In the last 10 years, donors in the Archdiocese of Chicago have given $7.4 million to the Catholic Campaign for Human Development. That money has funded local and national antipoverty initiatives. The U.S. bishops started CCHD in 1970 to support “such projects as voter registration, community organizations, community-run schools, minority-owned cooperatives and credit unions, capital for industrial development and job training programs, and setting up of rural cooperatives,” according the website of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Grants are awarded at local and national levels every year. The Catholic Church has initiatives like CCHD because, as the Second Vatican Council stated, it is a church in the modern world and “it has an obligation to bring the message of Jesus to the least among us and to address the reasons why the poor and the oppressed are in these situations and address these root causes,” said Anthony Suarez-Abraham, director of the archdiocese’s Office for Peace and Justice, which runs the campaign locally. CCHD has not been without controversy in past years. Some in the Catholic community have questioned if the grants support organizations whose work is counter to church teaching and earlier this year, the local media criticized the archdiocese for suspending grants to organizations involved in a coalition that supported same-sex marriage legislation. Campaign administrators say that they take seriously the guidelines for grant recipients. “Individuals who support the CCHD can be assured that their contributions are being used to promote or support the social teachings of the church,” he said. In order to qualify for the CCHD grants, applicants must agree that their work does not support anything contrary to church teaching, like abortion. Suarez-Abraham said this is clearly outlined in all of the application materials and grant agreements. “The Catholic Campaign for Human Development is not an unrestricted flow of money to organizations that want to do the very good work of addressing the issue of poverty and injustice in Chicago,” Suarez-Abraham said. “It’s a campaign that promotes the values of the social teachings of the church. And those values are radically rooted in the fundamental dignity of the human person.” Those values are in sync with values of the Jane Addams Senior Caucus in Chicago, which is a long-time CCHD grant recipient. They caucus works for economic, social and racial justice for seniors in Chicago and are in their third year for receiving local grants and are applying for national grants. This is the caucus’ second round of CCHD grants. Lori Clark, the caucus director, says CCHD is unique in its focus on social justice work. “It’s one of the only places that funds social justice work and the type of work that the caucus does,” Clark said. That is why CCHD is “critical to the work that we do,” Clark said. “A lot of foundations tend to look at services and don’t see that social justice actually gets to the root causes that might actually alleviate those type of services or understand what are the real, true services (needed),” Clark said. Indeed, there is a great need for services, Clark said, but the social justice work that organizations like the Jane Addams Senior Caucus does gets to the root of what is actually needed in the community rather than the foundations or not-for-profits telling the community what they need. The caucus is using this year’s grant to train leaders in affordable senior housing communities to help them work to preserve their building and create relationships with the building owners so that they are able to live in the building with dignity, Clark said. The work with groups such as the Jane Addams Senior Caucus shows that CCHD continues to make a difference in the lives of the poor. “A Chicago absent of CCHD would be missing an important dimension of the ministry of Jesus,” Suarez-Abraham said. “In other words, what would be missing is hope. Hope for a more just Chicago.”