Collaborative on Global Children's Issues

The ideas expressed in the Faith and the Family Forum and all of its content are solely of forum contributors and do not necessarily represent the views of Georgetown University, Catholic Relief Services, or other associated parties.

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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. Catholic social teaching as outlined in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church also 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.

The phenomenon of preventable child-family separation is as old as time. Cultural beliefs and habits largely inform societal approaches to children at risk of losing parental care. Faith-based perspectives and responses are—and have always been—an important part of this equation. Christian faith communities have responded to child-family separation in various ways throughout history, contributing to both the propagation and prevention of child-family separation across time and contexts. Church history on this issue is complex with varied responses, some complicit in harm and others offering care for children—each approach rooted in ideas of childhood that have contributed to this spectrum of responses.

The forum on Faith and the Family: Propagating and Preventing Child-Family Separation across Time and Context explored the theological dimensions of these issues and growing evidence about the effects of child-family separation on developmental outcomes across the life course. With a particular focus on the Roman Catholic faith, project partners considered the extent to which Catholic belief systems and practices have justified or opposed the separation of children from families in a variety of historical and regional contexts: American slavery, Indigenous communities, the development and use of residential care worldwide, and in migration policy and response. 

The forum also worked to illuminate the role of the Catholic Church in supporting vulnerable children, families, and communities and preventing unnecessary child-family separation.

The forum was a joint project between the Georgetown University Collaborative on Global Children’s Issues and Catholic Relief Services, in coordination with the Changing the Way We Care initiative and strategic partners. The forum has been an emergent process, an ongoing dialogue shaped by a collaborative team of thought leaders committed to incorporating a variety of perspectives into the conversation, including those impacted by the legacy of child-family separation, faith leaders, programmatic actors, researchers, and other stakeholders.

The Faith and the Family Forum has considered the issues of child-family separation at various critical points in history in a series of webinars and blog posts, as well as collected resources for deeper exploration on the following topics:

Key Takeaways

• The Christian faith began with a vulnerable child born to a displaced mother facing a range of threats. Despite this compelling origin story, there has been limited theological reflection on children, their care, and protection, leading to critical gaps in understanding the most appropriate ways to serve and support children and their caregivers.
• While often thought of as a means to care for orphaned children, residential care settings—also known as “orphanages”—have a history of fostering child-family separation.
• Forced child-family separation was a key feature of the transatlantic slave trade and the sale of enslaved people in the United States and was often facilitated by Catholic institutions. 
• For centuries, Indigenous children were removed from their families and sent to boarding schools, many of which were run by Catholic missions, or placed in adoptive non-Indigenous families. The goal of forcible removals was to assimilate Indigenous children into Western society, erasing Indigenous identity, languages, cultures, and religious practices.
• Archivists and historians are playing an important role in excavating the problematic histories of the Catholic Church's involvement in forced child-family separation across time and contexts. These efforts are often grassroots and locally led. A larger, more encompassing project commissioned and sanctioned by Catholic leadership would be an important step toward historical accuracy and accountability.
• Those who have been directly affected by or who have experienced the generational impact of the Catholic Church’s role in forced child-family separation must guide and inform efforts to reckon with this history. Initiatives that promote reconciliation without full truth-telling are viewed skeptically by those who have been harmed by this history and its legacies.
• Creating opportunities to consider Catholic social teaching, global child rights, and evidence-based best practices for responding to the needs of children and families can inform initiatives that serve the best interests of children. Training and accompanying organizations, including religious congregations, through the process of change is critical as new information and approaches to addressing social issues come to light. Groups that “move at the speed of trust” to enable shifts are seeing results.
• Current Catholic efforts to support vulnerable children and families experiencing displacement and migration—preventing unnecessary child-family separation, providing appropriate care for unaccompanied and separated children, and supporting family reunification after separation—demonstrate the positive impact of what is possible when the Church engages these issues locally and globally.
• There is a clear need to develop well-articulated, life-giving theologies of the child, children’s care, and protection, and to engage faith leaders and communities on these issues through theological workshops, training, and reflections grounded in insights from children themselves.

For Further Consideration

The Faith and the Family Forum created a space to begin to explore the Catholic Church’s roles in child-family separation in a variety of historical and cultural contexts, each unique and complex yet also sharing some common threads that require more attention than they are given here.

There is enduring trauma from historical wrongs during enslavement and Indigenous residential schools that are beginning to be addressed by historical documentation and efforts that aim to facilitate healing and repair. Prioritizing family support over placing children in residential care is gaining wider acceptance as a better practice, even as change can be slow. Catholic support for vulnerable children during migration portends promising things for the power of the Church to positively advocate and care for children facing precarity and family separation. All of these issues could benefit from a deeper and more robust exploration of the theologies that undergird assumptions about children and approaches to their care and protection.

There are at least two issues that warrant further discussion. While the harms associated with involuntary child-family separation have been repeatedly noted in this conversation, there is no discussion about what constitutes “family.” The forum has taken no position on a normative definition of a family, though there are often latent assumptions about this within the Catholic Church and society. Further consideration of the theologies of the child, children’s care, and protection might also consider the theologies of family, and how this may be experienced and articulated in various communities and contexts—and by children themselves.

Additionally, while care and protection for vulnerable children have been explored across specific contexts here, the forum did not focus on the clergy sexual abuse crisis, although the issue was raised in a number of webinars. It is important to understand the extent to which the clergy sexual abuse crisis is often foregrounded in discussions of child protection and the ways it might impact Church credibility on other issues related to the protection of children. All violations against children within the context of the Catholic Church underscore the urgent need to develop more reflective and robust theologies of the child, children’s care, and protection; ensure appropriate child-centered training and formation; and establish safeguards and accountability mechanisms to reduce and address harm, whether historically or in the present day.

Part I: Theology of the Child, Children’s Care, and Protection

Webinar: March 20, 2023

Theology of the Child

How adults think about and respond to the needs of children and child protection grows out of assumptions and norms that are often poorly articulated, if they are articulated at all. Those who work with children can have a latent, unexpressed, or implicit theology of children and childhood that guides their actions toward children. These implicit theologies are foundational, creating and necessitating action toward children but often with an impoverished understanding of the realities of childhood and children.

In fact, theologies of the child and childhood, as well as child-attentive theologies, are marginally treated in academia. As Marcia Bunge, professor of religion and the Bernhardson Distinguished Chair at Gustavus Adolphus College and extraordinary research professor at North-West University in South Africa, states, “[I] did my graduate work at the University of Chicago and in Tübingen, Germany. Even though these are great institutions, throughout graduate school, I did not study or write anything about children, and none of my professors did.” Bunge’s experience is echoed by Rev. Gerard J. McGlone, S.J., a research fellow at Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, who notes “as a theology student in the 1980s, I didn’t have one class on theology of the child in either divinity or theological studies.” The lack of attention during theological training has reinforced the marginality of children and created the space for unexamined understandings of childhood to become the norm, even for those who seek to serve children in their ministries and social work.

Adults who have not paid careful attention to their own conceptualization of childhood risk constructing a one-dimensional view of children. The Most Rev. Luis Solé Fa, C.M., bishop emeritus of the Catholic Diocese of Trujillo, Honduras, says that children’s obedience is generally preferred over their moral development and agency, which emphasizes their behavior instead of their holistic development. Yet, it is important to remember, in the words of Mary M. Doyle Roche, associate professor of religious studies at the College of the Holy Cross, that “obedience to authority is not the primary moral task of children and young people.” Children’s role in society and in the Church cannot and should not be reduced or simplified in this way.

