About Catholic Relief Services
A family fleeing war needs somewhere safe tonight.
A farmer whose crops have failed needs food now, but also a way to harvest again next year.
A community divided by violence needs more than emergency supplies.
A child sitting in a classroom hungry may technically have access to education, yet still struggle to learn.
When Catholic Relief Services encounters poverty, disaster, hunger, disease, or conflict, the question isn't simply:
What can we give?
It is:
What will help people recover their dignity, strengthen their community, and eventually move forward without depending permanently on outside assistance?
That question has shaped CRS from its beginnings among refugees of World War II into a Catholic humanitarian presence reaching communities around the world.
It Started With People Running From War
Catholic Relief Services began in 1943.
Its original name was War Relief Services.
World War II had displaced millions of people, and the Catholic bishops of the United States created the organization to respond to refugees and survivors.
One of its first major efforts involved approximately 1,500 Polish refugees who had endured Soviet forced-labor camps before eventually finding refuge in Mexico.
CRS helped establish a safe community where they could recover, receive education and training, and begin rebuilding their lives.
That first chapter contains something that would remain central to CRS decades later.
Respond to the emergency.
Then help people recover.
Relief Became Development
Wars eventually end.
Human suffering doesn't.
CRS discovered that communities recovering from catastrophe often faced deeper problems that emergency aid alone couldn't solve.
Poverty.
Hunger.
Disease.
Weak agricultural systems.
Limited education.
Unsafe water.
Poor infrastructure.
Social conflict.
So the mission expanded.
War Relief Services eventually became Catholic Relief Services, and an organization created primarily for postwar relief developed into a much broader international humanitarian and development agency.
The goal was no longer simply survival.
It became helping communities build the conditions in which people could flourish.
Be There When Everything Falls Apart
Emergency response remains one of CRS' defining ministries.
Earthquakes.
Floods.
Cyclones.
Drought.
Famine.
Conflict.
Displacement.
When normal systems collapse, CRS and its partners can provide food, shelter, water, sanitation, cash assistance, essential supplies, and other forms of humanitarian support.
But CRS has an important advantage.
It frequently doesn't have to arrive as a stranger.
Catholic parishes, dioceses, Caritas organizations, religious communities, and other local partners may already be embedded within affected communities.
They know the roads.
The language.
The families.
The local leadership.
The vulnerabilities.
That local presence can become critical when hours matter.
Don't Leave When the Emergency Ends
Eventually the television cameras disappear.
A community still has to recover.
A farmer may have survived the cyclone but lost seeds, livestock, equipment, and an entire harvest.
A family may have received emergency food but lost its source of income.
Roads need rebuilding.
Children need to return to school.
Markets need to reopen.
CRS therefore connects emergency relief with recovery and resilience.
A family shouldn't merely survive this disaster.
Whenever possible, it should become better prepared for the next one.
Help Farmers Build a Future
Agriculture occupies an especially important place in CRS' work because millions of people experiencing poverty depend directly on farming.
A failed harvest can become hunger surprisingly quickly.
CRS works with smallholder farmers to strengthen agricultural systems and livelihoods.
That can mean improving access to seeds.
Protecting soil.
Managing water.
Improving farming practices.
Strengthening nutrition.
Helping farmers connect with markets.
Restoring agricultural assets after disasters.
The deeper goal is resilience.
A farmer shouldn't remain permanently dependent on someone shipping food from another country.
The stronger outcome is a farmer capable of producing food, supporting a family, participating in local markets, and recovering when hardship comes.
Feed the Child and Strengthen the School
CRS applies similar thinking to education.
A school may technically exist while children still face enormous barriers to learning.
Hunger affects concentration.
Poor nutrition affects development.
Inadequate teaching resources affect literacy.
Poverty affects attendance.
Girls may face additional obstacles to remaining in school.
CRS supports education programs that can combine school meals with improvements in literacy, mathematics, teacher capacity, agriculture, and family livelihoods.
The meal solves something today.
Education opens possibilities for tomorrow.
Health Is Bigger Than a Clinic
International development also means confronting disease.
CRS has worked across areas including maternal and child health, nutrition, malaria, HIV, sanitation, and health-system strengthening.
Again, the approach isn't simply medical.
A mother may need access to healthcare.
Her child may need better nutrition.
The family may need clean water.
The community may need sanitation.
Local health workers may need training.
A clinic may need stronger systems.
Human wellbeing rarely fits neatly into one program category.
CRS describes its broader philosophy as Integral Human Development.
The person is whole.
Development should be too.
Peace Can Be Development Work
A farmer cannot build a stable livelihood if violence repeatedly destroys the community.
A child cannot benefit from education if conflict closes the school.
A family cannot escape poverty if displacement forces them to start over every few years.
That is why CRS also works in peacebuilding and social cohesion.
Its programs bring divided communities into dialogue, strengthen relationships across groups, support reconciliation, and work with religious leaders, civil society, governments, and community institutions to prevent violence.
Peace isn't treated as something separate from humanitarian development.
It creates the environment in which development becomes possible.
