Archbishop Chaput writes an excellent essay in First Things on Catholic charitable institutions and the increasing attacks from the government. He makes some excellent points as he follows the history or our country and the reason for the attacks from a strange bedfellow partnership of individuals and the government.
Though one aspect he missed out on is that Catholic charitable institutions are being attacked both from within and without. He cites the case of Catholic Charities in Massachusetts being forced out of adoptions because of laws forcing them to adopt to homosexual couples. Though the truth was that Catholic Charities was already performing such adoptions at times until their hand was forced. The same goes for Catholic Charities in San Francisco that was also forced out of the adoption business. Unfortunately many Catholic charitable institutions are staffed with people not exactly friendly to the whole gamut of Catholic teaching. Blessed Mother Teresa disliked being called a social worker because her work transcended the purely humanitarian model. Often though those working in our institutions could easily be classed just in the social worker mode.
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Brian Anderson wrote an insightful article back in 2000 about Catholic Charities gradual shift from doing classic charity work to being more involved in social work and advocacy:
http://www.city-journal.org/html/10_1_how_catholic_charities.html