Oversimplified conceptualizations of childhood can lead to narrowed options for serving children. “Our conceptions of children and our commitments to children are highly interrelated,” notes Prof. Bunge. The theological foundations or assumptions we make, even if they are implicit or unseen, can influence our actions toward children and define the parameters of our responses and obligations to them. If we view children primarily as in need of instruction, we might focus on teaching them, but neglect learning from them and delighting in them, honoring their stories. Or if we view children as only vulnerable victims, we might focus on protecting them, but neglect hearing their stories and recognizing their strengths and agency,” according to Prof. Bunge. When we hold impoverished theologies, we create limited responses, which in turn can diminish children or miss the gifts and perspectives that childhood offers. This not only harms children but also adults, who may not fully appreciate that children’s lives are rich and meaningful, beyond being objects of instruction or formation.

It is critical to develop life-giving and robust understandings of children beginning with biblical teaching on children. There is no Christianity without the story of a child born into precarity. “The Christian faith begins with a vulnerable child born to a mother facing a series of threats,” says Huebner. Drawing on biblical teaching, Rev. McGlone reminds us that “the child was for Jesus the paradigm for humility, vulnerability, powerlessness, and an example of a true disciple: he called a child over, placed them in their midst, and said, ‘Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever receives one child such as this in my name receives me’” (Matthew 18:2-5). Bishop Solé suggests that Jesus’ understanding of childhood is life-giving and affirming: “What Jesus sees in [the children], is they are a sign of the realm.” Childhood is at the center of the Christian story and of Jesus’ ministry, yet our theologies around it remain underdeveloped.

Catholic Social Teaching and a Robust Theology of the Child

Two foundational concepts that motivate child-centered work are central to Catholic teaching: the preferential option for the poor, and the importance of upholding the common good. “[The preferential option for the poor] emphasizes our duty to prioritize the needs and concerns of the most vulnerable of our society,” notes Rev. Charles Chilufya, S.J., director of the Justice and Ecology Office at the Jesuit Conference of Africa and Madagascar. The common good requires us to see the harm that comes to children as not only direct harm to them, but also “the entire society and community that is being hurt when children are hurt.” A theological orientation to childhood and child protection must be rooted in a “commitment to the protection and participation of the vulnerable in the context of the common good,” says Prof. Roche.

The webinar conversation and Collaborative Forum exploring the theology of the child and children’s care and protection highlighted four cornerstones of robust, life-giving theologies of the child and childhood that emerged from theologians, advocates, religious leaders, and practitioners: dignity; empathy; vulnerability; and multidimensionality.

Dignity: A commitment to the dignity of children requires us to see that “children are also complete and whole individuals who share a discrete relationship with God and play an instrumental role in achieving God’s plan for the world,” suggests Rev. Fred Nyabera, director of the Interfaith Initiative to End Child Poverty. Dignity requires a realistic understanding of what childhood is—not an abstraction but a reflection of the lived experiences of children. Roche calls this a “commitment to the intrinsic dignity of all people, who are at once absolutely unique and radically interdependent, and whose becoming is always ongoing.” The value of childhood is also not simply nested in children’s future development into full adulthood. “Childhood has value in itself and does not have to be justified on the fruits that come afterward,” observes Massimo Faggioli, a professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at Villanova University.

Empathy: Harm to others is rooted in a lack of empathy and concern for the well-being of another. The absence of empathy makes harm possible. It can and must be counteracted through the education and training of religious leaders with an emphasis on the critical nature of empathy for spiritual care. “Our theological education needs to be rebuilt [with a foundation of] empathy so that all the pastors and fathers will be marked with empathy in the way they do things,” implores Rev. Jean Messingue, S.J., professor at the Jesuit Institute of Theology in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.

Vulnerability: Vulnerability is a central concept in Christianity, beginning with the story of the birth of Jesus. “Having arrived in the world as a baby, a state of ultimate vulnerability and dependency, Jesus placed the care and protection of children within families central to his work (Luke 18:16),” notes Stephen Hanmer D’Elia, a research fellow with the Collaborative on Global Children’s Issues. Vulnerability itself is layered and nuanced; it is not simply weakness, but a notion of dependence, reminding us that we need each other. “The vulnerability of childhood is necessary for moral development. Moral sensitivity requires vulnerability. Vulnerability is not a completely negative concept. It is one that has this rich understanding…Vulnerability is a rich concept that challenges all of us,” Sister Nuala Patricia Kenny, S.C., professor emerita at Dalhousie University, points out.

Multidimensionality: According to Prof. Roche, multidimensionality “resists the binary thinking that values masculine over feminine, reason over emotion, spirit over flesh. It takes seriously both the embodied and the spiritual aspects of children.” It is not enough to think about children as vulnerable and in need of protection, but also as humans in need of support for their moral and resilient development. “The most life-giving and robust theologies of childhood are multidimensional and they all honor children's full humanity. They incorporate a number of seemingly paradoxical biblical perspectives on children,” says Prof. Bunge. “They recognize children's strengths as well as their vulnerabilities; their need for guidance and protection, as well as their agency and positive contributions; their development needs and unique identities, as well as their dignity, equality, and integrity as full human persons.”

To develop theologies of the child and childhood more completely, we need to reimagine childhood with new language, new methodologies for uncovering the nuances and depths of children’s experiences, and new training for leaders that equip them to better serve. Rev. Messingue emphasizes, “The meaning of the child and childhood must be reconstructed/rebuilt starting with a new cultural, social, and theological discourse.” Developing this theology creates an opportunity to build interdisciplinarily, drawing lessons and knowledge from multiple sources.

Centering the experiences of children is essential, according to Jennifer Beste, Koch Chair in Catholic Thought and Culture at the College of Saint Benedict, who warns us against constructing a theology of childhood based on the views and memories of adults. “The assumption that a child theology informed solely by adults is fully adequate subtly renders children as objects and silences their voices and perspectives.” To de-center adults in the creation of these new theologies, Beste advocates for seeing children as co-creators and co-researchers in this enterprise, an idea that requires adults to engage in new research methods that enable children’s knowledge and experiences to shape our understanding of childhood.

New training, as leaders are in formation, would enable these concepts to take root in ministries and ensure that leaders are attentive to the needs and experiences of children. “Before speaking of pastoral practices, let us start with the training of pastoral care agents, because the way we practice depends on the way we were trained. What is the theological discourse that supports the preparation for pastoral care or ministry? What is the theology that dominates [our training], or within which we form our future pastoral care agents and priests?" asks Rev. Messingue. Training and formation must include work that centers the child and helps leaders form and articulate life-giving theologies of childhood to lay new foundations for the future where children are better honored and served. “When we acknowledge children as bearers of God’s image and recognize their intrinsic value, we create a sturdy foundation for their care, protection, well-being, and empowerment,” according to Rev. Nyabera.

Reimagining childhood and understanding its nuances and dimensions holds tremendous potential for opening up the Church to renewal and vitality. “We all need to be responsible for the new society, for the new worlds that we want to create, and the place that we want to put that child, a central area so that their voices, their perspective, can enrich the church where every level is respected,” observes Rev. Messingue.

It is precisely children’s marginalization that may open new windows for self-reflection in the Church, according to Prof. Bunge.

