“When your cup overflows, it’s your time to shine,” said nobody in history, as far as I can tell. Yet this “quote” ran through my head when I read that the President and CEO of Catholic Charities USA, Kerry Alys Robinson, had been awarded the University of Notre Dame’s prestigious Laetare Medal for her work at Catholic Charities USA. On the heels of that award, came the news that the same CEO had won the 2025 Commodore John Barry Award, an annual dinner event held at the Union League of Philadelphia.
The Commodore John Barry Awards are sponsored by the Philadelphia-based American Catholic Historical Society, whose stated purpose is to “collect, preserve and make available for research the official records of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.” In 1982, the Board of Manager at ACHS opted to upgrade the presentation into a formal annual event.
I’ve attended many events at ACHS over the years and even had the privilege of being the featured speaker there on more than one occasion. ACHS members are intellectually curious, congenial, and conversational. The organization’s annual Christmas party in fact has become a not-to-be-missed event.
And yet over the years I have noticed a shift in the programming at ACHS. The topics presented, especially after the George Floyd ruckus in 2020, have included many with race-based themes. Additionally, the invited speakers are almost always affiliated with universities. This sets a certain tone, since universities generally are liberal with left-leaning tendencies. Catholic universities are not exempt from this bias. In fact, there are many Catholic universities where the Catholic identity has been watered down to the point of invisibility.
(Compare this to another great Philadelphia Catholic cultural institution, the International Institute for Culture in the Overbrook neighborhood. On November 2, 2025, the Institute sponsored a Solemn Pontifical High Mass at Our Lady of Lourdes Church celebrated by Gerhard Cardinal Müller, recognized as one of the foremost theologians and defenders of Catholic orthodoxy. The Institute also invites conservative Catholic speakers and thinkers like the controversial E. Michael Jones, who you’re not likely to find at ACHS.)
Notre Dame and Georgetown, two watered-down Catholic institutions, have invited abortion and euthanasia speakers. In 2022, Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, a Jesuit institution, allowed one of its student organizations, Women in Politics, to host an on-campus fundraiser for Planned Parenthood, despite objections from LA Archbishop Jose Gomez.
Many other so-called Catholic colleges show a blatant rejection of Catholic values in policy and practice.
At Villanova University, professors in the Theater Department use pronouns in official communications, despite the fact that even liberal popes like Francis have condemned gender ideology. Notre Dame publishes books that are as woke as works published by Harvard University Press.
In 2022, Crisis Magazine published a story about how the University of Notre Dame was offering abortion access to students, despite official university policy and Indiana law:
“A professor… has offered and promoted abortion access to Notre Dame students. This includes helping students procure Plan B aborticide pills and referring students to other abortion services. Professor Tamara Kay bragged about her efforts to refer students to abortion resources at an event called ‘Post-Roe America: Making Intersectional Feminist Sense of Abortion Bans.’”
The selection of Kerry Alys Robinson by both Notre Dame and ACHS as a medal winner has much to do with Robinson’s commitment to ministering to (illegal) migrants and refugees. Robinson, in fact, has made this a central policy of Catholic Charities USA, “in response to the call of the Gospel,” never mind the law-breaking that comes with illegal migration or the murders and crimes committed by many who crash the border.
Catholic Charities USA, sadly, seems to be another organization that is Catholic in name only. Founded in 1910 when it was called “the attorney for the poor,” Catholic Charities assisted the poor and helped them become part of the mainstream of American life. The organization also helped New York’s (legal) immigrant Irish while stressing the importance of Catholic moral values.
After the Second Vatican Council, Catholic Charities put on a new suit of clothes. Political advocacy became its key mission when it began to encourage local communities to fight against unjust social structures.
The change in Catholic Charities was especially noticeable under the leadership of Jesuit Fr. Fred Kammer, a lawyer and author of the book, Doing Faithjustice, in which the priest argues that “racism is the root cause of the economic and social oppression in society.”
In 2022, Fr. Kammer in a podcast entitled “Welcome the Stranger!,” said that “from human dignity comes the right to (illegal) migration.” He quoted Pope John XXIII in 1963:
“John XXIII writes that every human being has the right to migrate, the right of freedom of movement and of residence within the confines of his own country, and when there are just reasons for it the right to migrate to other countries and take up residence there….”
Just blow those border rules and walk on in. You have the right.
The key phrase here — “when there are just reasons for it” — is open to interpretation. Notice also that the John XXIII quote gives no thought to the will or the right of the country in question to refuse “the pilgrim people on the move.”
By the late 1960s, Catholic Charities was knee deep into the philosophy of Saul Alinsky. In his 1971 book, Rules for Radicals, Alinsky, an atheist Marxist, offered his impassioned counsel for young radicals:
“Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history, the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom – Lucifer…”
The 1980s saw a name change to Catholic Charities USA (CCUSA). In the 1990s, CCUSA, besides concentrating on domestic disaster relief, was now talking about climate change.
The year 2015 saw the first woman to lead CCUSA, Sister Donna Markham OP, PhD, an activist nun in secular dress. (In case you don’t know, nuns who do not wear religious habits are notorious for supporting women priests, abortion, gender ideology and open borders.)
CCUSA’s current president and CEO, Kerry Alys Robinson, recently pleaded with President Trump to rethink an executive order that essentially would end government funding for CCUSA based on the fact that CCUSA is only nominally Catholic (just like those Catholic universities) and is engaged in work that undermines the United States.
“Catholic Charities first announced its politicization in a wild-eyed manifesto that invokes such radical sixties icons as Malcolm X, Gloria Steinem, Herbert Marcuse, and the Marxist-inspired Liberation Theology movement,” wrote Brian C. Anderson in City Journal in 2000.
“Ratified at Catholic Charities' annual meeting in 1972, the organization totally abandoned any stress on personal responsibility in relation to poverty and other social ills. Instead, it painted America as an unjust, ‘numb’ country, whose oppressive society and closed economy cause people to turn to crime or drugs or prostitution.”
But that reality has not yet filtered down into the minds of most Catholics. For many, Catholic Charities is just a continuation of what it had always been: a truly Catholic organization with sensible guidelines in alignment with the doctrines of the Catholic Church. In short, a holy charity deserving of every Catholic’s respect and support.
Yet today the evidence tells us that this is plainly not so.
