Catholic Charities U.S.A. director touts collaboration

Intermountain Catholic

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Father Larry Snyder, executive director of Catholic Charities U.S.A. says the new Catholic Community Services of Utah facility can stand as an example of collaboration among churches, the community, and activists.  IC photo by Barbara S. Lee

SALT LAKE CITY — Father Larry Snyder, a priest from the archdiocese of Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn., and executive director of Catholic Charities U.S.A., said he has always assumed he would spend his life as a parish priest. But he’d only been in a parish three years when he was tapped by his archdiocese to head their office of Catholic Charities. In an interview with the Intermountain Catholic July 12 just hours after the dedication of the new Catholic Community Services of Utah facility in Salt Lake City, Fr. Snyder said his "temporary" assignment to lead the local Catholic Charities office for a six-month trial period turned into a 15-year commitment during which he learned more about and became personally dedicated to the social mandate of the Gospel.

"The work of meeting the needs of the poor touched me," Fr. Snyder said. "So clearly, it is the work of the Gospel in action. It impacts people’s live and communities, and the results are tangible."

In February 2005, when the national office of Catholic Charities U.S.A. approached Fr. Snyder asking him to lend his administrative talents to the national effort, Fr. Snyder said he could not refuse.

"I get to see the very best in people," he said. "I see Catholics on all levels of the church doing powerful, effective outreach, and it’s life-changing. What could be better than that?"

Although Fr. Snyder and his staff deal with people whose lives have often hit rock bottom, victims of natural disasters, and those who are addicted to alcohol and drugs, he said instead of being depressing, "the work is an experience in suffering transformed. It’s exciting going to work every day, witnessing the human exchange of compassion, caring, and love."

Catholic Charities U.S.A. is the public service arm of the Catholic Church in the United States. It responds to disasters in this country from (airline accidents that affect neighborhoods) to hurricanes and floods that devastate entire cities and regions.

Fr. Snyder said in the recent past he has watched faith communities and aid agencies like Catholic Charities on the local and national levels bearing more and more responsibilities in the light of natural and man-made devastation.

From the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Fr. Snyder said he has observed "an erosion of political will to address the needs of the poor."

"Since 2000, we’ve seen growing numbers of people living in poverty, especially children," Fr. Snyder said. "It seems the government is taking a lesser role. We should do our share, don’t get me wrong. But we cannot do this alone."

The Constitution of the United States says the role of government is, without a doubt, human services, but we must realize that promoting the common good includes caring for the most vulnerable people among us.

But since the early 1990s, he said, the country has seen, "a devolution in services to the poor; a push to lower the level of government involvement and a transfer of the burden to lower levels of society – the states and non-governmental aid organizations (NGOs).

"I’m not espousing socialism," he said. "But there are certain things that, as a country, we should not allow, like children without health care, without adequate nutrition. Of course, we have food stamps, and people are complaining about abuses of that system. Well, there is abuse in every system. We have to realize that poverty is not monolithic. There is no ‘one size fits all’ solution to it."

Fr. Snyder said the most vulnerable people in American society, our poorest of the poor, generally fall into three categories. The first category includes people who are experiencing situational poverty, who are in crisis because of business failure or those who, living at or close to the poverty level, have lost their homes.

"A growing number of Americans are living from paycheck to paycheck," Fr. Snyder said. "They are from one to three months from losing their homes."

The second category includes people who are chronically mentally ill or chemically dependent.

"Some, with help, can become self-sufficient," he said. "But large numbers of the people will never reach that level. They need to be provided with supportive housing and encouraged to engage in the rest of society, but society seems to lose patience with this population."

Fr. Snyder’s third category is a growing one; they are people born into generational poverty. They have neither the skills not the expectation to rise above poverty, and the welfare system is all they know.

"These people wouldn’t know what to do with a savings account because no one in their experience has ever had one. They often try to work, but they’re often branded as lazy. They’ve never learned that work is a moral responsibility."

A fourth category of Americans in poverty is the growing number of homeless veterans, Fr. Snyder said.