Further Resources:

This section is a summary of a March 20, 2023 webinar and is informed by the blog posts created in response to the webinar:

• Jennifer E. Beste, The Next Frontier: Developing a Child-Informed Theology of Children
• Mary M. Doyle Roche, Theological Anthropology, Childhood, and the Rights of Real Children
• Massimo Faggioli, Abuse Crisis and Care for Migrants and Refugees for the Development of a Theology of Childhood in the Catholic Tradition
• Stephen Hanmer, The Catholic Church and Child Rights Organizations: Finding Common Ground to Avoid Preventable Child-family Separation
• Rev. Gerard J. McGlone, S.J., Listening to the Marginalized Voices from the Past and Present 
• Roberto Navarro, Working Towards a World Where All Children Flourish and Reach Their God-given Potential in Safe and Nurturing Families: A Reflection by Catholic Relief Services
• Rev. Fred Nyabera, Spiritual Nurturing in Children to Prevent Violence: A Christian Perspective
• Rev. Hans Zollner, S.J., Children of God: Theology in the Face of Abuse

View articles, statements, and other resources for "The Theology of the Child, Children’s Care, and Protection."

Part II: Caring for Vulnerable Children: What does Answering God’s Call Mean for Churches, Families, Orphanages, and other Forms of Children’s Care?

Webinar: April 25, 2023

The Faith and the Family Forum explores the Christian call to “care for the orphan” that is echoed throughout scripture (Baruch 6:37; Deuteronomy 10:18 and 14:29; Exodus 22:21-23; James 1:27; Job 29:12; Psalms 10:14, 68:6, and 146:9; Sirach 35:17) and shared through Christian tenets, values, and ministries. The care for children is undergirded by an understanding of the overwhelming violence and precarity children face across the globe. Elizabeth Ngami Syanda, a program officer serving at the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops’ National Family Life Office, notes, “St. John Paul II underscored [these teachings] during the 1990 World Summit for Children, stating that ‘the Church has a vivid perception of the immense burden of suffering and injustice borne by the children of the world.'” 

Two questions are important to explore when considering these issues:

• What is the Catholic Church’s history with orphanages and children’s residential care institutions?
• How have these practices changed over time in response to growing evidence about better care alternatives?
  

The Catholic Church’s History with Orphanages and Children’s Residential Care Institutions

Historical circumstances that led to the creation and proliferation of orphanages stem from a myriad of social factors that create vulnerable populations, along with compelling moral imperatives to care for them. Philip Goldman, president of Maestral International, details the extensive history of the Catholic Church's involvement in residential care for vulnerable children. During the first centuries of Christianity, children who lost one or both parents were cared for by extended families, and bishops outlined the rules and requirements governing the treatment of orphans and widows.

Catholic-sponsored residential care for children can be traced back to the fourth and fifth centuries in Byzantium, where orphanages were established. Church programs and hospitals were created to reduce infanticide, especially for children born out of wedlock. “This residential model spread rapidly throughout Italy through the fifteenth century, in France through the seventeenth century, and in Germany and Austria during the eighteenth century, in part driven by high levels of adult mortality from disease and conflict,” Goldman notes.

As residential care expanded, so did concerns about the well-being of children in care. Whether due to high mortality rates or discomfort surrounding coercive conversion from one religious tradition to another, residential care programs faced scrutiny wherever they operated. “By the eighteenth century, it was already becoming evident that the goal of saving children’s lives through residential placement was far from being realized… ‘foundling homes’ across Europe had infant mortality rates ranging from 55% to 95%,” states Goldman. Similar failures in the United States led President Theodore Roosevelt to assemble experts at the Conference for the Care of Dependent Children in 1909 to focus on ending residential care and promoting family-based care alternatives. The meeting produced recommendations that laid the groundwork for the modern U.S. family-based welfare system. Many experts acknowledge the long-standing commitment of societies to caring for widows and orphans but also highlight the evolution of thinking toward family-based care solutions, particularly in response to the documented harms of institutionalization. These insights underscore the complex interplay between religious doctrine, historical practices, and evolving social norms in shaping child welfare approaches.

Emmanuel (“Nabs”) Nabieu, a global child advocate for orphaned and vulnerable children and their families, draws from his personal experience growing up in an orphanage in Sierra Leone as he passionately advocates for family-based care solutions. He underscores the profound impact of separation on children, stressing the importance of preserving familial bonds and cultural connections. His journey from orphanage resident to care reform advocate resonated deeply, highlighting the transformative power of lived experiences in shaping policy and practice. Goldman echoes some of the harms of residential care Nabieu highlights, including “the lack of individual attention, of engagement, of protection, and love in a safe nurturing family has terrible ramifications for kids.”

Changing Practices and Centering Families

While residential care is conceived of as a form of care for children without families, the reality can be starkly different. “We are not necessarily serving orphans, but mostly children coming from poor families,” Nabieu notes about the orphanage where he once resided and went on to direct in Sierra Leone. “I asked myself, well, if they have families, why are they in orphanages?” Under his leadership, the staff of his orphanage explored the research that found that of the five to eight million children living in orphanages worldwide, 80-90% have at least one living parent. In fact, UNICEF defines an orphan as a child under 18 years old who has lost one or both parents. This reveals a shocking inversion: residential care, in fact, is often an instrument of family-child separation, even though it is conceptualized as a remedy for it. “We can start debunking, get rid of the myth that children in orphanages are all orphans or children are in orphanages because of lack of families. That is not the case. It’s not the lack of family. It’s because of extreme poverty,” Nabieu asserts as he advocates for solutions that knit families back together.

Centering family care and strengthening is the preferred way to care for vulnerable children, as proposed by the Conference for the Care of Dependent Children in 1909, which is echoed in global guidance today. There is a need to help churches rethink how they care for vulnerable children, according to Nabieu, moving them “towards investing in family care, investing in helping families know that this is providing resources, caring for, and strengthening those in poverty.”

Barbra Aber, regional technical advisor for family strengthening with Catholic Relief Services, echoes these sentiments: “How can we work with families to improve their capacity to access services that help them address their most pressing needs and minimize stress caused by challenges that they might be facing?” 

In centering families in the care of children, we need to help them feel capable as agents of their own lives. “Making that switch from handout to hand up—helping families to really understand that they are capable, they are enough, they can take care of their own children. . . We can continue to help them not to reinforce the belief that they are not enough and they are not capable,” notes Nabieu.

Preventing Violence, Promoting Protection

It is important to note that violence and abuse affect children in residential care as well as in families and communities. Violence against children is a global problem that ripples through every society. Religious leadership can play an important role in curbing abuse and leading change that fosters the protection of children. “When you have a problem of this scale, that is such a driver for children to be placed in these kinds of care settings, what can religious leaders say from the pulpit to change minds, attitudes, practices, and behaviors to convince their communities that children matter and that protecting them matters? If you protect them, they're much more likely to be productive members of the community, to have fewer social and health problems, to become better educated, to contribute to poverty reduction, [the] evidence shows,” Goldman asserts.

Caring for children and strengthening families is a critical component of bettering society. It starts with addressing the root causes of vulnerability. “The child is not a problem. Taking the child out [of challenging family conditions] is not a problem. What is [needed] is tackling the root cause which is extreme vulnerability, extreme poverty. That can only be overcome by strengthening families and empowering their communities. Once the families get strengthened, they start getting stronger, the community also starts getting stronger, and everybody wins and the child is winning. It is possible,” explains Nabieu. These ideas are also important for John Dienhart, president and CEO of Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos, USA. “Strengthening families strengthens the society, and then the society strengthens everyone.”

The Importance of Training

This work requires that care providers stay abreast of best practices and retool and retrain as circumstances dictate. “We fail to read the signs of the time and make the care relevant to today’s context,” says Sr. Niluka Perera, RGS, coordinator of Catholic Care for Children International (CCCI) at the International Union of Superiors General (UISG). More training for religious institutions that have a charism of care is needed to bring the services provided into conversation and relationship with other care providers. Sister Perera and her fellow sisters through CCCI are working to provide such training “in social work, counseling, psychology, child safeguarding, case file management, and many other skills in taking care of children.” Sr. Perera is thrilled that “now [the sister-trainees] are better equipped to provide care for the children. Sisters are now more engaged with the families and communities and try their best to empower families socially and economically so that the child can go back to the family.”

