VATICAN CITY — In recent years, the Vatican has become increasingly concerned about a troubling aspect of Catholic humanitarian relief: Too often, officials say, the secular mentality that dominates the world of aid and development overwhelms the Christian principles that are supposed to imbue Catholic aid agencies.

“Christian aid, by its essence, is a mirror for the Christian manner of living the Gospel,” Archbishop Paul Cordes, the president of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, the Pope's charitable arm, told the Register.

“[But] sometimes, Christ's message is reduced to that which interests public opinion: justice, peace, and quality of life. It is rare when one speaks about sin, love of God and eternal life.”

As a result, Archbishop Cordes added, the “vertical dimension of charity — that which is beyond earthly and secular humanism — is in danger of being lost.”

As the Holy See's “docking point” for Catholic charities, Cor Unum's primary purpose is to provide support to agencies. Established by Pope Paul VI in 1971, the pontifical council provides a forum for them to interact and collaborate with the Church's bishops, equipping them with human and theological guidance and direction through the “catechesis of charity.”

Secular Leanings

But the German archbishop, a friend of Pope Benedict XVI since the 1960s, said Cor Unum is “very concerned” about Catholic agencies that fail to uphold authentic Catholic charity and instead reduce it “to a very pragmatic redistribution of goods, disconnected from evangelization.”

A number of reasons are commonly cited for this tendency. The first is a growing drift towards secularism, not just within humanitarian agencies, but in society in general.

Second, the close collaboration often required between Catholic agencies and those of other denominations, religions or no faith at all, can lead to unhealthy compromises.

A third factor is governmental pressure for organizations to comply with the legislation of different countries.

But perhaps the biggest factor leading to secular leanings among Catholic aid agencies is the rapid increase in government funding of their operations, which can result in governments demanding that Catholic agencies spend their funds according to the dictates of a given government program, even if that involves violating Church teachings.

Indeed, the increase in government funding of aid and development agencies has been staggering.

In 1970, non-governmental organizations involved in refugee work received an average of 1.5% of their funding from governments. In 1997, the proportion had risen to 40%. In 2002, Catholic Relief Services received 30% of its funding from the U.S. government; the British government's Department for International Development provides 9% of the funding for the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (also known as CAFOD), the agency of the bishops of England and Wales.

“Much of this temptation to secularize stems from the often very competitive world of funding,” said Archbishop Cordes. “Agencies must struggle to obtain additional funding, whether from governments or private foundations.”

An example of the secular drift among some Catholic aid agencies was highlighted by the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development's support last year for the selective use of condoms as a prevention strategy against transmission of HIV/AIDS. While the Catholic agency does not itself distribute condoms, the organization's HIV Corporate Strategist Ann Smith said in an article published in the British Catholic newspaper The Tablet that their use was a worthwhile component of “risk reduction” for individuals like prostitutes “who may have few if any other realistic options for reducing this risk.”

Smith added that the promotion of “abstinence” as an anti-HIV/AIDS strategy was not limited to abstaining from all sex outside of marriage.

She argued that “for some young women abstinence might mean delaying the age of first sexual encounter beyond the more physiologically vulnerable teen-age years. For other women and men, it might mean waiting until they are in a more stable relationship.

“Similarly, the exhortation to ‘be faithful’ means exhorting married couples to be mutually faithful for life, as the Church teaches,” Smith continued. “But we also acknowledge that, in other contexts, this component can also mean fidelity to a single long-term partner or fidelity to a strategy of reducing the instances of casual sex.”

Criticism

By supporting such a broad interpretation of the circumstances in which condom use might be acceptable, and by stretching the Church's traditional understanding of abstinence and fidelity, the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development provoked widespread criticism. For Archbishop Cordes, the condom policy demonstrated how easy it is for Catholic agencies to fail to achieve their spiritual as well as practical goals.

“It is illogical to represent the Church within the ambit of charitable aid and, at the same time, to do so without being part of the Church's mission,” he explained. “Charity, as an outreach of the Church's mandate to make the Gospel known, must necessarily operate within the framework of the Church's teaching.”

Last December's massive tsunami in Southeast Asia provided another example of Catholic charity working as it should, according to the Cor Unum president. Council staff recently returned from Asia where they saw first-hand the devastation caused by the tsunami.

Archbishop Cordes singled out local churches and Catholic Relief Services for their “heroic” response in providing “emergency food, shelter, clothing, medical aid as well as opportunities for prayer and joining together in faith.”

(Register staff contributed to this report.)

Edward Pentin writes from Rome.