie McCoy of Denver, who brought with her to Washington the three grandchildren she’s raising, noted how the cost of living has risen since “my first round of parenting.” Then, milk was $1.89 a gallon and a loaf of bread cost 45 cents. Now, milk is $3.29 a gallon and bread has tripled in price to $1.35 a loaf.

“I have to be careful in spending now because I don’ t have as much money as I used to,” McCoy said. “It takes a lot of food to feed these children,” she said, gesturing in their direction. “They are really growing. I am working every day as a certified nursing assistant, but I need food stamps to help me get through.”

Father Snyder said one of the top priorities in cutting poverty would be to increase the nutrition provisions -- including food stamp outlays -- in the farm bill currently being worked on in Congress. Catholic Charities USA is one of several Catholic and other religious organizations that have formed the Religious Working Group on the Farm Bill.

Two members of Congress, Reps. James P. McGovern, D-Mass., and Jo Ann Emerson, R-Mo., joined the Catholic Charities speakers at the briefing at the Cannon House Office Building.

“I’m going to see my minister tomorrow and I’m going to ask him, ‘Why hasn’t our youth group done a program on hunger?’” said Emerson, a Presbyterian.

While individual initiative is worthy, “God does care how we behave as a nation,” said the Rev. David Beckmann, head of Bread for the World, the Christian citizens’ anti-hunger lobby. Churches, he added, “can do a bit, but it’s not enough.” Without government policies to reduce poverty, he said, “Catholic Charities and Second Harvest (a network of food banks) and all the rest can’t make up for it.”

In touting food stamps, Rev. Beckmann said now that the program’s records “are all computerized, we know that 90 percent of the food stamps are gone by the third week of the month,” which he cited as evidence they do not offer enough help. Increased government food stamp support, he added, would “get Catholic Charities out of the grocery business and back in the business of helping people.”

Laura Weigel, who runs the food program for Catholic Charities in the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, W.Va., said that because of the effects of persistent poverty “we’re looking at the first generation of children we may actually outlive.”

“I want to be an optimist,” said Jim Weill, president of the Food Research and Action Center. While hunger levels have remained stubbornly unchanged since 2000 despite a flourishing economy, Weill noted that poverty was cut in the 1960s and ‘70s “because we increased the minimum wage” -- an initiative still working its way through Congress.

“Hunger is a symptom of poverty, if not the most basic symbol of poverty,” said Janet Valenti, CEO of Catholic Charities for the Diocese of Wichita, Kan. “Frankly, a conversation about the plight of the poor is long overdue.”