Archbishop Richard Smith has been appointed to the board of Catholic Near East Welfare Association, the papal organization that responds to the needs of the Eastern churches.
“It’s really a way in which the Pope, through this organization, can express his closeness and solidarity with the Eastern churches in communion with Rome, especially when they are in very difficult circumstances.” Archbishop Smith said in an interview. “Very often, these days, they find themselves in the hotspots of the world.”
Established in 1926, CNEWA provides pastoral and humanitarian support to the Churches of Northeast Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and India, including the Ukrainian [Greek] Catholic Church, the Melkite [Greek Catholic] Church based in Syria, the Chaldean Church based in Iraq, and the Maronite Church based in Lebanon.
While not an emergency relief agency, nevertheless CNEWA rushes emergency aid in times of crisis, and empowers Churches to respond through health, social services, and education and the formation of seminarians, women religious, and community leaders.
“We exist to put ourselves out of business. That is our goal. But I’m not sure that’s going to happen until the Second Coming,” said Michael La Civita, communications and marketing director of CNEWA. “We realize we have to deal with the circumstances given to us in a very imperfect world.”
Those situations include war zones, as in, for example, Lebanon and Ukraine.
“Ukraine, every day, is a concern to us,” La Civita said. “It weighs on us every day because the Church is there. It’s responding. It’s on the ground. And we lose people, and have lost people.”
In spite of the dangers, the Church continues to provide support.
“I don’t think the sense of danger burdens the local Churches at all,” La Civita explained. “They are not a people set apart. They are all in danger every day of their lives.
“What makes Catholic social teaching so different is the fact that people do what they do because it’s their faith that motivates them. It’s the Gospel that compels them to do what they do. That fire sustains them and, please God, keeps them reasonably safe.”
Archbishop Smith cited the need to support as “CNEWA is involved in all of these areas in one way or another offering concrete assistance and support, really showing the solidarity of the universal Church with the suffering people.”
Archbishop Smith is appointed to CNEWA’s international board of trustees based in New York for a three-year term, as Vancouver Archbishop J. Michael Miller completes his mandate. He has also been appointed to CNEWA’s Canadian board.
Archbishop Smith said he can bring to the CNEWA board of trustees the importance of building relationships, given the “very positive” experience with Indigenous peoples.
“We’ve recognized that reconciliation happens one relationship at a time. We need to build relationships based on mutual knowledge and trust. Trust is probably the first thing to go in a war zone and in these conflict areas. We have to recover, recapture, trust and a willingness to work together for the greater good.”
A challenge for CNEWA is educating Catholics about what the agency does, La Civita said.
“We’re often called the Catholic Church’s best-kept secret. We should not be.”
Archbishop Smith asked all Catholics for support.
“Join with me in prayer. People are doing it already, but we are just seeing so many of our sister Churches from the Eastern tradition suffering great horrors. Bring all of that to the Eucharist. In the Eucharist, we say, ‘May this sacrifice of our reconciliation, we pray O Lord, advance the peace and salvation of the whole world,’ ” Archbishop Smith said.
“Bring all of that to the Lord and pray that people will truly feel, in concrete ways, the solidarity of the Church through this organization and that God’s grace will lead us all to find resolutions to these conflicts.”
While some may not be familiar with the work of CNEWA, Archbishop Smith hopes that changes.
“The more our people realize the great and immense good that the Church does globally, the more they’ll understand that even here as they live out their Catholicism in a local parish, they are part of something so much bigger than themselves, and truly wondrous.”