Service Providers and Supporters: Organised Caritas in Need

Discussions and debates within the German Caritas were already underway in the nineties and have now become extremely heated. These discussions mostly revolve around the role the organisation should play within society, or to be more precise its modus operandi. What is caritas? What should its tasks be? How should it perform them and what exactly should it do? These appear to be the questions that are the most burning internal issues of this huge organisation. Caritas is in search of its role in today’s world, a world which is very materialistic. The expression materialistic world highlights the true essence of these internal disputes: should the main emphasis be on the gospels, focusing on fraternal love, rejecting discrimination, and accepting people living under adverse conditions, even safeguarding their interests, or should it be on professional services? In the second case it would of course face market conditions and competition even within the field of social work. This would not only influence the identity of Caritas, the image it has created of itself, but it would also have a strong impact on the way it is generally perceived, and would expose it to generally existing market risks. Although Caritas currently considers both its market and its socially based profiles to be equally legitimate, it is not irrelevant for its future which path it chooses. While the environment in which it operates faces both recurring and new problems, Caritas needs to be prepared, indeed should be prepared, for the continuous expansion of this quasi market. The employment rate of German women aged 15-65, for example, has reached around 65% today while the traditional family model has all but disappeared. The market is therefore increasing, and Caritas will need to satisfy the new market demands in a variety of ways. Despite recognising these issues earlier, Caritas only specified the guidelines it wishes to take into account and emphasise in the future as late as at the 1999 session of its Executive Committee, in Berlin.1 These principles appear in the statement issued as the final document of the session: ‘These activities are based on the mission that the free and benevolent love of God means in the world and which cannot be equalled by products available on the market. . . . Essential characteristics of Caritas as a service provider are support, mediation, social work and pity.’2