Human Costs of Abandoning U.S. Help Around the World: The Experience of Catholic Sisters and Catholic Relief Services

—The livestream will begin at 1:30 pm ET.

—Sr. Eneless Chimbali, SBVM, is a member of the Servants of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Blantyre, Malawi and a senior program officer for the All Africa Conference: Sister to Sister. She serves on the board of directors of Catholic Relief Services.

—Sr. Florence Muia, ASN, is a member of the Sisters of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Nairobi and the founder of Upendo Village, a facility in Naivasha, Kenya, designed to support people living with HIV in low-income communities around Nairobi.

—Bill O’Keefe is the executive vice president for mission and mobilization at Catholic Relief Services, where he oversees CRS efforts to change U.S. foreign policy in ways that promote justice and reduce poverty overseas.

—Sr. Dee Smith, M.M., is a Maryknoll sister and one of the founders of Proyecto Vida, an HIV/AIDS education, prevention, and treatment effort in Guatemala.

—Kimberly Mazyck, associate director of the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life, will moderate the conversation.


To ask the panel a question, please email cathsocialthought@georgetown.edu and use the subject line “Question for Public Dialogue: Human Costs of Abandoning U.S. Help Around the World”. You are welcome to submit questions now through the Q&A, and we will weave them into the conversation as time permits.

A National Duty

48. The duty of promoting human solidarity also falls upon the shoulders of nations: "It is a very important duty of the advanced nations to help the developing nations . . ." This conciliar teaching must be implemented. While it is proper that a nation be the first to enjoy the God-given fruits of its own labor, no nation may dare to hoard its riches for its own use alone. Each and every nation must produce more and better goods and products, so that all its citizens may live truly human lives and so that it may contribute to the common development of the human race.

Considering the mounting indigence of less developed countries, it is only fitting that a prosperous nation set aside some of the goods it has produced in order to alleviate their needs; and that it train educators, engineers, technicians and scholars who will contribute their knowledge and their skill to these less fortunate countries.