The beginning: Caritas Catholica In 1891,
Pope Leo XIII's encyclical
Rerum novarum was published, addressing the condition of the working classes.
Rerum Novarum is considered a foundational text of modern
Catholic social teaching and provides the ideological background for the work of Caritas. In the following years, national Caritas organisations were set up in other countries, including
Caritas Switzerland (1901),
Caritas Austria (1903),
Catholic Charities in the United States (1910) and
Caritas Czechoslovakia (1922). The first Caritas at the diocesan level was set up in
Strasbourg, which is now part of France but was then part of the
German Empire, in 1903. In 1916, in the context of
World War 1, Caritas was recognised as the single official umbrella organisation for the German Catholic church's relief operations. of 1924 was a catalyst for the cross-border exchange and cooperation between Caritas organisations. In July 1924, during the 27th International
Eucharistic Congress in
Amsterdam, an international conference on charity was held. This conference saw the participation of delegates from Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Russia, and Switzerland. The primary objective of the conference was to discuss Catholic charitable activities in various countries. These discussions revealed a plethora of charitable activities occurring, yet without effective cooperation and coordination. As a result, most participants advocated for the establishment of a secretariat for charitable activities within each
diocese. This centralised management would aim to consolidate various charitable efforts within a diocese, allowing for national and international collaboration. This network of organisations was subsequently named
Caritas Catholica and formally established in 1928, with its headquarters at Caritas Switzerland in
Lucerne. Wilhelm Kissling, the director of the
Swiss Caritas, was appointed the first General Secretary, while Paul Müller-Sirnonis, the director of Caritas
Alsace, became the inaugural president. The secretariat was organised into six specialised sections: youth, knowledge and teaching of charity, aid to the poor and to families, immigration and housing, assistance to the sick, and the fight against
alcoholism.
Formal establishment in 1951 The work of Caritas Catholica resumed in 1947, with the approval of the
Secretariat of State. Two conferences were convened in Lucerne to help coordinate efforts and collaboration. Caritas was given a further endorsement when the Secretariat of State entrusted it with the official representation of all Catholic welfare organisations at the international level, especially at the
United Nations. The
Holy Year in 1950 saw the beginning of a union of Caritas organisations. Following a suggestion by Monsignor Montini, then Substitute Secretary of State and later
Pope Paul VI, a study week, with participants from 22 countries, was held in
Rome to examine the problems of Christian Caritas work. As a result, the decision was made to set up an "International Conference of Catholic Charities". On , the
Holy See approved the statutes of this international organisation
ad experimentum and from 12 to 14 December 1951, the constitutive assembly of Caritas Internationalis took place. Founding members came from Caritas organisations in 13 countries:
Austria,
Belgium,
Canada,
Denmark,
France,
Germany,
Italy,
Luxembourg,
Netherlands,
Portugal,
Spain,
Switzerland, and the
United States. The first elected officials of the organisation were the Italian Bishop
Ferdinando Baldelli, who served as President of Caritas Internationalis until 1962, and the German
Carlo Bayer, who remained the Secretary General until 1970. In 1957, the International Conference of Catholic Charities changed its name to Caritas Internationalis to reflect the international presence of Caritas members on every continent.