Funding and Donors

Donors, both individuals and foundations, are also an important audience for new thinking. Often driven by the overwhelming needs they see, well-meaning interventions can unintentionally foster harm.

“The donors are so generous. They're really well-meaning. They're not contributing to these harmful models intentionally. They really want the best for the children,” remarks Goldman. “If we can get more [information to donors] and start to help them to redirect the resources to family and community-based care, to this family strengthening. . . I think we can make a tremendous difference.”

There is an ongoing paradox of continuing to promote residential care models despite growing evidence of their detrimental effects on children. While historical contexts and religious traditions have shaped approaches to child welfare, there is an increasing recognition of the need to prioritize family-based care alternatives. It is imperative to listen to voices like Nabieu, whose experiences offer invaluable insights into the lived realities of institutionalization.

Further Resources:

The section is a summary of an April 25, 2023 webinar and is informed by the blog posts created in response to the webinar:

• ​Vladyslav Havrylov, The Role of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Forcible Deportation of Ukrainian Children
• Philip Goldman, The Roman Catholic Church and Residential Care of Children: A Brief Historical Overview
• Elizabeth Ngami Syanda, Caring for Orphaned and Vulnerable Children:
  The Catholic Church Embraces Better Options

Part III: Slavery, Child-family Separation, and the Catholic Church in the United States

Webinar: September 12, 2023

The Catholic Church has a long history of dependency on slave labor and sales to build and sustain its institutions. Dating back to early Church history, chattel slavery was practiced and condoned long before the transatlantic slave trade in what would become the United States of America. The transatlantic slave trade has a particular connection to Georgetown University, home to the Faith and the Family Forum. In 1838, a group of America’s 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 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 an 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.”

Catholic Church Justification for Child-Family Separation Through Slavery

“At least one in every five of [the 12 million enslaved Africans] trafficked across the Atlantic Ocean was an enslaved child,” according to Adam Rothman, professor of history at Georgetown University and director of the Georgetown Center for the Study of Slavery and Its Legacies. Church mission activities documented details of enslavement in local records of slave-holding religious orders, including notations about births, parental lineage, ownership, taxation, and sales. Religious orders maintained these practices with support from their leadership until the abolition of slavery in the United States. “The Society of Jesus’s main journal in Rome basically defended the confederacy and slavery itself [in America] until 1865,” explains Rev. Chris Kellerman, S.J., secretary of justice and ecology for the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States. These records have helped historians paint a picture of the centrality of children in the transatlantic slave trade. Short-Colomb provides an example from her own family history in Maryland, “The records of the slave ship called the Margaret arrived in Annapolis in 1718… about one in every three of those captives was a child. Children are there from the very inception of American slavery in early Maryland.” She notes that according to the Oceans of Kinfolk project, "about 3 in every 10 captives sold or trafficked through the Coastwise Slave Trade from the upper South to the Deep South were children.”

Enslaved families faced separation for commercial reasons or as punishment by slave owners when their behavior was deemed troublesome. Kelly L. Schmidt, reparative public historian at Washington University in St. Louis, and Kevin Kuehl, immigrant and refugee ministry coordinator for six parishes in the Archdiocese of St. Louis, tell the story of one enslaved man who was sold repeatedly and separated from his family as a form of punishment for his alleged misbehavior. Through edicts, the Church noted strong objections to the separation of married couples, given the sacramental union of husband and wife, as separation essentially meant forcible divorce. “Church institutions technically had regulations against severing enslaved families but regularly disregarded them. Catholic leadership forbade breaking up families through sale, except in extraordinary situations, such as the threat of violence or persistent immoral behavior,” according to Dr. Schmidt and Kuehl.

Children, however, were not protected from forcible separation from their parents with the same level of scrutiny from Church leadership. According to Church doctrine at the time, children did not have such a sacramental bond to their parents, and thus their separation from their parents was seen as less appalling. Prof. Rothman points out that “the separation of a wife and husband would be very morally wrong, but the separation of children is something that is maybe frowned upon, but not illegal in Catholic law.”

Children were considered the property of their slave owners, not part of a familial structure. Concepts of hereditary descent enshrined in law, known as partus sequitur ventrem, ensured that slave owners benefited from the reproduction of enslaved women. “Throughout the slave societies of the Americas, the law decreed that the offspring of enslaved women would be the property of their mothers’ owners. This rule gave slave owners a property right to the children of the women they owned, and it turned the reproduction of enslaved people into capital gains for their enslavers,” adds Prof. Rothman. Louisiana prohibited the separation of children under 10 years old from their mothers (their separation from their fathers is not addressed nor protected). “These regulations did not stop Catholic enslavers from severing immediate families regularly, using excuses about financial and personnel needs or enslaved people’s behavior. Other times, they separated families merely on their whim,” Dr. Schmidt and Kuehl point out.

Georgetown and the 1838 Sale of 272 Enslaved People

In 1838, when a religious order prepared for the sale of the people they enslaved, the issue of family separation came into stark relief. Swarns describes in The 272 that the Society of Jesus, a group of America’s most prominent Catholic priests, sold 272 enslaved people to save Georgetown University. “By the middle of the 1700s, [Maryland Jesuits] had several plantations across Maryland,” Prof. Rothman notes. Enslaved families lived on plantations in the surrounding area of Georgetown University for generations. By the 1800s, the Jesuits started to debate what they should do with their human property, culminating with the 1838 sales, which were endorsed by Jesuit leadership in Rome. Once again, the sales included the separation of children from parents. As seen with Harriet Queen, these 1838 sales also resulted in separating married couples, despite the edicts to keep husbands and wives together, as she made the choice to forego her own freedom in order to remain with her enslaved children, rather than with her free spouse, James Queen.

Ongoing Effects

The horrors of these 1838 sales still require moral reckoning for Georgetown and engagement with affected communities and descendants of those who were sold. “Slavery went on for hundreds of years here in the United States. Then there was emancipation, which was maybe five minutes within an hour. Then we went through Jim Crow. Then we went through the civil rights era. Now we’re in a time when they are rolling back civil rights—things like affirmative action, the right to vote, redistricting,” reminds Adrienne Curry, director of the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s Office of Black Catholic Ministries and member of the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s Commission on Slavery.

Even in the context of emancipation, there was codified child-family separation. “In 1864, Maryland passed basically a set of Black codes that authorize the apprenticeship of Black children to white families as guardianship in freedom. Their assumption being that their Black parents were not fit to be parents and couldn’t take care of them properly,” Prof. Rothman points out.

Short-Colomb draws connections between the transatlantic slave trade and the persistent subjugation of Black people in the United States through issues like foster care, prison, and criminalized poverty. “The foster care system turns out young people at 18 years old—after grinding up their little souls—to be homeless and unprepared onto our streets,” Short-Colomb said, going on to highlight how foster care also separates siblings from each other, breaking familial connections and a sense of belonging within a family structure. According to the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a Baltimore-based NGO focused on improving the well-being of American children and youth, white children in need of alternative care are more likely than Black children to be placed with families, and older Black children are more likely to be placed in group care settings than their white counterparts.

How Catholic Theology and Social Thought Related to Slavery Changed

“Slavery is an affront to the core principles of Catholic social teaching of life and dignity of the human person,” Ms. Curry asserts, but that does not mean that the Catholic Church was against slavery throughout history. In fact, there has been a falsification of the historical record to perpetuate the notion that the Church has always adopted an abolitionist perspective. There are indeed examples of dissent within Church leadership. “There were a couple Jesuits in the 1570s in Brazil, who protested the enslavement of their community. . . It went all the way to Rome, to the Father Superior Claudio Acquaviva, who made the decision to remove them from ministry,” according to Rev. Kellerman. Thus, while dissent existed, so did punishment and retribution for dissent. “There is a deep lesson here in how economic interest can shape, can distort, can deform people’s moral perspectives,” according to Prof. Rothman.

