Every faith tradition has teachings on service and social justice. Our Catholic faith has a rich tradition, rooted in Scripture and supported by the Saints and church leaders through the centuries. Our Social Concerns team strives to help your faith community understand and live out these teachings, in ways unique to your community and its needs and gifts.

This is achieved by identifying, forming and supporting leaders who will organize people and activities around four areas key to social concerns ministry:

• Direct Service – seeking and taking opportunities to address the immediate and basic needs of those in our community through efforts such as, but not limited to, food or financial assistance, transportation or visiting the homebound.
• Advocacy – seeking institutional change by making our collective voices heard by local and national decision-makers in ways that can help systems be more just and address the needs of our communities on a deep and sustainable level.
• Community Organizing – building skills for information-gathering and relationship-building that allow for better networking of individuals and organizations that can partner together around common goals and make a positive impact on concerns affecting our communities.
• Global Solidarity – recognizing the giftedness of being a universal church, and the responsibility to connect with, pray for, serve and be served by our global family members, regardless of how near or far they may be.

The Social Concerns team offers presentations, consultation, an annual gathering, ongoing support and a Parish Social Ministry Certification program to train and empower those interested in social ministry. We are happy to connect you to others doing or interested in similar work, or to connect you to resources to help build your understanding and skills around doing social concerns ministry, so that you can bring your knowledge to the church and surrounding communities in an effort to encourage everyone to be agents of God’s compassion and positive change.

To learn more about Parish Social Ministry and the ways that our US Bishops are calling our faith communities to engage in it, read “Communities of Salt and Light: Reflections on the Social Mission of the Parish,” or dive into the “Sacraments and Social Mission,” from the USCCB.

Want to take a closer look at your Parish’s Social Ministry? Learn about effective Social Ministry with Catholic Charities’ USA’s Parish Social Ministry Toolkit. Or take this assessment of your parish’s activities and how they may or may not be living out our Catholic Social Teachings.