THE GLOBE
PO BOX 5079 (51102)
1825 JACKSON ST.
SIOUX CITY, IA (51105)
712.255.2550
800.352.9035
WWW.CATHOLICGLOBE.ORG

By Jerry Eaton, LMSW
Executive Director
Catholic Charities

Hopefully you have already heard that Catholic Charities here in the Diocese of Sioux City has begun the process of identifying methods to respond to the needs of people because of the financial crisis. We aren’t endowed with a huge amount of money that we can utilize to help people refinance their homes, pay mortgage payments, replace their losses in their retirement plans, provide jobs, or pay medical bills as more and more people lose insurance coverage. We wish we could do many of these things and we do have a very limited amount of money each month for Families in Crisis that has been replenished and depleted each month even before this new financial crisis.

If we can’t replace the millions and billions of dollars of losses and create new good paying jobs we know we
can utilize the true meaning of Charity that so many people seem to have forgotten. Too many people have seen the word Charity and seen it only as a handout rather than truly seeking to bring change to lives of those in need. They have forgotten that the root of the word Charity is the Latin word caritas meaning Christian love; “reaching out with benevolent goodwill toward or love of humanity” as defined in Webster’s Dictionary. The Church may not be able to do everything for everyone in need, but the Church has throughout its’ history made true Christian love an essential aspect of the purpose of the Church.

At Catholic Charities we know the negative impact on so many people’s lives can be added stress, added worries, new fears and anxieties that can, and often do, spill over to relieve stress through problematic behaviors that impact entire families like the abuse of alcohol/drugs or an increase of tensions in marriages, an increase in family violence, divorce, depression and suicide. Right now, people at all income levels might not think they can afford the help they need that will help marital couples keep a marriage together so they utilize each other’s love and strengths productively. They might not think they can afford services that can help keep a family together, that might reduce stress related anger and violence within families, that might help people deal with the losses they face while rebuilding their strengths and making a plan to restore a sense of stability and well-being in their lives.

Providing counseling/therapy services that bring stability and a sense of well-being is a normal everyday aspect of our work at Catholic Charities and one of the responses we are making is to lower the fees that our clients pay for our services by 1/3. This may seem counter intuitive given the financial problems this crisis has caused us at Catholic Charities, but it simply is the right thing to do. If by reducing our fees we can help a family stay together, a marriage to become strong and healthy again, and individuals to get back in touch with their strengths and build new ones – it is the right thing to do.

In addition, we had recently updated a list of services available to people in their own particular county within the diocese. We will be sending out copies of these lists to every parish priest to be put out on display for parishioner’s to pick up if they have a need for any of the listed services, and other information about dealing with stress, depression, anxiety, and feelings of being overwhelmed.

Faith is one of the most important indicators of success in dealing with the problems we face in life. During this crisis, and at this particular time of the year during lent, it is also important to focus on our faith, what it means to us, the strengths faith gives us, and the community our faith creates for us that is always there in support for us; always loving us, always believing in us, always caring what happens to us and always offering us a home no one can take away from us.