Dr. Schmidt and Kuehl highlight how the Catholic Church is grappling with this history in the present context.

Efforts aimed at recognition and repair include a focus on righting the record and historical memory, as well as making reparations for generations of economic losses. “It’s so important for us to know the history and to disseminate that history and get people to understand it,” Rev. Kellerman implores. In society “one of the biggest and most important ways of building wealth is generationally, through inheritances. People weren’t paid wages under slavery. . . That was stolen by their masters, which otherwise could’ve been passed down as inheritance. Focusing on that child-parent relationship helps us to remember why today there’s something like reparations needed, because all of this wealth, all of those wages were stolen,” he goes on to note.

“We need to reckon with this as a Church,” Rev. Kellerman asserts as he works to share this message, especially within the Church hierarchy. These issues will continue to need addressing, truth-telling, and ultimately repair at the local level and among the leadership of the Church. A 2021 article in the New York Times cites a pledge by the Jesuits to raise $100 million “to benefit the descendants of the enslaved people it once owned and to promote racial reconciliation initiatives across the United States,” an effort welcomed by the descendant groups, though falling short of the $1 billion they have called for. In the words of Short-Colomb, this work is urgent and necessary because “we owe our descendants something better than what we have right now.”

Further Resources:

The section is a summary of a September 12, 2023 webinar and is informed by the blog posts created in response to the webinar:

• ​Kelly L. Schmidt and Kevin Kuehl, Bound and Severed: Family Ties and Slavery in U.S. Catholicism
• Adam Rothman, The Children of the GU272
• Mélisande Short-Colomb, Here I Am

View articles, statements, and other resources for “Slavery, Child-family Separation, and the Catholic Church in the United States."

Part IV: Indigenous Communities, Child-Family Separation, and the Catholic Church: What Do Truth and Healing Require?

Webinar: November 9, 2023

For centuries, Indigenous children were removed from their families and sent to boarding schools or placed in adoptive non-Indigenous families. Hundreds of thousands of American Indian, Alaska Native, Canadian First Nations, Native Hawaiian, and Aboriginal children in Australia were forced to attend Catholic mission schools, where many experienced hunger, violence, forced labor, and sexual abuse. Indigenous parents and children who resisted child-family separation were harshly punished. The goal of forcible removals was to assimilate Indigenous children into Western society, erasing Indigenous identity, languages, cultures, and religious practices. This practice was a legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery and a series of papal bulls that European powers and missionaries used since the fifteenth century to justify colonization. Forced child-family separation was endorsed by the governments of Australia, Canada, and the United States, a history with which each country continues to reckon today.

Experiences of Indigenous Child-Family Separation

“There were more than 500 government-funded and often church-run Indian boarding schools across the [United States] in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Indian children were forcibly abducted by government agents and sent to schools hundreds of miles away, often beaten and starved or otherwise abused, especially when they spoke their native languages,” according to Gillian Huebner, executive director of the Collaborative on Global Children’s Issues at Georgetown University. “The Catholic Church, as early as the early 1800s and [in] 1819 with the Indian Civilization Fund Act, offered these government contracts to Christian missions to forcibly remove children and to reprogram them, often resulting in physical, emotional, mental, psychological, and sexual abuse, and this happening for generations,” notes Samuel Torres, (Mexica/Nahua), who serves as deputy chief executive officer for the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition.

Residential schools for Native children date back to the 1600s with the Praying Town villages on the northeastern seaboard of the Atlantic coast. From the 1880s to the 1990s, the Canadian government ran a system of compulsory boarding schools for Indigenous children. About 150,000 children were separated from their families and sent to these residential schools, 70% of which were operated by the Catholic Church. Canada and the United States share a similar history of Indigenous child-family separation. Indian children were forcibly abducted by government agents, sent to schools hundreds of miles away, and beaten, starved, or otherwise abused when they spoke their Native languages. Mr. Torres notes that “generations, hundreds of years of assimilation-oriented practices stripp[ed] native people of their languages and their cultures and their traditions.”

Recalling the story of his own family, LaBelle details how social workers and Western notions of family coalesced to force a terrible choice for his mother.

This phenomenon of forced separation and removal of Indigenous families is not unique to North America. “We've seen that Christian missions [in other parts of the world] had similar histories as the United States and Canada with using boarding schools as a part of a ‘civilization process,’" notes Mary Beth Iduh, a member of the Forum’s Collaborative Design Team. This systematic process stripped Native peoples of their language and culture in an effort to impose Western and often Christian values on them, causing generations of trauma that reverberate to this day.

Truth, Justice, Reconciliation, and Healing

Addressing this history is a complicated and often painful process. There is an “essential link between truth and reconciliation. Someone once said the truth will set you free, but first, it will make you miserable. It's true, but the misery is worthwhile. It is real, but it leads to new life if you don't avoid it,” says Rev. Peter Bisson, S.J., a Jesuit priest in the Jesuit province of Canada, contributor to a book on Canada’s reconciliation journey, and representative for the Jesuits at meetings of the parties to the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, which was launched in 2008. “Where does the misery come from? It comes from the truth about ourselves. It comes from the truth of what was done to children, what was done to Indigenous people through colonization.”

Rev. Bisson suggests that confronting this past also entails a confrontation of the self for those who now live as settlers on colonized Native lands: “What's even scarier, I think, is the change in our collective identity. It's discovering that we're not as nice as we thought we were, and that for ‘church people,’ even what we thought were our holiest desires to do good, for example, have been corrupted by our involvement in the colonization processes.”

What, then, is the appropriate process for beginning to address these issues? Often, the need for apologies comes to the minds of those whose ancestors committed or were complicit in these acts. “For settlers, a focus on apology and Indigenous healing, important as it is, can actually mask our own involvement in the process, mask our own power and privilege without changing the underlying unequal power dynamics of the relationship,” explains Rev. Bisson. Apologies can serve to placate the emotional needs of settlers, rather than address the underlying issues that could lead to more substantive moves like giving back land. Torres cites scholars Wayne Yang and Eve Tuck, who call this notion “settler moves to innocence,” as he cautions against symbolic actions that continue to leave unequal power relations in place.

“What is reconciliation if truth and accountability efforts do not grasp the root of past injustices as well as their contemporary impacts? Really, shouldn't reconciliation not only address the failure to honor those treaties but also return land to Indigenous people?” asks Torres. His organization, the National Native American Boarding Schools Healing Coalition, was formed following a national symposium in 2011, when leaders from the United States and Canada came together to discuss the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the need for such a process in the United States.

There are some promising efforts to untangle the complicated issues of returning land in the United States. In Rapid City, South Dakota, a former residential school’s land holdings are being explored for reapportionment to various tribal communities in the area, using the original deeds and clauses of use as a basis for return. Rev. Bisson notes that in Canada, “When we stopped listening in a self-defensive way, we started to recognize things that had been there all along, but that we couldn't see because we were too wrapped up in defending our identity or the way we understood our identity. One thing that we didn't note, especially in the truth and reconciliation process, [was that] the commissioners never treated us like we were defendants in a legal process. They had every right to. Instead, they were treating us as potential partners in a long process of reconciliation. Indigenous people aren't asking us to leave; they are asking us to respect the treaties.” Respecting treaties is just one way of offering concrete steps that honor the histories of Indigenous people and foster an environment of greater respect and trust.