Internationalisation throughout the 1950s and 1960s were a major emergency of the 1950s in which Caritas Internationalis coordinated the Catholic relief efforts. Throughout the rest of the 1950s, new national Caritas organisations were founded and joined Caritas Internationalis, including
Caritas Hong Kong in 1953,
Caritas Syria in 1954, and
Caritas Brazil and
Caritas Colombia in 1956. At the same time, the French
Secours catholique set up local sections in the French colonies in Africa, which would later become independent Caritas organisations, such as the current
Caritas Burkina Faso, first established in 1956, or the current
Caritas Madagascar in 1959. By 1957, Caritas Internationalis had 37 member organisations. Caritas Internationalis coordinated the relief efforts of its members in response to emergencies in Europe, such as the
1953 floods in the Netherlands and Belgium, the
1953 Ionian earthquake, and the displacement of 200,000 Hungarian refugees after the
1956 uprising. In February 1957, Caritas Internationalis established an Emergency Aid Commission. Two years later, the Confederation also took its first steps in
advocacy. The economic prosperity that many
Western countries experienced highlighted that other parts of the world were still facing hunger and misery. In 1959, at the initiative of Cardinal
Joseph Frings, the German bishops decided to launch a joint
Lenten campaign to alleviate hunger, poverty and disease in what was then called the "
Third World". The idea of Lenten campaigns and using the raised funds to implement charitable projects was adopted in many countries and remains a major fundraising tool for many Caritas organisations worldwide. was elected as president of Caritas Internationalis. Caritas collaborated with the
Food and Agriculture Organization on its five-year "Freedom from Hunger" campaign, launched in 1960. During its fifth General Assembly in 1960, the confederation called for locally based
development aid in addition to emergency aid. The Confederation increasingly prioritized development as more Caritas organisations became development actors within their own countries. Consequently, a dedicated service for this purpose was established in the general secretariat in Rome. In 1962, the Chilean Cardinal
Raúl Silva Henríquez was elected as president of Caritas Internationalis. The
Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) opened up the Church to the modern world. It emphasized the value of the work done by
laypeople, called for dialogue with other religions, and urged Christians to promote the development of poorer regions and social justice among nations. In 1967,
Pope Paul VI published
Populorum progressio, an
encyclical on the topic of "the development of peoples" which would become a foundational text for the work of Caritas Internationalis and its members. It prompted Catholic charities such as Caritas to contemplate their role within the Church and the contemporary world, reinforcing the notion that social action should be grounded in serving those most in need and that initiatives should be developed collaboratively with the communities. That same year,
CIDSE was established to coordinate the tasks identified by the Second Vatican Council as priorities for the Church, such as caring for the poor and oppressed and focusing on global justice. Since then, there has been close cooperation between Caritas Internationalis and CIDSE, with some Caritas member organisations also belonging to CIDSE. Emergency relief efforts and coordination continued in the 1960s, including reconstruction after the
1962 Buin Zahra earthquake and the
1963 Skopje earthquake, as well as hunger and relief campaign after repeated famines in India and Pakistan. Caritas was a major humanitarian actor during the
Biafran War (1967-1970) and
Caritas Jerusalem was founded to coordinate the Catholic relief efforts after the
1967 Arab–Israeli War. In 1969, following the
International Year of Human Rights (1968), the General Assembly of Caritas Internationalis adopted a "Declaration on the Rights of Developing Nations". It supported the fundamental principled of the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. This marked the beginning of Caritas Internationalis adopting a more outward-facing advocacy approach, involving closer cooperation and engagement on the global stage through its UN delegations.
Professionalisation and further expansion in the 1970s and 1980s On , at the initiative of
Pope Paul VI, Caritas Internationalis was granted
civil juridical personality by the Vatican City State. Additionally, the first common manual on how to implement disaster aid was adopted in 1979. . In the 1970s and 1980s, the Confederation responded to a series of global humanitarian emergencies, including
droughts in the Sahel, the
influx of Vietnamese refugees arriving in Hong Kong starting in 1982, the
1985 Mexico City earthquake, the humanitarian emergency during the
First Gulf War (1980-1988), the
1988 Bangladesh cyclone, and the extreme winter conditions in Europe at the end of the 1980s.
Caritas Lebanon became a major humanitarian actor during the
Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990). Together with the
Lutheran World Federation and the
World Council of Churches, Caritas Internationalis formed the Churches Drought Action for Africa, later renamed Joint Relief Programme, to respond to the communities affected by the
1983–1985 famine in Ethiopia and later the victims of violence and hunger during the
Eritrean War of Independence in the early 1990s. In terms of advocacy, Caritas Internationalis focused on promoting the inclusion of persons with disabilities. Notably, the organisation participated in United Nations sessions aimed at assessing and implementing recommendations from the
International Year of Disabled Persons (1981). Another significant area of focus was the promotion of women's participation in programmes. Caritas Internationalis played an active role in the
1980 World Conference on Women and, in 1983,
Caritas Latin America organised a dedicated event in Panama focusing on the role of women in development. In 1983, the Angolan Cardinal
Alexandre do Nascimento succeeded the German priest Georg Hüssler as President of Caritas Internationalis.
