Collaborative on Global Children's Issues

There is global agreement illustrated by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the most widely adopted human rights treaty in the world, that optimal support for a child comes from a caring and protective family. In addition, Catholic social teaching, outlined in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, seeks the whole development of the child within a family setting, affirming God’s plan for family to be a child’s most important source of love, emotional support, and spiritual guidance. Yet, when vulnerable parents and families do not have the resources to meet their basic needs, or are otherwise unable to access fundamental protections, the risk of child-family separation increases.

Millions of children across the world live in residential care settings, often known as orphanages. More than 80 percent of children living in such environments have at least one living parent, with poverty being the primary reason vulnerable children are placed in care. Decades of research have shown that children’s well-being is seriously impacted by lack of family care. Family separation, combined with the inappropriate use of alternative care, including orphanages and residential institutions, can lead to immediate and long-term physical, social, psychological, and emotional harm. Children in such circumstances often experience abuse, neglect, lack of stimulation, and extreme and toxic stress, all of which have a profoundly negative effect on a child’s development and adult outcomes.

For this topic, the Collaborative on Global Children's Issues asks: What is the Catholic Church’s history regarding orphanages and children’s residential care facilities? How have the practices of Christian faith communities changed over time and in response to growing evidence about better care alternatives for children? What does answering God’s call to care for the orphan mean for churches, families, orphanages, and other forms of children’s care today and in the future?

The origin story of the Catholic Church in the United States includes a dependency on slave labor and sales to sustain itself and build its institutions. In 1838, a group of the United States’ most prominent Catholic priests, the Society of Jesuits, sold 272 enslaved people to save Georgetown University, their largest mission project and the first Catholic institution of higher learning in the United States. The sale included the separation of children from parents, a common feature of the slave trade. In the groundbreaking new book The 272 (2023), Rachel L. Swarns follows one family through nearly two centuries of indentured servitude and enslavement to uncover a harrowing history. In a recent article about the 1838 sale, she shares how witnesses “described the terrors of enslavement: children torn from their parents, brothers from their sisters, and desperate people forced to board slave ships that sailed to Louisiana. It was one of the largest documented slave sales of the time, and it shattered entire families.”

For this topic, the Collaborative on Global Children's Issues asks: Children who were enslaved were often separated from their families. How did Catholic communities respond to this separation at the time? How is the Catholic Church responding to this history of separation now? Going forward, how should Catholic communities respond to this history of separation?