Uncovering and Correcting the Historical Record

Placing the historical record at the center of the process to uncover the truth of what occurred has been another important starting point, especially when these documents are brought to light without the coercion of being subpoenaed by Native groups. In June of 2021, Secretary Deb Haaland of the U.S. Department of the Interior announced an investigation into the history of the federal government’s administration and funding of Indian boarding schools, a promising step in this direction. A demonstrated willingness to produce documents prior to a formal, legal request, or even before a full process of truth and reconciliation is laid out, would have two important impacts, according to Torres. Firstly, it would enable survivors of residential schools to uncover their own histories and stories. And, secondly, it would enable Native advocates to shape a process of truth and reconciliation with greater clarity and insight. “If Catholic communities and leadership produce these documents before they're subpoenaed,. . . we believe that this process will eventually happen, but it would be in everyone's best interest towards that collective vision, that goal of right relations, to do it willingly. . . [It is] much better to do it before a subpoena from Congress comes in the mail,” asserts Torres.

Catholic archivists have begun a grassroots process of viewing documents, digitizing them, and developing publicly available resources to bring accountability and awareness to the public conversation. These efforts are spearheaded by local dioceses or religious orders that understand the urgency of these issues and make efforts as part of a collective of other like-minded individuals, such as Stephanie A.T. Jacobe, who currently serves as the director of archives for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington (DC). However, these efforts have lacked a more centralized and organized process. “There's not one universal comprehensive method that the United States dioceses and archdioceses are working towards to address boarding school trauma,” notes Mr. Torres.

Catholic Church Responses

It was only in June 2024 when the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops took up the Church’s complicity in this issue and offered a formal apology, which was met with mixed responses from many survivors who wanted to see greater accountability. This latest development was preceded by an important declaration by Pope Francis during a trip to Canada in 2022. “The pope, as he was leaving Canada, actually used the word genocide. . .with no adjectives. . . We haven’t really begun to digest what that means for us, what that acknowledgment and confession means for us,” Rev. Bisson states.

Still, Catholic involvement in healing processes must be dealt with sensitively, says Torres, to avoid reharming survivors. “Can we imagine somebody who's experienced abuse —physical, psychological, sexual, spiritual abuse—in a facility where the crucifix is there and then being invited to share their testimony in a place where there are also crucifixes?"

While the details of the extensive history of forced removal of Native children from their families into residential boarding schools are not fully known, neither are the far-ranging implications for Native and Indigenous people today. According to LaBelle, who has seen these traumas cascade through generations of Native people in Alaska, the lasting effects of residential schools include devastating consequences for Native peoples, such as disproportionately high rates of addiction, incarceration, placement in foster care, and suicide. Central to reconciliation must be truth-telling, accountability, and restoration.

“There are no shortcuts to reconciliation. Any attempt to evade or avoid or mitigate the truth and the misery only postpones it,” Rev. Bisson said, imploring us not to shy away from the hard work involved in reconciling with the past and its present implications. Rev. Bisson suggests that correcting how the Church interacts with Native people would allow the Church to live more fully into her mission. For his religious order, the Society of Jesus, this means “We’re most Jesuit when we are in right relations with Indigenous people.”

​Further Resources:

This section is a summary of a November 9, 2023 webinar.  

View articles, statements, and other resources for "Indigenous Communities, Child-Family Separation, and the Catholic Church: What Do Truth and Healing Require?"

Part V: The Catholic Response to Unaccompanied and Separated Children in the Context of Migration

Webinar: January 24, 2024

“There are now more children on the move than ever before, fleeing violence, climate disasters, and poverty, and seeking safety and protection within and across borders,” says Ian Manzi, program manager of the Collaborative on Global Children’s Issues, Georgetown University. The enormity of child migration today is staggering, with minors comprising nearly 40% of the approximately 117 million displaced persons worldwide. Furthermore, there is an increased risk of child-family separation due to situations of migration, with alarming numbers of children on the move, largely driven by crisis and conflict.

This section explores the role of the Catholic Church in responding to children who are migrating alone or who are at risk of separation from their families in the context of migration.

 Critical to this discussion are the following questions:

• How does Catholic social teaching inform faith communities’ responses to unaccompanied and separated children in the context of migration?
• How do Catholic principles and practices interact with government policies and public perceptions related to immigration?
  

Catholic Social Teaching and Child-Family Separation in Migration

Displaced children manage numerous challenging situations, including educational setbacks, a lack of belonging, and other issues. Even when they work hard and persevere, they can face discrimination in the countries where they seek safety. Batool Salloum, a young woman from Syria, spoke of her family’s experiences as they were supported by Catholic organizations during their migration journey from Syria through Turkey and eventually to the United States due to war and violence. As the family migrated, the young people in her family worked to continue their education, though they faced health problems and their entry to the United States was ultimately delayed by the 2017 enactment of Executive Order 13769 under the Trump administration, colloquially known as the “Muslim travel ban.”

Aided by Congressman Charlie Dent’s staff and the International Catholic Migration Commission led by Monsignor Robert Vitillo, her family was reunified in the United States after losing two members. These traumatic experiences, Ms. Salloum notes, have become the norm for people like her: “I think a lot of the things others may see as debilitating trauma may seem much less concerning to a young person who’s grown up hurdling traumatic experiences, one after the other, so much that it’s their norm.” Given how common and frequent trauma is in the lives of many child migrants, it is critical that these children receive ongoing support to help them adequately process and cope with all they have witnessed and experienced in their young lives.

Catholic social teaching has long focused on the vulnerability of children and their dependence on adults for guidance and support. Hille Haker, who holds the Richard McCormick S.J. Endowed Chair in Catholic Ethics at Loyola University Chicago and edited Unaccompanied Migrant Children: Social, Legal, and Ethical Perspectives (2018), notes that the concept of vulnerability requires nuance, especially as it relates to migrant children. For Haker, vulnerability affects humans on multiple levels—human vulnerability to illness and diseases, moral vulnerability, and structural vulnerability. Each of these has a particular impact on migrating children. Human vulnerability to illness, disease, or bodily changes like menstruation for girls can be especially difficult for migrating children who are unable to access care or understand the care they are given due to language or cultural barriers. Moral vulnerability impacts migrant children, with many becoming targets of exploitation and trafficking. Migrating children also face unique structural vulnerabilities, which contribute to risks of negative health outcomes through their interface with socioeconomic, political, and cultural/normative inequalities. Prof. Haker emphasizes the importance of understanding these three different levels of vulnerability so that the precise needs of migrant children can be addressed through specific policies.

Of course, a focus on vulnerability does not do justice to the depth of experiences of migrant children. Catholic social teaching rightly understands vulnerability must be more nuanced and balanced with understanding children’s agency, especially in the context of migration. Prof. Haker describes this belief as vulnerable agency, grounded in dignity. Monsignor Robert J. Vitillo echoes the importance of dignity. “I think it’s really important for us to remember that we’re grounded in the dignity of the human person and our Church teaches, as many faith traditions teach, that everything we do should be centered on the person.”

Acknowledging that this dignity is God-given is a key component of Catholic social teaching and a central organizing principle for thinking about migrant children. “We believe that God created people in God’s own image and likeness, and that’s the source of dignity, not some proclamation. We should have laws and policies understanding that and respecting it, but it doesn’t come from governments, it comes from God,” reiterates Monsignor Vitillo. “The pope says that we should have four pillars in our interactions with refugees and migrants: that we should, first of all, welcome them, that we should protect them, that we should promote their dignity and their agency, and then that we should integrate them.”

