Catholic Charities Focus

In the world of disaster relief, there is the external and the internal. External work is visible and involves fire fighters, paramedics and construction crews. We can watch floods on the evening news, count donations, and see new buildings rise up afterwards. Less visible but equally important, however, is the internal - the fear among strangers after an attack, the pain of losing loved ones, and the struggle to regain normalcy.

Although Catholic Charities provides visible assistance like food and shelter during disasters, our most important services are the ones missed by cameras—addressing internal human needs. In the aftermath of September 11, disaster relief agencies are now struggling over the balance between visible assistance of goods and money, and the less visible comfort and restoration of victims.

A lot of money has been collected for relief efforts, and the debate now in Congress and the media is over whether all of it should go directly to victims or whether part should go to services. Because of its tangibility, money tends to win out over services. But with pundits debating plans of $800,000 or $1.2 million or $2 million per family, one has to wonder whether money has become a substitute for something else.

After a flood or a fire, it may appear that money is all that is needed—write a big enough check and you can rebuild a home, pay a medical bill or cover lost wages. Every disaster, however, also carries emotional trauma. As the Director of Catholic Charities in Brooklyn recently shared, "When you have a widow crying in your office, you can't just tell her to fill out forms and that you'll mail her a check."

That is the dilemma now being faced by many disaster relief providers, including Catholic Charities. Although the $14 million donated nationally to the U.S. Bishops' disaster relief fund is less than two percent of the total September 11 relief donations, Catholic Charities is feeling the pressure to move the money out and to dispense with the "soft stuff." At times, the political pressure to move out the cash feels more like we're tending to a financial bailout than a healing process.

Our experience is that the soft stuff is often the most important stuff. You can give someone money, but if a newly widowed mother is so depressed she can't attend to her children—who still don't understand why daddy hasn't returned home—you haven't met the real need.

Feeling the political pressure to pass all relief monies directly to victims, many Catholic Charities agencies in the New York and Washington D.C. area are simply paying for the emotional care of victims out of their own pocket. These are dioceses where parish parking lots were full seven days a week in late September, with locals attending back-to-back funerals. The Church just isn't going to write some checks and walk away.

Honoring grief and loss may be counter-cultural to our American sense of utility, but it is central to our lives as people of faith. Our spiritual as well as our emotional health depends on our coming to terms with the pain of death—even if skipping over it seems more efficient. And as invisible as it may be to the larger culture, we believe that we are called to lay our hands on those who suffer.

Even three thousand miles away from ground zero, Catholic Charities agencies in California are comforting people traumatized by the attack. Assisting schoolteachers, creating adult counseling groups, and offering grief ministry trainings and support sessions, our staff are enabling the internal recovery work. If the attack provoked a religious crisis for some Catholics, we connect them with pastors or spiritual directors to help them sort through their faith journey.

The ripples from the attack affect us in unpredictable ways. One Catholic school in Los Angeles, for example, reported a fifth grade student telling her classmates at Christmastime not to take food from a teacher of Mid-Eastern descent, because she was one of "them" and might poison the class. In this case, the teacher was able to use the incident as a teaching opportunity, putting children's fears in perspective and encouraging cultural respect.

Perhaps, after the experience of September 11 is fully absorbed, Americans will have a better appreciation for the emotional toll of human disasters and the internal effort required for recovery. As Barbara Gordon, the Grief Ministry Coordinator for Catholic Charities in Oakland, shares regarding her work, "Now even my own family understands what I do."

Rick Mockler is Executive Director for Catholic Charities of California and serves on the board of trustees for Catholic Charities USA.  Visit the Catholic Charities of California web site for more information.  Rick Mockler’s e-mail address is rmockler@cacatholic.org.