"Veterans from the First Gulf War are being joined by those from the current war, and we still haven’t met the needs of many of our Vietnam War veterans. We’re starting to hear more people addressing the gap between veterans who come home to resume their pre-war lives and those who will never be able to fit in anywhere, but not enough is being done."

Fr. Snyder refers to a policy paper titled "Poverty in America: A Threat to Our Common Good," the foundation of Catholic Charities’ U.S.A.’s campaign to reduce poverty. Universities have begun adopting it as required reading.

"It defines who we are as church, and it lays out our current campaign to reduce poverty by 50 percent by the year 2020."

Since the document’s release, he said, other organizations have been adopting similar goals, and even better, they are beginning to work together on their goals.

"Our role on the national stage has multiplied with this document," Fr. Snyder said. "Now we have credibility. Now we are being invited to the table to discuss solutions. With more than 176 local agencies adding our information to theirs, we’re starting to see more people in Congress looking at poverty issues.

"I hope we’re seeing the pendulum beginning to swing back," he said. "We’ve been letting the poor go too long without meeting their needs."

To bring this sea change about, he said, "We need to see less of our Representatives and Senators treated like gods; they are our neighbors, and they are neighbors to everyone, even the poor. We all must make the effort to stay connected to our most vulnerable populations."

Fr. Snyder cites staggering statistics that point out that first 12.5 percent, then 13 percent, and now nearly 25 percent of people in this country have no net assets.

"We need to give these people, our neighbors, the tools to succeed," Fr. Snyder said. "They need homes and cars, which have always eluded them and are elusive now. The deeper we allow our neighbors to sink into trouble, the deeper we will be in trouble."

Fr. Snyder said the new Catholic Community Services of Utah facility in Salt Lake City is impressive in it’s mission to care for people and the broad response of the community at large to making the facility a reality.

"It could be a model of collaboration in other communities," he said.

During his visit to Salt Lake City, his first, Fr. Snyder visited the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Welfare Square, which contributes goods and services, not only to CCS, but other aid agencies like the Cathedral of the Madeleine’s Good Samaritan Program as well as to international aid projects through Catholic Relief Services.

"Here in Utah, we can see that we are not apart, we are one, even in our differences," he said.

Catholic Charities U.S.A. became an official disaster responder during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and Fr. Snyder said disaster response in this country will never be the same.

"So many were left wanting. It was a disgrace. We hope to see more human interchange in times like that and there must be immediate engagement. We at Catholic Charities do it well with our national network of diocesan agencies. We can bring in case managers from elsewhere, and our network responds."

He said Catholic Charities is re-evaluating their role with an eye to being able to respond to crises anywhere in the country even earlier.

"In some areas, we are first responders, and right now, we’re the third largest responder after the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army. We use local teams who are dealing with their own neighbors.

"During the hurricanes, our own people suffered damage to their homes, but there is such a bond between the New Orleans and the Baton Rouge agencies that our teams just kept working. We’re learning how important our presence is on the scene."

The inertia that seems to have settled on the areas affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita; the lack of progress in rebuilding the affected areas, are a source of sadness, he said.

"Some of the people who left have nothing to come back to."

Since Sept. 11, 2001, the entire country should have been evaluating their emergency responses and putting in place their best practices.

"Katrina taught us we aren’t there yet. At Catholic Charities, we are always doing our homework, doing internal surveys, finding out what we could be doing better. We have a dynamic website that is helping us keep our campaigns going, including our campaign against poverty, and we think the momentum is going our way. We are working with the United Nations’ Millennium goals helping people at home to see the issues as we see them. We hope to see an increase in the political will of this country to meet the needs of the poor."

Included in their national goals, Fr. Snyder said, is involvement in local campaigns, convincing decision-makers on the local levels that Catholic Charities can be a resource in issues of public policy, housing, education, health care, and emergency services.

"This is reality," he said. "We can help identify needs and we work with local governments, the United Way, and other non-profits by encouraging them to talk to each other. We can help to get them talking, sharing their resources. We need to combine our political will to conquer poverty and to respond when people are faced with disaster. It’s what I want to stand for, and it’s what the people who do the work day-in and day-out need."