Catholic Principles, Government Policies, and Public Perceptions of Children and Migration

Efforts to promote dignity for migrants have a long history within the Church. The Catholic Church has had an organized response to resettlement and migration since 1951, spurred by the destruction of World War II. Established under the leadership of Pope Pius XII, the vision included a global organization with broad reach across many geographic contexts, historically working on the resettlement of Southeast Asian, Middle Eastern, and African migrants, including families and children.

The International Catholic Migration Commission works on emergency relief and resettlement, as well as policy advocacy and agreement implementation. According to Monsignor Vitillo, the Catholic Church was instrumental in shaping the two United Nations global compacts on migration and refugees in 2018 by incorporating principles of the Vatican’s 20-point plan for responding to refugees and migrants. Although over 150 countries endorsed the compacts, Monsignor Vitillo says, “Now the job is trying to make sure that. . . governments implement the compacts they signed onto.” The Catholic Church also has bilateral relations with 184 countries and works to address current crises, such as the forcible deportation and adoption of Ukrainian children by Russia following the 2022 invasion.

Responding to the current dynamics of migration is a challenge in any context. In Central America, migrant movements, once mostly composed of men, now include families and unaccompanied children, and the numbers are growing. The Catholic Church in Guatemala in particular has responded to the growing number of children migrating with the “Pastoral Care of Human Mobility” which includes, as Brenda Urizar, program manager with Catholic Relief Services in Guatemala, describes, “a very specific plan on how to approach the problem providing, for example, accompaniment to the migrants through the trajectory in the country. . . [The Church] provides humanitarian assistance. They provide shelter, they provide medicine, hygiene kits, some legal services when they are available, as well as psychological support.” As the migrant population has changed, so has the need to address the unique needs of families and children in the migration process, including changing sheltering protocols to keep families together and understanding the unique drivers influencing their choices to migrate.

In Italy, unaccompanied minors tend to be males aged 16-17 years old who leave their countries due to a variety of push factors—conditions or circumstances that encourage people to leave their homes and migrate, such as war, poverty, environmental disasters, corruption, or discrimination. They also are seeking economic opportunities to send remittances back home to support their families. According to Angela Rinaldi, associate lecturer at the Institute of Anthropology for Interdisciplinary Studies on Human Dignity and Care in the Pontifical Gregorian University, such pull factors—conditions or circumstances that attract people to migrate to Italy—include hearing stories of successful migration from their peers, the existence of a community of support from the country of origin in Italy, and Italian laws that treat unaccompanied minors as individuals with rights that can lead to potential citizenship.

The Italian system has committed to safeguarding unaccompanied minors through a model of “subsidiary cooperation,” which is rooted in three important Catholic principles: the dignity of the human person; the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity; and cooperation. “Subsidiary cooperation for development, as an ethical child/person-centered model, can be defined as having as its foundation the principle of the dignity of the human person of the ‘minor alone,’ and all social agents acting together, in their field, according to their possibilities, and integrating to obviate their limitations so that the unaccompanied child sees his fundamental rights recognized and is protected (safeguarded), welcomed, and integrated into the society where he lands,” Rinaldi notes.

While Guatemala and Italy provide examples of integrated, multi-leveled responses to migration, especially for children, these issues have seen increasing politicization and polarization. Prof. Haker is particularly concerned about the policy narratives that focus on deportation and undermining human dignity, especially in the United States and Europe. The narrative landscape has been complicated by multiple factors: a failure to make distinctions between different types of migration; a focus on law-breaking, overstaying visas, and other forms of “social sin”; and an ignorance toward the rights of people to migrate when conditions warrant, according to Kristin Heyer, professor of theological ethics at Boston College.

“Social sin indicates how powerful narratives casting immigrants as security threats, or ‘takers,’ influence our roles in collective actions or inaction that impact migrations,” Heyer notes. “Hence, socioeconomic and political structures that lead to minors’ undocumented immigration are frequently connected to the ideological blinders that obstruct hospitality to immigrants.” She sees the harms of the rhetoric around unaccompanied minors as an urgent call for repentance, prophetic truth-telling, and restorative justice to “help focus our moral responsibilities to those fleeing violence and other insecurities embedded in relationship histories of unequal interdependence.”

Listening to the Lived Experiences of Children

“When it comes to refugees who flee from crimes, from insecurity, and when it comes to asylum seekers who are fleeing political persecution, religious persecution, urgent actions are necessary,” according to Prof. Haker. Monsignor Vitillo stresses the need to listen to the lived experiences of those who are vulnerable. They have a unique ability to speak to diplomats and policymakers who may be unaware of the conditions young migrants face, even in their own countries. Elevating their voices in policymaking is a role the Church can play to bring refugee communities and others together.

With an evolving and complicated landscape, global migration and the issue of child-family separation require multilevel action from every level of society. “It is such a complex problem that it requires complex solutions,” Urizar notes. She adds that it requires the participation of key stakeholders, such as national governments, institutions in charge of the protection of the children, local authorities, and in the case of Guatemala, ancestral authorities because many of the migrating children come from Mayan communities. “There’s a role for everyone in this solution, and for us as Catholics as well,” Urizar reminds us. “Wherever we are, we can be a voice for those children and make sure that there are social services available: psychological support, health, and other services.” Core to finding humane solutions is placing the dignity and humanity of migrants at the center by heeding the words of Pope Francis to “get to know the migrants and refugees. See them as persons, not as a problem.”

Further Resources:

The section is a summary of a January 24, 2024 webinar and is informed by the blog posts created in response to the webinar:

• ​Angela Rinaldi, Subsidiary Cooperation for Development: A Worthy Ethical Model for Safeguarding Unaccompanied Minors in Italy
•  Kristin Heyer, Justice for Unaccompanied Minors

View articles, statements, and other resources for "The Catholic Response to Unaccompanied and Separated Children in the Context of Migration."

Part VI: Faith That Supports Families: Catholic Efforts to Strengthen Families and Prevent Child-Family Separation

Webinar: May 2, 2024

The Faith and the Family Forum opened with reflections on the need to develop a robust theology of the child that respects and honors the full personhood of each child. The failure to recognize the rights and dignity of children and to understand the critical importance of appropriate care and protection within child-family relationships and faith communities has, in part, enabled tremendous harm to children. This series chronicles some of the historical wrongs around the world where child-family separation played a central role, including in orphanages, Indigenous residential schools, and during slavery in the United States. While efforts to address these wrongs and act with the interests and voices of children at the center have improved, much remains to be done. The forum also explored the more recent history of the strong Catholic commitment to holistically supporting families and children in situations of migration, with Catholic organizations often on the front lines, helping families who are fleeing crisis and conflict to stay together or to reunite after being separated.

This final section returns to echo the call for deeper theological development concerning children and examines some of the progress made on that front. It also notes institutional efforts to realign themselves to center children and families, even when this process involves changing long-standing organizational norms and practices. The process of organizational change requires more than access to data and new models; patience and care, along with training and formation, are critical to charting a sustainable path forward.

Many congregations, especially those of women religious, were given a charism of care for children that developed in response to major upheavals of social order throughout history. Sister Shamindani Fernando, RGS, is a sister of the Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd in Sri Lanka, an international congregation of women religious present in 68 countries that began to care for those in most need in the wake of the French Revolution. She notes that this mission is true of others as well: “I think it is the same with many other congregations that were created to respond to this kind of social crisis.” Conflict, poverty, famine, and disease created overwhelming needs to which those in religious life responded with institutional care, especially for the orphaned, vulnerable, and those on the margins.