The 1990s and 2000s marked by humanitarian emergencies Humanitarian action The 1990s and were marked by numerous humanitarian crises to which the Caritas confederation responded, including the
Bosnian War (1991-1995), the
famine in Somalia (1992, the
Rwandan Genocide (1994) and the subsequent
Great Lakes refugee crisis (1994-1996) and
First Congo War (1996-1997), as well as the
Kosovo War (1998-1999). When the
War in Darfur began in 2003, the British Caritas member
CAFOD took the lead in coordinating the confederation's cooperation with
Action by Churches Together. This joint initiative was known as the Darfur Emergency Response Operation (DERO). Caritas Internationalis also coordinated the confederation's response after the
2003 invasion of Iraq, with
Caritas Iraq being one of the few humanitarian organisations operational in the country. In the wake of the
2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, Caritas Internationalis raised around for the initial emergency phase and the long-term recovery phase implemented by Caritas organisations in India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and other countries. The latter phase included construction of earthquake-resistant houses and community infrastructure, job creation, and social assistance. After the
2010 Haiti earthquake, Caritas Internationalis and its member organisations provided humanitarian relief and rehabilitation support to over 1.5 million Haitians, using a budget of . When the
Syrian civil war erupted in 2011,
Caritas Syria,
Caritas Lebanon, and
Caritas Jordan were the three Caritas agencies providing the largest response in support of the internally-displaced persons and the refugees. Two years later, Caritas Internationalis member organisations responded to the
Western African Ebola virus epidemic in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and when
Typhoon Haiyan devastated large parts of the country in November 2013,
Caritas Philippines organised large-scale relief and reconstruction efforts and
Caritas Bangladesh has been heavily involved in the support to the
Rohingya refugees arriving from Myanmar in 2017.
Caritas Lebanon was faced with an additional emergency when the
2020 Beirut explosion destroyed large parts of the city, and
Caritas Congo has been a major humanitarian actor in the
Democratic Republic of Congo for decades.
Other work (here pictured in 2003 in
Porto Alegre). Nonetheless, Caritas also continued its work as social service provider and development actor around the world. For example
Caritas Hong Kong, greatly expanded its educational and healthcare services. In Iraq,
Caritas Iraq assisted more than 250,000 persons with food programmes alone and between 1995 and 2000.
Caritas Austria expanded its support to children, people with disabilities, refugees, the homeless, the elderly, young mothers, people suffering from addictions, and the long-term unemployed. Simultaneously, a new global crisis emerged with the spreading of
HIV/AIDS. In 1999, Caritas Internationalis signed a memorandum of understanding with the
Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, agreeing to collaborating in raising awareness about the virus and caring for those affected. In the late 1990s, Caritas also focused on
peacebuilding, notably in Colombia where
Caritas Colombia started implementing peacebuilding projects and became involved in
truth and reconciliation initiatives. In 2000, it convened the first National Congress of Reconciliation. In the 2000s, Caritas became involved in the
World Social Forum, with 450 delegates from around 40 Caritas organisations participating in the
Porto Alegre summit in 2003. On ,
Pope John Paul II granted public, juridical, and
canonical personality to Caritas Internationalis, recognizing its formal status within the Church and its ability to operate with a greater degree of autonomy and authority. In November 2012,
Pope Benedict XVI published the
motu proprio Intima Ecclesiae natura, which focuses on the principles and guidelines for the charitable activities of the Catholic Church, which explicitly asks of the bishops to "encourage in every parish of his territory the creation of a local Caritas service or a similar body".
Since 2019: Controversies and organisational changes In May 2019, the
Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development became the new Vatican body overseeing the work of the Caritas Internationalis, following the integration of the previous oversight body, the
Pontifical Council Cor Unum, into the Dicastery in 2017. In November 2019, CNN reported that the Director of
Caritas Central African Republic, a Belgian Salesian priest, had been convicted in Belgium in 2012 for child sexual abuse and possession of child pornography. CNN also identified two children in the Central African Republic who were allegedly abused by the priest. Following this report, the UN temporarily suspended its work with Caritas Central African Republic. Caritas Internationalis issues an apology, stating that it was "saddened and outraged" by the allegations of abuse and said it was working to improve its
safeguarding policies towards children. After the
Russian invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, Caritas in Ukraine and the neighbouring countries implemented a large-scale response to support the internally displaced persons and refugees from Ukraine. In the first two years of the conflict,
Caritas Ukraine and
Caritas-Spes alone provided humanitarian aid to more than 3.8 million people in Ukraine. was elected as president of Caritas Internationalis in 2023. In November 2022, Pope Francis removed the secretary general and the entire leadership and governance team of Caritas Internationalis following an external investigation that uncovered significant management deficiencies impacting staff morale at the Caritas secretariat in Rome. An organisational consultant was appointed as a temporary administrator until elections were held for a new secretary-general in May 2023. These elections resulted in Alistair Dutton, previously the executive director of
SCIAF (Caritas Scotland), winning the position of Secretary-General, and
Archbishop of Tokyo Msgr.
Tarcisio Isao Kikuchi being elected as President. == Structure ==