Throughout the past 75 years, you have carried out a tradition proclaimed by the Church and relevant to every age. In our contemporary American culture, social service agencies are one of the most significant mediating structures which link the individual with society. At its core, religious well-being is dependent on securing and preserving human dignity. Human dignity requires that we work to achieve economic and social well-being as well. Therefore there is a need for the Catholic Church to be engaged in the important work of social services.
Institutions are important, and indispensable.
Nonetheless, no institution can, by itself, replace the human heart, human compassion, human love, human family, or human initiative when it is the question of dealing with another's suffering. In doing the work of Catholic Social Services, yours is the profession of the heart. You, and all those who have carried on the mission of your agency for seventy five years, have committed your energies and your hearts, like the Good Samaritan, to stopping by those who are in trouble or in pain, to giving of yourselves in loving compassion, and to bringing alleviation to the suffering. How very blessed you are, individually and collectively, in this work, for as you stop by, and give of yourselves in alleviation of another's pain, you truly give witness to the very real presence of Jesus among us, and to His redeeming Love in our world. I have spoken of the social services profession as privileged, blessed, graced.