The problems of institutional care have become increasingly apparent throughout the world, as explored in the previous sections on orphanages and residential schools for Indigenous children. For example, in Haiti, an assessment conducted by the Haitian government in 2017 and 2018 found that less than 5% of the country’s 750 residential care facilities were providing care that met international minimal quality standards, and the remaining were filled with cases of abuse, neglect, and exploitation, according to Frédérique W. Jean-Baptiste, who serves as the education, child protection and youth program coordinator with Catholic Relief Services/Haiti. As a result, congregations around the world have been challenged to adapt their practices while keeping true to their charism. “As the Ministry of Good Shepherd developed, we didn’t just stick to the one way of providing services,” Sister Fernando remarks about the shifts in her congregation’s ministries. “The congregation encouraged its members to look for new ways to reach out to the margins, to introduce effective methods, and to let go of old methods that were irrelevant today... At the time, members felt that we were strained from our charism. However, this change of mindset helped us to open up to new possibilities.”

A local congregation in Haiti pivoted to respond to the needs of families after a devastating earthquake in 2010. “Families started turning to [the sisters] as a resource in a time of need, and they were placing their children with physical disabilities [in Catholic-run residential care], hoping that the sisters will help those children find the necessary care and rehabilitation that they so needed,” shares Dr. Jean-Baptiste. Sisters began to serve these children in-house. When it became clear that the children would be better served in family settings supported by sisters, these needed changes were initially met with resistance by sisters and some of their local leadership. “Moving at the speed of trust,” as Dr. Jean-Baptiste described it, the ministries adapted to a family-strengthening model with ongoing support from sisters.

The sisters in Haiti and Sri Lanka represent current shifts in thinking about ways to provide better care for vulnerable children. As new information and evidence-based best practices come to light, organizations may resist changes to their long-standing practices. Initiatives like Catholic Care for Children International and Changing the Way We Care are recent, vibrant efforts of Catholic sister-led and lay-led entities to ensure that every child grows up in a safe, nurturing family environment. With this aim, these initiatives accompany care providers, including women religious, through the process of incorporating new practices that emphasize the need for children to be reunified with their families if they have been separated, expanding family-based care to include the extended family, and providing support that strengthens families so they can better care for their children.

Families are critical to safeguarding children, as noted in previous sections on orphanages and Indigenous residential schools, because the structure, belonging, and love provided by families are critical to children’s well-being. “The main focus for safeguarding young girls and boys today is surely the family and the family context,” according to Rev. Hans Zollner, S.J., who serves as the director and professor at the Institute of Anthropology, Interdisciplinary Studies on Human Dignity and Care (IADC) at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. “If we did better as a church to reach out to families, and if we were more consistent as a church in our approach, we could be of enormous help to many young people who then grow up and remain with their hurt and their feelings of having been abandoned as adults for many decades, with a huge cost for them and with a huge cost to humanity.” The support and centrality of families as understood today also underscores how violent and traumatic past practices of family separation were. In addition, it is important to note how child-family separation also created a larger alienation from wider communities, cultures, and identities, especially in the case of enslavement and Indigenous residential schools.

It is, therefore, critical to address how whole communities, in addition to families, can be encouraged and supported to nurture children, as both a best practice and a form of addressing historical wrongs. The Most Rev. Thomas Msusa, SMM, who serves as the archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Blantyre in Malawi and who grew up in an orphanage, has worked to create small Christian communities of several families that are banded together to form tighter contexts for children’s thriving. “We are celebrating a Golden Jubilee of small Christian communities, where three, four, or five families come together to make a wider family. Through these, the children can be taken care of, not only by one family, but through several families,” described Rev. Msusa. “We also emphasize the coming together of several families so that they can share their challenges, they can share their problems, and the positive side of their lives. Their children can also be taken care of as a community, a wider community.”

Sister Fernando echoes the importance of supporting children in a family and community context: “It is more important to reach out to families through individuals and to have a holistic approach to support people. Additionally, we need to be given more time and energy to journey with families, paying more attention to potential families at risk of separation. We also need to develop consciousness and culture within the parish communities to support each other, and strengthen each other before seeking institutions or any other support in helping their own people.” 

The growing and global movement for the protection of children emphasizes that children best thrive in family-centered environments. A caring and protective family, immediate and extended, is central to a child’s health, development, and protection. The Convention on the Rights of the Child affirms that the family has the primary responsibility to protect and care for the child and that governments have the responsibility to protect, preserve, and support the child-family relationship. “It is important to emphasize that Article 5 is intended to work with parents and families based on the potential of the child and with an awareness that these potentials differ from child to child. While the child is a central focal point, the parents and the governments hold the responsibility for nurturing,” according to Laura Moessle and Anthony Ssembatya, research fellows at the Institute of Anthropology at Pontifical Gregorian University.

Those interacting with vulnerable children and families need evidence-based and ethical training to ensure the best interests of children. “We religious need to be equipped and knowledgeable enough to take the risk of working with and supporting families. [. . .] The formation of the religious can play a bigger role in cultivating the passion and the commitment towards this ministry of strengthening families. This is important to be a priority area of formation, both initial and ongoing,” Sister Fernando asserts.

In Catholic contexts, this training and support would be most impactful when undergirded by robust theology that includes a focus on children, their care, and protection. “Interestingly, for a religion that builds on the faith in the birth of God in the child Jesus, it is surprising that there is no developed theology of the child in any denomination in the Christian denominations, which is somehow really astounding. However, of late, there have been a few attempts to bring that to the focus,” Rev. Zollner reflects. Specifically, he calls for the development of a comprehensive theology, with the child at its center, in the Catholic Church. “A theology of the child can and should be developed to lay a foundation for promoting a safeguarding spirituality and a culture of protection and prevention in the Catholic Church.”

Sister Fernando expands this call for a deeper theology of the child:

Drs. Moessle and Ssembatya remind us that “by recognizing the intrinsic dignity of each child from a theological perspective, and by respecting the rights of the child within the framework of human rights, Catholic faith communities can play a central role in protecting children and preventing unwarranted separations.” This recognition and theological development may help the Church as it repairs its historical legacies and writes a new future full of thriving children.

Further Resources:

This section is a summary of a May 2, 2024 webinar and is informed by the blog post created in response to the webinar:

• Laura Mößle and Anthony Ssembatya, Putting Children First: Catholic Faith Communities and the Child-Centered Approach in Assessing Risk to Family Separation

Organizations

• ​Catholic Care for Children envisions a world where every child grows up in a nurturing family environment. The vision is guided by the biblical mandate to care for the most vulnerable and is animated by the principles of Catholic Social Teaching, especially the dignity of each person. The mission of Catholic Care for Children International is to assist religious institutes with a charism of care to read the signs of the times and provide the best care possible for children and vulnerable persons, by reducing recourse to institutional care and encouraging family and community-based care for children.
  
• Changing the Way We Care’s fundamental belief is that all children deserve to grow up in family homes rather than in residential care centers – sometimes referred to as “orphanages” – and this is possible no matter where the child lives or what his or her challenges may be. Changing the Way We Care has three core objectives:
  — For people worldwide to commit to family-based care through advocacy, promoting awareness, and knowledge sharing that advances policies, best practices, and the redirection of resources toward care for children in families.
  — For governments to promote family care through the improvement and implementation of policies, workforce investment, national and community systems strengthening, and redirection of resources.
  — For children to stay in or return to families through family strengthening interventions that consider children, families, care leavers, and local communities and lead to the repurposing or closure of residential care.

View articles, statements, and other resources for "Faith That Supports Families: Catholic Efforts to Strengthen Families and Prevent Child-Family Separation."

The ideas expressed in the Faith and the Family Forum and all of its content are solely of forum contributors and do not necessarily represent the views of Georgetown University, Catholic Relief Services, or other associated parties.