Let Local People Lead
One of the strongest ideas in CRS' Catholic identity is subsidiarity.
It sounds technical.
The principle is simple.
Don't make a decision far away when people closer to the problem are capable of making it themselves.
CRS therefore emphasizes local leadership.
Communities aren't supposed to become passive recipients of somebody else's development plan.
They should participate in shaping their own future.
Local organizations should grow stronger.
Local institutions should develop expertise.
Local leaders should increasingly control decisions.
CRS can bring resources and technical knowledge.
But the people living there understand realities outsiders may never fully see.
The Church Was Often There First
The global Catholic Church gives that philosophy an unusual infrastructure.
A country may lack a CRS office in every village.
The Church may already have a parish there.
A diocese.
A school.
A hospital.
A religious congregation.
A local Caritas organization.
Those institutions can remain through political changes, economic crises, wars, and disasters.
CRS works through those relationships while also partnering with governments, civil society organizations, universities, businesses, other faith communities, and international institutions.
The global organization brings capacity.
The local partner brings proximity.
Together, they can accomplish things neither could accomplish as effectively alone.
Catholic Doesn't Mean Catholics Only
Catholic Relief Services is unmistakably Catholic.
It is the official international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States and carries out the commitment of the U.S. bishops to serve people who are poor and vulnerable overseas.
Its mission is motivated by the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Its principles come from Scripture and Catholic Social Teaching.
Yet CRS doesn't restrict assistance to Catholics.
Its longstanding principle is to serve according to need rather than creed, race, or nationality.
A Muslim child can receive food.
A Hindu farmer can receive agricultural assistance.
A Christian refugee can receive emergency shelter.
A person with no religion can receive healthcare.
The Catholic identity determines why CRS serves.
Human need determines who can be served.
Human Dignity Comes Before the Program
Catholic Social Teaching gives CRS a framework for deciding what development should actually accomplish.
Human life is sacred.
Every person possesses dignity.
People have rights and responsibilities.
Society should serve the common good.
The poor deserve particular concern.
Creation should be stewarded responsibly.
Local communities should exercise meaningful authority.
Human beings belong to one family.
Those principles change the relationship between the helper and the person receiving assistance.
Someone experiencing poverty isn't a project.
A refugee isn't a statistic.
A farmer isn't simply a beneficiary.
A community isn't a blank space waiting for outsiders to fix it.
Each person already possesses dignity.
Development should respect it.
Solidarity Makes Someone Far Away Your Neighbor
CRS also has another mission inside the United States.
It helps American Catholics understand their relationship with people overseas.
That relationship is expressed through solidarity.
A Catholic family in the United States may never meet the farmer whose agricultural program they supported.
They may never visit the refugee settlement receiving emergency assistance.
They may never meet the child receiving school meals.
Christian solidarity says distance doesn't eliminate responsibility.
Your neighbor can live thousands of miles away.
CRS invites American Catholics to pray, give, advocate, learn, and act with that larger human family in mind.
A Simple Bowl Can Teach Solidarity
One of CRS' best-known programs brings that idea directly into Catholic homes and parishes.
CRS Rice Bowl is used during Lent.
Families receive a small cardboard bowl.
They pray.
Fast.
Learn about communities around the world.
Give alms.
The physical bowl is intentionally simple.
Yet it connects ordinary Lenten practices with global poverty and Catholic social teaching.
Children can participate.
Families can participate.
Parishes can participate.
Something happening around the dinner table becomes connected with someone living on another continent.
Charity Can Also Have a Voice
CRS doesn't believe humanitarian service ends with programs.
It also advocates.
If government policy affects international hunger, poverty, humanitarian assistance, peace, or development, Catholics can participate in public life.
Advocacy therefore becomes another expression of solidarity.
Feed the hungry person.
Support the farmer.
Help the refugee.
Then consider the policies affecting millions of people facing the same circumstances.
Charity responds to the person in front of us.
Justice asks what can change so fewer people arrive at the same crisis.
More Than Eight Decades Later
CRS was born because Catholics in the United States looked across an ocean during one of history's darkest periods and saw people who needed help.
More than eighty years later, the countries have changed.
The emergencies have changed.
Development science has changed.
Technology has changed.
The fundamental conviction hasn't.
Human suffering somewhere else still matters here.
A person's nationality doesn't determine the value of their life.
Religious differences don't erase human dignity.
And Christian love doesn't stop at a border.
At the heart of Catholic Relief Services is the conviction that faith should cross borders. Created by the U.S. Catholic bishops in 1943 to serve refugees and survivors of World War II, CRS has grown into an international Catholic humanitarian and development organization working in more than 90 countries. It responds when disaster strikes, but it also stays for the longer work of rebuilding livelihoods, strengthening agriculture, improving health and education, preventing hunger, building peace, and helping communities become more resilient. Its Catholic identity shapes everything through human dignity, solidarity, subsidiarity, stewardship, the common good, and a preferential concern for people experiencing poverty. Yet assistance is given according to need rather than creed. The result is a ministry where loving your neighbor becomes global: the person may live thousands of miles away, speak another language, and practice another religion—and still be your neighbor.
